Early in the war two boat pilots down at sea had been captured by a Fritz, so before we did anything further we taxied ten miles into a mine-field in case the U-boat had not been damaged and came up to investigate. Then Lofty shut down his one good engine, put out a sea-anchor, and hove to.
A sea-anchor is a large canvas bag shaped like a cone. Its mouth is held open by a stout wooden ring. In the apex of the cone is a small hole. When the sea-anchor is put overboard at the end of a line, it offers resistance to the drag of the boat drifting in the wind and so decreases the rate at which it moves. It also prevents the boat from yawing—that is, it keeps the bow of the boat to the sea and wind.
Lofty asked for tools; so I taxied behind him and came up alongside, laying my port wing behind his starboard wing. The boats were rolling and tossing, and it looked as though the wings would be torn off. With a loud crackling of spruce my port propeller shattered his starboard aileron. But a line was passed, and I quickly drifted astern of him and hung on there. Along this line were sent tools, a spare sea-anchor, and food.
It was now five o'clock, and we had been down on the water two hours. The wind had increased to thirty knots, and a considerable sea was running. Advising Lofty to repair his engine and taxi straight down-wind, I cast the line off and blew well clear of him. Then I dropped my bombs safe to lighten the boat, had the engines started, and got off the water after five tremendous bumps. My wireless aerial had been carried away on landing. With a makeshift affair, rigged up with a spool of copper wire from the engineer's tool-kit, the wireless operator could get no answer.
Once in the air I flew directly down-wind, and almost immediately fetched up at the Edinburgh light-ship in the Thames estuary, doing the twenty-five mile journey in fourteen minutes. Here a destroyer was acting as traffic policeman, so I landed near her. In reply to an Aldis lamp-signal the commander sent a boat and I went on board, leaving the flying-boat riding to her sea-anchor. I gave the position of the disabled boat and the information that Lofty would taxi straight down-wind.
Back on board the flying-boat again I had the engines started. The sea over the shoal was high and steep. After a short run in the wake of a passing paddle mine-sweeper I hit a big wave, before I had got flying speed, and was thrown into the air. When about fifty feet up I started to nose-dive towards the water. I felt that I was going to crash, and crash badly.
Keeping the engines full out and the control-wheel back in my stomach, I shot down towards the water. The steep angle was increasing my speed and the engines were pulling like mad. I just touched the crest of a wave, there was a flicker of white water, and I shot off again into the air. This time I had sufficient flying speed, and boomed away for home. I landed at Felixstowe at seven o'clock. The engines stopped through lack of petrol as I taxied in to the slipway.
Lofty, out in the middle of the mine-field, repaired the engine and taxied down-wind. He had frequently to stop his engines and fill up the radiators with salt water, as they were leaking. But he kept on. At half-past ten o'clock he was taken in tow at the edge of the mine-field by a waiting patrol boat, and arrived at Felixstowe at one o'clock in the morning.
The remainder of the month was hectic.