The Lonely Sea and the Sky (38 page)

  There was one visitor I was always glad to see. She was a Shintoist disciple, perhaps a missionary, because she left me Shinto tracts with an English translation headed 'Foreign Missions'. This amused me because 'foreign missions' conjured up for me a picture of a didactic intense white man making Polynesian natives wear Mother Hubbards, and converting people like the Japanese. The reason why I was always glad to see her – for this Shintoist disciple was a charming old wizened up lady – was that she radiated goodness, and also did physical good each time. She prayed with a long droning incantation, and all the time she glided her hands over my body always in the same way until I felt soothed, then drowsy, and afterwards would drop into a heavy sleep, no matter how many visitors were in the room. Also, she gave me rice-charms to swallow, but I do not know if they had any effect.

  I had a special nurse, who was Christian Japanese. Afterwards I found out that she was employed by the police. She was quite unlike any other Japanese girl I met, and much of the time she spent sleeping loudly. Between whiles she showered me with glasses of water, medicine, ice and knocks. She was very clever at one thing, catching mosquitoes.

  I thought the Japanese women I met were ideal with their happiness, desire to please, fondness of a joke, and their polite manners. They were small, with perfect figures, soft skinned, with plump firm flesh, doll's eyelashes, with soft, dark, slanting eyes, and jet black hair. They were the most charming and delightful women. The Japanese men seemed to treat them roughly, but they were extremely happy. I never could form a clear opinion of Japanese men. They were so intensely foreign to an Englishman that it was difficult to find a standard by which to measure them. They could be insensitive and cruel; they could be intensely kind. Here is a letter I had from Hayashi-san, the interpreter at Kagoshima:

  Sir, receiving the report of the mishap I have profound regret which never could be forgotten. I expected you will success as I said you, I hope you will success, when bid farewell on the beach. I hope you will buy fresh eggs with money that I present to you (I enclose a money order, ten yen, which you must ask for post office) and take them to make you healthy.

  Yours truly, M. Hayashi.

One of the Japanese newspapers, the
Nichi Nichi Shimbun
with a nine million circulation, published an extra about my crash. They printed a letter from a lieutenant of the Naval Air Force that said, 'We had been hoping that he would not encounter an accident when taking off at Katsuura. Kitsugura Bay is about 2,000 metres in diameter, flanked by rocks 100 metres high. The outlet of the bay is narrow, and just in front of it is an island. It is an ideal port of refuge, but a very dangerous place for seaplanes to come and go.'

  Two days after the crash I began to wonder if I could write a book and get enough money by it to buy a fishing-boat. I wrote, 'I'm going to inspect a fishing-boat here as soon as I can walk. Doesn't seem to be much chance of ever getting a plane to finish my flight.' In Suzuki's house I wrote left-handed (it was my right arm which was broken), 'Every flight is moulded into a perfect short story; for you begin, and are bound to lead up to a climax.'

When I recovered enough to get out of bed I had to realise that action of any kind was going to be out of the question for a long time. I gave the remains of the
Gipsy Moth
to the local grammar school, and moved to Kobe in a small passenger steamer. I had a nightmare while on the way, and ended on the floor of the cabin. I think I had somehow jumped clean out of the bunk while lying full length there. I was immensely grateful that it caused me no more damage, especially as my face must have passed close to the sharp corner of a table beside the bunk.

  From Kobe, I took a berth in a P&O steamer to England. In the East China Sea we passed through a typhoon, which was awe-inspiring. For a long time during that night I stood on deck at the stern, watching. The seas were not so impressive as in the small storm I flew through in the Tasman Sea, but they were more powerful. They looked immensely powerful as they swept past with long troughs; they would stand for no resistance by anything. There were no crests; these all flew off horizontally. The high-pitched scream of the wind in the rigging and passing over the steamer was the most thrilling feature. It was not a bad typhoon, and the steamer rode it well. On this voyage I found that one of the ship's engineers had been in the
Bremen
on my voyage out to New Zealand in 1919, and it was he who told me the fate of my fellow trimmers. When I got back to England I visited my family in North Devon, and stayed with them. This visit was a failure; I was a misfit in their way of life. They had a settled existence, with due importance attached to various happenings; for example, how many people were in church each Sunday and who they were; I represented a way of life outside their circle of interests. Also I was a different person since they had previously seen me. My personality seemed to have been shattered or weakened; I was a poor thing. My nerves were in a bad state, as shown by the torture I suffered if I went for a train journey; I had constantly to look out backwards, terrified that another train would run into us from behind. Going through any tunnel I just sweated with fear until we emerged again. I think that it is much more difficult to be kind and friendly to someone who has lost his strength and personality. Unconsciously, the herd instinct is at work which will cause a school of fish or even a flock of rooks to attack an injured fish or bird. I expect that my change in fortunes had made me irritable and difficult to live with. The atmosphere indoors, which my family seemed to enjoy, was cold and damp to me, and I was critical of the way they met the change in social conditions which had occurred in England. I particularly disapproved of their breakfasting by the light of an ugly paraffin wall lamp from the scullery, now perched on an old biscuit tin on the table.

  Happily, my cousins from Instow invited me to visit them. They were daughters of the Admiral of Manila Bay fame, and were amusing, interesting and immensely kind. Mary Renshaw found me a lodging with a sporting farmer behind Instow, where I stayed for nine months while I wrote a book about my flight over the Tasman Sea. I tried hard to make a good job of this book,
Seaplane Solo
, and I wanted the reader to feel the emotions that I had felt. I wrote some parts of it many times, until they made me feel exactly as I had felt during the flight. Reading this book now, however, it seems laboured. I tried too hard. I tried to force myself to become an artist, which I was not. Some of the things I wrote were perfectly true but they sound silly, like this about flying: 'The thrill of life. Ha! Ha! Ha! Flying through space, devouring distance like gods – speed – up in the clouds, with life force dominant and throbbing in heart and veins.'

  One day when I was working in Farmer West's front parlour I had a visit from Lord Charles Kennedy. He asked me if I would crew for him in the club races of the Tor and Torridge Sailing Club. Had I any experience? 'Of course.' (I was careful not to say how little this experience was.) He said that we would go out for a trial sail, and as we got into his sailing dinghy he said, 'You take the tiller.' We cast off, hoisted the sail and he said, 'Luff!' As the tiller was the only thing I had in hand, I pushed it.

  'I said "luff" damn you!' I pushed it the other way, and learned what luff was. Charles Kennedy had a personality; he was 6 feet 7 inches tall, with a rather untidy old-fashioned greyish pointed beard, and a slow, deep gruff voice. He always wore socks with each toe separately knitted, like a glove. I crewed for him in one or two races that were good sport, but we rubbed each other up the wrong way though I respected him and liked him when we were not in the same boat. Finally he gave me the sack, and to make it worse gave my job to my young seventeen-year-old cousin, Judy Renshaw, a charming and most attractive girl. I managed to get one of the club boats for the next race, and asked Lois to crew for me; everyone loved Lois, and she was efficient, too. With her support, and by taking a risky short cut over a sandbank, I managed to beat Charlie. He kept quiet until the next race, when Bay Wyndham was crewing for me. There was a stiff breeze. Our yacht was a tangle of sheets and halyard falls and we were last, except for one boat which had lost its mast. As Bay grabbed the mooring buoy with the boat hook, I let run the mainsail halyard, but it jammed at the top of the mast. There was a wild flap and flutter while Bay held on to the mooring by brute force until I had the sail down. When we reached the club house it was packed with racing crews and Charlie, who was Commodore, shut up a telescope, and said in a loud voice, so that everyone in the club would hear, 'I would like to congratulate you, Chichester, on having the strongest crew in the club.'

  It was through him that I had my first solo sail. I borrowed his dinghy, and sailed down to the junction of the Torridge and Tor rivers, then up the Tor to Barnstaple Bridge and back to Instow. This voyage introduced me to the thrill of single-handed sailing. It was only about 6½ miles each way, but I still think with keen enjoyment of the sport I had scanning the current to decide the best route, and looking for a channel deep enough to carry the dinghy. In places I sounded with a bamboo pole as I sailed along over the mud-bank watersheds.

  While I was in England, the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators of the British Empire presented the Johnston Memorial Trophy for the first time, awarded for the best feat of air navigation in the British Empire. This trophy was in memory of the navigator of the airship R101 destroyed over France. I became the first to receive this coveted trophy – for my navigation over the Tasman Sea. I doubt if I would have had it but for Geoffrey Goodwin, my partner in New Zealand, reading about it and proposing me. At that time few people in Britain knew of the Tasman Sea, and certainly no one had much interest in it. In those days, if I mentioned at a dinner that I was living in New Zealand, my neighbour would immediately lose interest in me. Later the pendulum swung, and British people began taking great interest in New Zealanders and Australians, but by then Britain had missed the bus, the Empire had turned into a Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth was already breaking up.

  The Johnston Memorial Trophy was presented to me by the Prince of Wales, who became Edward VIII. Later it was awarded to Hinkler, Kingsford-Smith, Mollison and Don Bennett. Since then the terms of award have changed. First it became increasingly difficult to name a single navigator for it, and later it was difficult to name a single act of navigation by a team.

  In 1932 I went back to New Zealand after finishing my book. I looked after the business while Geoffrey was away but we were still suffering from the effects of the slump, and there was not much doing, apart from some more planting, and a few land sales going through. I had changed, and had lost a good deal of my desire for action and adventure. I read a lot, and became a fanatical fisherman.

  I was introduced to trout fishing by an Englishman. He showed me what to do and I went off by myself for the day. On the first day I caught no fish. My friend, who was an experienced old hand and was not unhappy at my failure, had some good fish. The next day I went out by myself. I began to catch some rainbow trout but they were only two pounders and I returned them to the river, rather ashamed. Then I came to a big pool where another river joined, a wonderful place, a great pool of dark water overhung by the evergreen forest trees, with a white rush of water where the rivers fed into it; a mysterious beautiful solitary spot. Here I caught three fish which totalled 14¾ lbs. I carried home those fish somewhat diffidently, because my friend was such a tremendous expert and knew such an awe-inspiring amount about fishing. Now it seemed easy. I had no idea that I would never again in one morning meet three fighting trout like those, and have such thrill and excitement as I did on the day I caught them.