Several times during that drive I lost the thread of connection with tangible surroundings, and lived again in near retrospect the fantastic happenings of the day, night and morning that had just passed. Subconsciously I still missed the rhythmic, relentless drone of the Rolls-Royce aëro-engines. My eyes had not yet become accustomed to the absence of clouds around and below, and my mind felt somehow lost, now that it was no longer preoccupied with heavenly bodies, horizon, time, direction, charts, drift, tables of calculations, sextant, spirit level, compass, aneroid, altimeter, wireless receiver and the unexpected.
For a while, in fact, the immediate past seemed more prominent than the immediate present. Lassitude of mind, coupled with reaction from the long strain of tense and unbroken concentration on one supreme objective, made me lose my grip of normal continuity, so that I answered questions mechanically and wanted to avoid the effort of talk. The outstanding events and impressions of the flight—for example the long spin from four thousand to fifty feet, and the sudden sight of the white-capped ocean at the end of it—passed and repassed across my consciousness. I do not know whether Alcock underwent the same mental processes, but he remained very silent. Above all I felt the need of reëstablishing normal balance by means of sleep.
The wayside gatherings seemed especially unreal—almost as if they had been scenes on the film. By some extraordinary method of news transmission the report of our arrival had spread all over the district, and in many districts between Clifden and Galway curious crowds had gathered. Near Galway we were stopped by another automobile, in which was Major Mays of the Royal Aëro Club, whose duty it was to examine the seals on the Vickers-Vimy, thus making sure that we had not landed in Ireland in a machine other than that in which we left Newfoundland. A reception had been prepared at Galway; but our hosts, realizing how tired we must be, considerately made it a short and informal affair. Afterwards we slept—for the first time in over forty hours.
[CHAPTER VIII]
Aftermath of Arrival
Alcock and I awoke to find ourselves in a wonderland of seeming unreality—the product of violent change from utter isolation during the long flight to unexpected contact with crowds of people interested in us.
To begin with, getting up in the morning, after a satisfactory sleep of nine hours, was strange. In our eastward flight of two thousand miles we had overtaken time, in less than the period between one sunset and another, to the extent of three and a half hours. Our physical systems having accustomed themselves to habits regulated by the clocks of Newfoundland, we were reluctant to rise at 7 A. M.; for subconsciousness suggested that it was but 3:30 A. M.
© Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE VICKERS-VIMY TRANSATLANTIC MACHINE IN THE AIR