The Lonely Sea and the Sky (36 page)

  In the afternoon Father Gherzi said that I must not leave before he had the Japanese reports at 8.30 in the morning. That meant a 9.30 start, which was later than I liked, but what could I say to a man who was taking so much trouble for my safety? There was something fine about that dark impatient man, and he was good: each time I parted from him, I had an impulse to live a better life.

  In the morning I set off again. It was the 13th of the month, and I was worried about the superstition that it might be unlucky. But, 'Rubbish!' I told myself. 'Thirteen is my lucky number, not unlucky; I first flew solo on a 13th, left Wellington on a 13th, arrived in Sydney on a 13th, and today I am leaving Shanghai on a 13th.' Another part of me said, 'These 13s are repeated omens of disaster.' But I didn't care what they were; all I wanted was to fly the Yellow Sea on that day.

  Father Gherzi said that I could leave, but that the conditions were not favourable. There would be a headwind for a considerable distance, Force 6 or so, but near Kagoshima the wind could be expected to calm. As I taxied up-river to warm up, I checked that everything was at hand in the cockpit; sextant, slide rule, nautical almanac, log-tables, watch, barometer, log-book, charts, dividers. There was still a high wind, and we slipped off the water easily. As soon as I had enough height above the river I turned and headed for Japan.

I was in a strong south-easterly, and the seaplane was drifting 30 degrees to the north. At that height, for every mile I flew towards Kagoshima, I was being drifted half a mile away to the north; I decided to climb to see if I could find the westerly air stream that Father Gherzi had thought possible. At 3,000 feet the drift was still 25 degrees, but I climbed on, always hoping to reach a favourable wind just above. At 4,000 feet I checked my drift carefully, and found that it was still 25 degrees. At 5,000 feet I levelled off. The last 1,000 feet had taken thirty minutes to climb; the drift had not decreased, so that so far I had gained nothing by climbing. I flew on, hoping that I should soon pick up a strong westerly. I was happy to be flying again, and contented to be over the sea far from land. I feasted on a cold chicken that Thoms had given me. The sea beneath had been a dirty yellow for the first 80 miles, probably because of the muddy waters coming down the Yangtse Kiang. Now the colour had changed to a dull dark blue.

  Two and a half hours out from China the seaplane was no longer drifting off course. The wind no longer had a south-easterly component, and I thought that I was probably in a slight westerly. In this case I reckoned that I could reach Japan, and as I hated the idea of going to Korea or anywhere else, I changed course 26 degrees to the right to get back on to my original route. At three hours ten minutes out I estimated that I had five and three-quarter hours petrol left. With the dashboard speed-indicator broken, and the crude auxiliary one on the outboard strut unreliable, to say nothing of the uncertainty of the wind speed at 5,000 feet, I could not tell how far I had flown. If the strut indicator, which had been reading 60mph all the time, should happen to be right, and if there should have been a 30-mile wind against me from the start, I should be only one-third of the way across, and Japan would be out of reach. I had to get a sextant shot of the sun to find out exactly how far I had flown, so that if necessary I could alter course for Korea while I still had enough petrol to get there. I felt drowsy, my charts were awkward to handle in the cockpit, and neither of them included all three countries – China, Korea, and Japan. It was difficult to plot on the loose windblown sheet, so I decided to descend to the surface, take a sun sight to find the distance flown, and determine the speed and direction of the wind accurately down there. I had a panicky urge to shut off the engine and dive down as fast as I could, but it would have been silly to sacrifice my hard won height. I pressed the control-stick gently forward till the speed rose to 100mph on the indicator, and the spare height enabled me to keep up that speed for the next half hour. I flew under a lake of cloud into a belt of close hot air, and levelled off at 800 feet. At that height I could make no mistake in reading the ocean surface; there was not a breath of wind there, and the rough water was only the lashed-up sea of some distant wind. Therefore, unless I flew into another headwind, I had enough petrol to fly 340 miles.

  It had been hard to think up above but here in this sultry air it was a dreadful labour. I was afraid that I might have forgotten how to use a sextant but as soon as I brought the sun down to touch the horizon in the sextant I became absorbed, and I remembered my sextant drill in a flash. They were excellent sights, and I twisted the results out of the slide rule. Then I plotted my position line on the chart, and found I had 270 miles yet to fly. I could reach Japan if there was no headwind for the rest of the way. Should I risk it, or bolt for Korea? I held to the same course and half an hour later changed direction 26 degrees to the left again. I reckoned that I had regained the direct line between Shanghai and Kagoshima.

  Every minute the sea quietened, and soon I was flitting in a dead calm over a dull glassy surface, with a faint tinge of burnished copper. A low gauzy ceiling obscured the sun, and increased the oppressiveness of the air. Doubts began to press on me, and tried to panic me; doubts about the accuracy of my drift reading, about the sextant work, about my compass. My neck ached with twisting, as I searched the horizon. My chart ended a few miles south of Kagoshima, and I was attacked by crazy suggestions, one after the other, to change course and fly north or north-east, or south-east. For each of these in turn there was some queer reason why it was my only hope. Then I saw land 10 degrees to the left of dead ahead. It was an island, but which one?

  I identified it as Udsi Sima, two islands and a chimney rock. So thus far my navigation had been all right, and I was only 1½ degrees out on the whole flight. I poured myself a brandy, added water from a separate bottle and drank to celebrate the occasion. I lit a cigar, and in ten minutes had forgotten all my worries. On reaching the mainland, I skimmed a densely forested ridge of little hills, smothered in Christmas trees. On the other side I came upon Kagoshima in the dusk, at the edge of a purple-tinted flat beside a smooth expanse of inland water. The beauty of it all made me draw in my breath sharply; then I began searching the busy waterfront for a safe place to land. Launches and motor-boats were crawling everywhere, and after my experience at Formosa I had determined to alight somewhere where I could not be reached by a Japanese launch for twenty minutes.

  I spotted a flagged buoy with two men on it, who appeared to be waving flags. I dived to fly close above them, for the twilight was making it difficult to see from any height. I found that it was an area buoyed off for swimming, and teeming with bathers. Near by was a small reef-enclosed lagoon, and I banked to alight, but as I was about to settle the floor of the lagoon appeared quite bare of water and scared me off. I had to be extra careful, because it was ten times harder to alight without any error of judgement after a long sea flight. At last I found a small creek entering the sea at right-angles. I swooped down, inspected it closely, circled and settled softly on the calm water, stopping fifty yards below a small bridge that spanned it. I looked at my watch, 9.55; I had taken eight hours and forty minutes. I looked at the petrol gauge; it showed empty, but I knew from previous experience that it held twenty minutes flight after it showed empty. I taxied a few yards to the side of the creek to a small shallow, which I reckoned was too shallow for the launches, so that I could be approached only by sampans. By the time three launches packed with Japanese officials, reporters and photographers came swishing into the creek I had all my gear on a wing root, with the seaplane ready to moor for the night. I was transferred to a launch from a sampan without a single shout needed.

  After I had been introduced to all the officials the questioning began at once. Hayashi-san was the interpreter, and they all fired questions at him rapidly.

  'What iss first land of Japan you come, pliz?' I think every one of them asked me what land I had first sighted, my exact course from there to Kagoshima, and then wanted me to show it all to him on the chart. At first I thought this was only a matter of every official having to ask this in order to save his face before the others, but each asked it all a second time, a third, a fourth and a fifth. Presently Hayashi introduced a new question, 'What iss your trade, pliz?'

  'I am a company director.'

  'Ah, so, but you are young man?'

  'They are young companies.'

  They worked this line of questioning for a long time, a police official and Hayashi firing rapid talk at each other with frequent hisses indrawn through their teeth and short sharp 'ha's!', the police officer fanning himself rapidly as he talked. At last it came out, what they had been working up to. 'Your trade is, you are officer in army, iss not?'

  'No, I am not an officer in the army.'

  'You are a government fly.'

  'No, I am a private fly.'

  I got bored with this line of questioning after a while and, to liven the party up, said I was in the Territorial Air Force. The party was electrified. 'So you
are
officer in army? Pliz explain, pliz!' It was impossible for them to understand this, and in the end I said, stupidly I suppose, 'Reserve, I am in the Reserve.'

  'Then you are officer in army, yess?'

  'Yes, no, yes, damn it!' Later they started on my aeroplane engine and gear, but even a worm will turn, and I refused to go on answering silly questions about the length of my aeroplane. All my equipment was fully described in my registration and airworthiness certificates, my flying licence, my engine, aircraft and journey log-books that they could study all night while I had some sleep. Then they asked me to open up my baggage in front of them all on the launch.

  'Look,' I said, 'as soon as we get ashore you can inspect my baggage to your hearts' content and not before.'

  On shore this was done while the cross-examination continued unflagging. There was a lull then when I was conducted to a large schoolroom where a long table was set up with plates of sandwiches. It was like a summer storm indoors, with continuous flashes as the table was photographed, then the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and all the officials one by one. At last a loud pop cheered me a little and we sat down to drink some sweet champagne. Every time we drank, a flashlight went off. I toasted the Japanese people, the country, the city, etc., until the champagne gave out. Perhaps it was just as well that it did, for a glass is as good as a bottle to a tired aviator.

  For a long time Hayashi had been noting down my answers by the flickering light of a lantern, but the day was far from ended. I was handed over to a police officer. He was affable, easy-going, smooth-mannered and pleasant and it was just incredible that any human being could be so polite. With Hayashi, we motored along interminable long narrow ways through a densely settled area. Each time I dozed off I would be jerked awake by another polite question. We arrived at a hotel in state. As we entered, a row of smiling girls knelt on the raised floor before us, bowed till their foreheads and palms touched the floor, then settled back on their heels repeating it all time after time. I had an impression of flowing kimonos, sleeves on the floor and voluminous
coiffeurs
of jet-black upswept hair. Hayashi and the policeman bowed profoundly in response; I did an Englishman's best. My shoes were removed by dainty fingers, after which I felt clumsy and flat-footed in my stockings on the padded floors. They tried to fit me with a pair of slippers from a row of them on the ground, but the largest only just admitted the tip of my toes, with the heel biting into my instep. I heartily agreed with Hayashi's suggestion of a bath, and a delicious little maiden led me into an empty room. I turned round to find the policeman behind me, and when I undressed it was the policeman who wound me into a kimono with a long wide sash, and led me into the bathroom. There was a square-tiled well about 3-foot deep in one corner full of water with bowls, basins and dippers lying about. I waited, but the policeman did not go. Ignorant of Japanese customs, I felt acutely self-conscious. In the end I slipped off the kimono, and sank into the tiled well up to my neck. The policeman immediately uttered a sharp cry, which brought in another Japanese, who seized me by the shoulder and began scrubbing my back with an instrument like a hedgehog on a stick. When I got out, the policeman seized my body, rubbed it furiously with a towel like a doormat, and wrapped up the remains in a kimono. Outside, I found the row of maidens waiting, and again bowing to the ground. I was now led to a stunted table, six-inches high, and sat cross-legged on a cushion before it. A beautiful and polite little Japanese girl with her charming smile and dazzling white teeth squatted on a cushion beside me, and with a small porcelain jar kept on filling a tiny bowl of sake, which needed delicate holding between finger and thumb. She showed me how to use chopsticks, and I was faced with a tray full of formidable dishes. Under the first cover was a bowl of rice that gave me a false sense of security, but the second held chunks of raw fish with a clammy taste. It made me hurriedly drain the cup of sake, which had a less bizarre taste – it was rather like tepid sherry mixed with methylated spirits. I prodded the contents of the next dish with a chopstick, but it baffled me.