Instead of this the crew took turns at standing, two at a time, on the lower wings, one outboard from each engine, and as a float went under the man on the opposite wing would scramble out on the plane as fast as possible, his weight tending to right the flying-boat. It was a hazardous expedient.
About two o'clock in the morning the crew saw the Schouen Bank light-buoy.
Here in the very shoal water, and with the clear sweep of ninety miles behind them, the waves were perilously steep, and the trough being retarded by the bottom the crests were breaking forward in a thunder of foam.
The sea-anchors carried away.
The boat, rolling and pitching, yawed first one way and then the other. Each time she got off the wind white water was driven across her from bow to stern. The crew were blinded and drenched. The wracking strained the boat, and she began to leak. The wood on the bottom of the flying-boat was not over a quarter of an inch thick. One man had to work the bilge-pump continuously, and the three other men in the crew bailed.
Finally they were over the shoal. The seas here, though big, were not so bad, as their force was somewhat expended in the shallow water.
With the coming of the dawn the worn-out crew saw that they were off the coast of Holland. There were long white sandhills and green hummocks, and a lighthouse with a circular stone tower and a black gallery, and Perham knew that they had made a landfall at the Hook of Schouen. They were now being carried parallel with the coast by a strong current, so they made an attempt to start up the one good engine so as to taxi in to shore. After great difficulty they succeeded. Then they saw a Dutch gunboat, rolling heavily in the sea, approaching them. They shut down the engine.
The code-book, with its weighted covers, was thrown overboard.
The chart, weighted with machine-gun cartridges, was sent after it.
The wireless installation was pulled out and tossed over the side, and the machine-guns and ammunition followed.