Mysterious Aviator (26 page)

The first shot had failed, but I was convinced it could be done. I had not flown slowly enough in the approach, and I had come in too high over the oak trees. As a preliminary to the next attempt I throttled the engine as I was flying north, till we were crawling along in a manner which felt curiously slack on the controls, with the indicator showing about a hundred and fifteen kilos.

I was about three hundred feet above the trees when I began my next turn, a turn to port which was to bring me southwards again for my second shot at landing. I went into it at that slow flying speed, and, to begin with, it was a slow, gentle turn such as I had been doing up till then. When I was half-way
round I realised that unless I turned quicker than that I should miss Monte Verde altogether.

I banked a little more, and trod hard upon the rudder.

The nose of the machine dropped suddenly. Very quickly I pulled the stick back to level her. I do not think I touched the throttle or the rudder.

And then that ghoulish thing leapt out at me, bred of my own ignorance, that had been lurking for me ever since I learnt to fly in those old days when we knew so very little about flying. The air under my port wings seemed to give way, so that the machine lurched down in a heavy sideslip; at the same time the nose dropped and she swung round in a fantastic turn. I wrenched the stick hard back, but the spin tightened. She had the bit between her teeth by then. We flicked round one or two turns at a wild, incredible speed, and I became aware that the trees were very near.

I thrust the stick away from me, and threw up my elbow to protect my face.

We hit nose downwards in a little glade between the trees. I can remember that I saw the port wing crumple up, for I was thrown that way.

That was my seventh crash.

*     *     *     *     *

By all the rules of the game I ought to have been killed. I have seen so many people killed that way that it seems all wrong that I should have got out of it alive. But there is a special Providence that guides the steps of fools and drunken men, and I think it must have been under those auspices that I came out without a great amount of danger from that crash.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but I do not think it can have been longer than a few minutes. I woke sharply in the end to the intolerable pain of my three broken fingers, and the dull agony of a dislocated shoulder and a twisted elbow. My left arm had caught it badly—the one that I had flung up to protect my head. Apart from that, there wasn’t much the matter with me when I came to my senses.

The machine was standing on the crushed forepart of the fuselage and the remains of the port wings, with the tail and my seat high in the air. I was lying forward with my head upon my left arm against the windscreen, and held from sliding forward by the broad safety belt around my body. My nose was bleeding freely—it may have been that that brought me round—and the blood streamed all over my mangled arm as I lay forward in the seat, so that at first I thought that I was more hurt than I really was.

I raised my head, and the slight movement made the crashed fuselage of the machine totter and sway perilously. I was about fifteen feet from the ground. I began to move my strained body to draw my left arm nearer to me. The pain in my broken fingers made me stop that for a minute; I lay there sweating a little with the pain and considering the position.

A goldfinch came out from somewhere beyond my range of vision, hopped on to the trailing edge of the wrecked top starboard plane, cocked his head at me, chirruped, and flew away.

I began again then. I don’t know how long it took me to get out of that seat and down on to the ground—it may have been as much as half an hour. I took it very slowly, nursing my left side with my uninjured right hand, and resting after every movement. I slipped once when I was half out of my seat on to the cowling, and that gave me a great jerk so that everything went black for a few minutes and I had to hang on tight. But after that I got going again, and in the end I found myself on the dry mast that was the ground of that wood beneath the trees.

I found that I had to stoop when I wanted to draw a breath then; it was impossible to stand erect and breathe at the same time, owing to the pain of my bruised ribs where the belt had caught me and held me in the seat at the moment of impact. But that soon passed out of my mind when I sat down upon a stump and set to work to put my fingers into splints.

The middle one had the best part of an inch of bone sticking out through the skin. I didn’t quite know what to do with that, but decided that it had better go back inside again if I could persuade it to do so. I got up and moved round the crash,
stooping painfully to pick up any little splinters of wood or twigs that I thought might do for splints, and then I went back to my stump and set to work to pull my two handkerchiefs into strips by treading on them with my foot and pulling with my right hand.

By the mercy of God that flask of brandy was unbroken, and was still half full. It was empty by the time I’d done that bandaging.

I made a pretty good job of the fingers, but I could do nothing at all with the shoulder. It stuck out backwards into my coat in such a manner that the arm couldn’t lie along my side, and it hurt too vilely for me to try and shift it. My scarf was a very long one and I made a sort of sling of that, and had enough of it left to take a turn of it round my body to lash the whole arm securely to me, with my helmet and goggles beneath the shoulder as a pad. I don’t know how long it took me to do all that, but I can see now that it must have been a long time.

At last I finished, and rose unsteadily to my feet. The empty flask was lying by the stump on which I had been sitting, but I hadn’t the courage to stoop down to pick it up, and so I left it there on the ground. Then I fell to searching in my pockets for the large-scale map of the Lanaldo district. It was time I got about my business; I had wasted time enough in sitting still and licking my wounds.

The map showed me that I was about four miles from Lanaldo, and five as the crow flies from the point on the road that I should have to reach if I wanted to intercept Lenden on his way to the town. I looked at my watch, and then back to the map. It was a quarter-past one; I had none too much time if I was to get down to the road in time.

On the map the way looked pretty straightforward. I had to find my way down the ridge on which I was then standing into the valley below—a distance of perhaps three miles. There was another ridge to be crossed, and then I should be on the hill-side above the road. It should be simple then. The woods ran straight down the hill-side into the valley and the road; from the look of the signs upon the map it seemed that they might be
olives. I put the map back into my pocket, and started.

It was easy going. The trees in that oak grove were thin and sparse, and there was smooth walking between them. I left the Breguet and began to make my way along the ridge towards the open patch of grass where I had tried to land. That walk was then, and will remain to me, a dream. My bruised ribs made every motion a sharp, slight twinge of pain—not great in itself, but very wearing. In the shoulder there was a dull, throbbing ache. I’d made the fingers pretty comfortable, and I didn’t get much trouble with them until I fell down.

I stopped near the edge of that grassy space, and was very sick. I felt better when that was over, and went on.

From the edge of the scree I could see my way clearly. The hill sloped sharply down from there, and a little way below the pines began. I paused there for a minute or two with the map, and conned my path. It was pretty clear which way I had to go; I put the map away again and began the descent. About seven miles away, over the foothills, I could see a wide expanse of sea gleaming very silvery and blue in the sunshine of that afternoon.

It was rough going down the ridge. Once or twice I found a goat track leading in the direction in which I wanted to go, but for the most part it was a cross-country walk. The side of the hill among the pines was littered with great boulders, and under foot there was a carpet of pine needles and rosemary. It was intensely hot. I was thickly muffled in the flying clothes that I had put on for leaving England in that March dawn, and I could do little to open or remove them without unsettling my shoulder. And so I went plodding on down the hill till I had gone perhaps a couple of miles and was getting down towards the bottom of the valley. It was there that I put my foot upon a loose stone, staggered desperately for a moment, and fell down.

I was able to twist a little as I went down, to avoid falling on the shoulder, and I fell with my bandaged forearm and broken fingers beneath me. That shook me properly; I can remember that I began to weep with the shock of it, and with the pain. I lay as I had fallen for a minute shedding buckets of tears,
and when I managed to sit up again I found that the bandages had come off my fingers and the splints were loose and broken.

It took me a very long time to do them up again—I don’t know how long. I was very tired and in a lot of pain, and I had no brandy to help me through it this time. I dare say it was twenty minutes before I was on my feet again and plodding on more carefully down into the valley.

In the bottom of the valley I came to a spring, that welled out of the hill-side and ran away in a little trickle down the path. Someone had dammed it up to make a little pool. I was getting frightened at the passing of the afternoon by that time, but I stopped there for a minute and sluiced my head, washing away the dried blood from my mouth and nose with my uninjured hand. It was a sound thing to do, in spite of the loss of time, I think; I went faster afterwards. I put my lips down to the water and took a long, satisfying drink. Then I left the well and crossed the valley towards the opposite ridge.

I went faster, although it was uphill. By the map I had covered three miles out of the five, and it was a quarter to three. I pressed on up the hill, and came presently to the top in a drip of sweat and a dull throb of pain. Before me lay the valley of the Roja. I could see the little grey town of Lanaldo almost immediately below me, and away at the end of the valley there was the blue gleam of the sea.

The pines came to an end here, and were succeeded by olive trees arranged on terraces. I found paths winding down here, and before I had gone far I passed a sort of châlet, with a litter of ragged children round the outbuildings who looked at me curiously as I passed. I pressed on down the hill through the groves, and presently I came to the end of the olives. The terraces continued, and were filled with rose bushes and carnations in neat rows, all very well tended and watered from great circular cement tanks stuck about all over the slopes. I had noticed these things from the air, and wondered what they were.

I struck a paved mule-path then that led straight down the hill to the road, and pressed on down it. Now and again I
passed a peasant trudging up; occasionally they spoke to me but mostly they let me by without a word and stood in the path when I had gone, staring after me. And so, at about half-past three, I came down on to the road.

That road ran in thick, white dust along the very bottom of the valley, winding along beside the dry bed of the river. Only a trickle of water ran over the round white stones that made the watercourse; it was a river that only ran full once a year. I was terribly thirsty. About a quarter of a mile down the valley a bend of the stream approached the edge of the road; I went on till I reached that place, stepped aside from the road, and lay down and lapped the water like a dog.

I was fresher after that. The place that I had reached was quite a good one for my purpose; I could see the road for the best part of a mile down the valley. Olives lined the hill that ran down to the roadside; I crossed into the shade of these and sat down near a great bush of mimosa in flower. To wait.

There wasn’t much traffic on that road. The first thing to come was a one-horse diligence from Ventimiglia, a little covered thing like a pill-box on wheels and full of women. A farm-cart, drawn by a dejected-looking horse yoked with a donkey, followed that, and flowed on slowly past me. Several peasants came by on foot, and a couple of priests in their black, flowing soutanes. And once there was a cart full of barrels, driven by a very bleary, merry gentleman who spoke to me, and, I think, offered me a lift.

These, and a few more, all passed at long intervals throughout that afternoon. I sat there straining my eyes down the road, that white dusty road that ran down the flat valley with the white-stoned river beside it till a spur of the hill hid both from my sight. I sat there from half-past three till half-past five, shifting uneasily from time to time to find a less uncomfortable position for my arm and shoulder, and shuffling the white dust up into little heaps between my shoes. I sat there till the sun began to throw long shadows of the hills across the white stones of the river, till the bright sunlight turned to the softest gold and the little white clouds above the hills to crimson. I sat there,
dumbly straining my eyes down the road, while the light lasted.

I sat there till I knew that I had failed.

It was about six o’clock when I gave up. I knew by then that Lenden must have passed before I reached the road; that I had missed him. I discovered afterwards that I must have missed him by about half an hour. He reached Ventimiglia at half-past two, and drove straight out to Lanaldo. If I had managed to land that Breguet properly, I should have had ample time to get down to the road in time to intercept his car. There’s no good crying over that. I did the best I could, and that must suffice.

It was nearly dark in the valley. I got up from my seat, stiff and cold. I was in a strange country, without a passport and rather hurt; I didn’t know two words of the language and my French is that of the schoolroom variety. I had been in no great pain during the long rest, but when I got to my feet in the twilight and moved forward in the thick dust by the roadside, a wave of pain and sickness came over me quite suddenly, and I sat down again in a hurry.