Survivor: The Autobiography

by Lewis, Jon E.

  When I pass over the boat a third time, the head is still at the porthole. It hasn’t moved or changed expression since it first appeared. It came as suddenly as the boats themselves. It seems as lifeless. I didn’t notice before how pale it is – or am I now imagining its paleness? It looks like a severed head in that porthole, as though a guillotine had dropped behind it. I feel baffled. After all, a man who dares to show his face would hardly fear to show his body. There’s something unreal about these boats. They’re as weird as the night’s temples, as those misty islands of Atlantis, as the fuselage’s phantoms that rode behind my back.

  Why don’t sailors gather on the decks to watch my plane? Why don’t they pay attention to my circling and shouting? What’s the matter with this strange flight, where dreams become reality, and reality returns to dreams? But these aren’t vessels of cloud and mist. They’re tangible, made of real substance like my plane – sails furled, ropes coiled neatly on the decks, masts swaying back and forth with each new swell. Yet the only sign of crew is that single head, hanging motionless through the cabin porthole. It’s like ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ my mother used to read aloud. These boats remind me of the ‘painted ship upon a painted ocean’.

  I want to stay, to circle again and again, until that head removes itself from the porthole and the crews come out on deck. I want to see them standing and waving like normal, living people. I’ve passed through worlds and ages since my last contact with other men. I’ve been away, far away, planets and heavens away, until only a thread was left to lead me back to earth and life. I’ve followed that thread with swinging compasses, through lonely canyons, over pitfalls of sleep, past the lure of enchanted islands, fearing that at any moment it would break. And now I’ve returned to earth, returned to these boats bobbing on the ocean. I want an earthly greeting. I deserve a warmer welcome back to the fellowship of men.

  Shall I fly over to another boat and try again to raise the crew? No, I’m wasting minutes of daylight and miles of fuel. There’s nothing but frustration to be had by staying longer. It’s best to leave. There’s something about this fleet that tries my mind and spirit, and lowers confidence with every circle I make. Islands that turn to fog, I understand. Ships without crews, I do not. And that motionless head at the porthole – it’s no phantom, and yet it shows no sign of life. I straighten out the Spirit of St Louis and fly on eastward.

  The Twenty-eighth Hour

  Is that a cloud on the northeastern horizon, or a strip of low fog – or – can it possibly be land? It looks like land, but I don’t intend to be tricked by another mirage. Framed between two grey curtains of rain, not more than ten or fifteen miles away, a purplish blue band has hardened from the haze – flat below, like a waterline – curving on top, as though composed of hills or aged mountains.

  I’m only sixteen hours out from Newfoundland. I allowed eighteen and a half hours to strike the Irish coast. If that’s Ireland, I’m two and a half hours ahead of schedule. Can this be another, clearer image, like the islands of the morning? Is there something strange about it too, like the fishing fleet and that haunting head? Is each new illusion to become more real until reality itself is meaningless? But my mind is clear. I’m no longer half asleep. I’m awake – alert – aware. The temptation is too great. I can’t hold my course any longer. The Spirit of St Louis banks over towards the nearest point of land.

  I stare at it intently, not daring to believe my eyes, keeping hope in check to avoid another disappointment, watching the shades and contours unfold into a coastline – a coastline coming down from the north – a coastline bending toward the east – a coastline with rugged shores and rolling mountains. It’s much too early to strike England, France or Scotland. It’s early to be striking Ireland; but that’s the nearest land.

  A fjorded coast stands out as I approach. Barren islands guard it. Inland, green fields slope up the sides of warted mountains. This must be Ireland. It can be no other place than Ireland. The fields are too green for Scotland; the mountains too high for Brittany or Cornwall.

  Now, I’m flying above the foam-lined coast, searching for prominent features to fit the chart on my knees. I’ve climbed to two thousand feet so I can see the contours of the country better. The mountains are old and rounded; the farms small and stony. Rain-glistened dirt roads wind narrowly through hills and fields. Below me lies a great tapering bay; a long, bouldered island; a village. Yes, there’s a place on the chart where it all fits – line of ink on line of shore – Valentia and Dingle Bay, on the south-western coast of Ireland!

  I can hardly believe it’s true. I’m almost exactly on my route, closer than I hoped to come in my wildest dreams back in San Diego. What happened to all those detours of the night around the thunderheads? Where has the swinging compass error gone? The wind above the storm clouds must have blown fiercely on my tail. In edging northward, intuition must have been more accurate than reasoned navigation.

  The southern tip of Ireland! On course; over two hours ahead of schedule; the sun still well up in the sky; the weather clearing! I circle again, fearful that I’ll wake to find this too a phantom, a mirage fading into mid-Atlantic mist. But there’s no question about it; every detail on the chart has its counterpart below; each major feature on the ground has its symbol on the chart. The lines correspond exactly. Nothing in that world of dreams and phantoms was like this. I spiral lower, looking down on the little village. There are boats in the harbour, wagons on the stone-fenced roads. People are running out into the streets, looking up and waving. This is earth again, the earth where I’ve lived and now will live once more. Here are human beings. Here’s a human welcome. Not a single detail is wrong. I’ve never seen such beauty before – fields so green, people so human, a village so attractive, mountains and rocks so mountainous and rocklike.

  I bank steeply around and set my course southeastward, cutting across the bouldered fjords, flying low over the hilltop farms, the rock fences and the small, green fields of Kerry. Now, I can check the engine – All cylinders hitting on the left switch – All cylinders hitting on the right – And all instrument readings are normal.

  Sheep and cattle graze on their sloping pastures. Horse-drawn carts crawl along their shiny roads. People move across walled-in barnyards, through doorways of the primitive stone buildings. It must be a hard place to gain a living from the soil. And it would be worse than New England for a forced landing.

  Even the wish to sleep has left, and with it the phantoms and voices. I didn’t notice their absence before; but now, as I settle down for the last six hundred miles to Paris, I realize that they remained behind with the fishing fleet. They vanished with that first strange touch of Europe and of man. Since I sighted those specks on the water, I’ve been as wide awake as though I started the flight this morning after a warm breakfast and a full night’s sleep. The thought of floating off in a bed of feathers has lost its attractiveness.

  Time is no longer endless, or the horizon destitute of hope. The strain of take-off, storm, and ocean, lies behind. There’ll be no second night above the clouds, no more grappling with misty walls of ice. There’s only one more island to cross – only the narrow tip of an island. I look at England’s outline on my map. And then, within an hour, I’ll see the coast of France; and beyond that, Paris and Le Bourget. As Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were stepping-stones from America, Ireland and England are stepping-stones to Europe. Yesterday, each strip of sea I crossed was an advance messenger of the ocean. Today, these islands down below are heralds to a continent.

  It’s as though a curtain has fallen behind me, shutting off the stagelike unreality of this transatlantic flight. It’s been like a theatre where the play carries you along in time and place until you forget you’re only a spectator. You grow unaware of the walls around you, of the programme clasped in your hand, even of your body, its breath, pulse, and being. You live with the actors and the setting, in a different age and place. It’s not until the curtain drops that consciou
sness and body reunite. Then, you turn your back on the stage, step out into the cool night, under the lights of streets, between the displays of store windows. You feel life surging in the crowd around you, life as it was when you entered the theatre, hours before. Life is real. It always was real. The stage, of course, was the dream. All that transpired there is now a memory, shut off by the curtain, by the doors of the theatre, by the passing minutes of time.

  Striking Ireland was like leaving the doors of a theatre – phantoms for actors; cloud islands and temples for settings; the ocean behind me, an empty stage. The flight across is already like a dream. I’m over villages and fields, back to land and wakefulness and a type of flying that I know. I’m myself again, in earthly skies and over earthly ground. My hands and feet and eyelids move, and I can think as I desire. That third, controlling element has retired to the background. I’m no longer three existences in one. My mind is able to command, and my body follows out its orders with precision.

  Ireland, England, France, Paris! The night at Paris! This night at Paris – less than six hours from Now – France and Paris! It’s like a fairy tale. Yesterday I walked on Roosevelt Field; today I’ll walk on Le Bourget.

  SOURCES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The editor has made every effort to locate all persons having any rights in the selections appearing in this anthology and to secure permission from the holders of such rights. Any queries regarding the use of material should be addressed to the editor c/o the publishers.

  Andrée, S. A., Nils Strindberg, Knut Fraenkel, The Andrée Diaries, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1931

  Barrington, A. J., ‘Diary of a West Coast Prospecting Party’, Early Travellers in New Zealand, ed. Nancy M. Taylor, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1959

  Blashford-Snell, J., A Taste for Adventure, Readers Union, 1979

  Bonatti, W., On the Heights, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1964

  Byrd, R. E., Alone, Neville Spearman, 1955

  Callahan, S., Adrift, Bantam Press, 1986. Copyright © Steven Callahan 1986

  Casteret, N., The Descent of Pierre Saint-Martin, Dent, 1955

  Corbett, J., The Temple Tiger, Oxford India Paperbacks, 1997

  Cousteau, J., The Silent World of Jacques Cousteau, Hamish Hamilton, 1953

  Danziger, N., Danziger’s Travels, Paladin, 1988. Copyright © N. Danziger 1987. Reprinted by Permission of Harper Collins Publishers.

  Drummond, E., ‘Mirror, Mirror’, Ascent, 1973

  Fiennes, R., To the Ends of the Earth, Mandarin, 1995. Copyright © Ranulph Fiennes 1983. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown

  Fleming, P., News from Tartary, Futura, 1980. Reprinted by permission

  Giles, E., Australia Twice Traversed, 1889

  Hedin, S., My Life as an Explorer, Cassell, 1926

  Herzog, M., Annapurna, Jonathan Cape

  Heyerdahl, T., The Kon-Tiki Expedition, Penguin, 1963

  Hillary, E., High Adventure, Hodder & Stoughton, 1957

  Lindbergh, C., The Spirit of St Louis, John Murray 1953

  Mawson, D., The Home of the Blizzard, Hodder & Stoughton, 1930

  Ridgway, J., Blyth, C., Fighting Chance, Paul Hamlyn, 1966. Copyright © J. Ridgway & C. Blyth 1966

  Roosevelt, T., Through the Brazilian Wilderness, John Murray, 1914

  Saint-Exupéry, A. de, Wind, Sand & Stars, Heinemann, 1939. Trans. copyright © Lewis Galantíre

  Scott, R. F., Scott’s Last Expedition, John Murray, 1923

  Shackleton., E., South, Lyons Press, 1998

  Snow, S., ‘Kings of the Equator’, Explorers’ And Travellers’ Tales, ed. O. Tcherine, The Adventurers Club, 1963. Copyright © Sebastian Snow 1958

  Thomas, B., ‘The First Crossing of the Great Souths Arabian Desert’, Explorer’s All, ed. Sir Percy Sykes, George Newnes Ltd, 1938

  Van der Post, L., Venture to the Interior, The Hogarth Press, 1952

  Waterton, C., Wanderings in South America, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1891

  ENDNOTES

  1. Because of this blinding, suffocating drift, in the Antarctic winds of only moderate velocity have the punishing force of full-fledged hurricanes elsewhere.

  2. Half a gale. The velocity of wind is denoted by numbers (1–10).

  3. The gorge of the Olivine River, into which Forgotten River flows.

  4. Alabaster Pass.

  5. Lost Trail Pass into Montana on the west slope of the Continental Divide.

  6. Bitterroot River, originally named Clark’s River by the explorers.

  7. At Weippe, Idaho.

  8. The Chopunnish, or Nez Perces, were located on the Salmon and Snake rivers.

  9. These stoves were fuelled with butane gas.

  10. Singular of Bedouin.

  11. The night’s vigil proved to have been unnecessary, for at dawn the tracks of a sand-wolf were traced near by; its whoop had been mistaken for the war-cry of raiders in the final act.

  12. Familiar to British breeders as the Salukhi hound.

  13. Native women.

  14. The Prince of Ala-shan.

  15. Colonel Prejevalesky’s setter.