The Lonely Sea and the Sky

by Sir Francis Chichester

  I flew round a headland, and began looking for Katsuura. It had not been on my chart; but the policeman had marked it in, telling me that it was a small fishing town, with a natural harbour. The whole coast seemed to be honeycombed with natural harbours, but at the spot marked on my map, I found a perfect harbour and town, an ideal place for a seaplane, but I thought it strange that I could see no sign of any launches. So I decided to fly on farther before coming down, and it was as well, because the policeman had marked a spot 6 miles south of the real Katsuura. There was no mistaking the launch party when I got there for one man was waving a small flag at me, and another an umbrella.

  Katsuura was a beautiful place like a partly submerged crater on the edge of the coast with the ocean entering through a gap at the south end, and a jagged rim of precipitous rock separating the harbour from the open sea. I came down in an inlet like a fjord adjoining the harbour.

  The launches came after me and detached a sampan to approach me. The man with the umbrella had lived in the United States for twenty years, and spoke an English which I could understand most of the time. His name was Suzuki, and he was most efficient. He invited me to stay with him, and I gratefully accepted. Suzuki's wife cooked us a meal on a little brazier, and after dinner he dressed me in a kimono and a pair of wooden sandals – I attracted too much attention in European clothes, he said – and I clogged down the street with him to be shown the town. Suzuki wanted me to fly him to Tokyo next day but I refused; I told him that if there was a crash the person in the front cockpit was almost sure to be killed, though the man behind often escaped, and that I would not take the responsibility of putting him in front.

  In the morning, the launch picked up my anchor and towed the seaplane through the gap to the inlet adjoining the harbour.

  'Will you make circles round the town?' shouted Suzuki, 'the peoples would like to see your aeroplane.'

  The seaplane smacked the swell tops, and was soon off. I headed through the gap between the inlet and the harbour, still low over the water gathering speed. I decided to circle the village, as Suzuki had asked, but I could not do so without more height, so I reckoned to fly on through the north gap in the harbour rim to gain the necessary height outside, and then to return and circle: all the way across the harbour the seaplane was gathering speed; I preferred to gain speed rather than height until I was flying fast enough to make manoeuvring easy. When I was between the highest point of the rock peak on the outer rim of the harbour and the hill behind the township, I pulled back the control-stick, and the seaplane began to climb sharply. I was looking at the township below me on my left, thinking what a pretty sight it was with the cluster of roofs at the base of the hill and the sunshine strong on the green harbour water beneath me, when there was a dreadful shock, and I felt a terrific impact.

  My sight was a blank. Slowly, a small aperture cleared, a hole for sight, and through it, far away, I saw a patch of bright green scrub on a hillside. But it was a long way off, like a tiny glimpse seen through a red telescope. Now it was a round sight, half of sparkling water and half of rooftops, straight before me. I was diving at it vertically, already doing 90mph. I remember thinking, 'Well, this is the end,' and feeling intense loneliness, a vague sense of loss – of life, of friends. Then, 'I'd better try for the water,' I was vaguely aware of lifeless controls, but suddenly all fear was gone.

  The next thing I knew was a brightness above me and in front of me. On the way down I was so certain that I would be killed that when I came to and saw the brightness I thought it was a spiritual experience, and that I was in Heaven. Dozens of hands were clutching at me. Next time I came round I had a glimpse through dull red of people pressing round, of a man bending over me with his back close. There was a dreadful pain. Someone was stitching me up, and sometimes I counted the stitches. From the pain I had a terrible fear that I was a eunuch, and then I felt that there was nothing to live for, gave up resisting the pain and slid into unconsciousness. Presently I was back again and once more counting stitches, in, across, out. I was groaning with pain, felt that I was behaving badly, and was angry. After the man had finished he gave me morphia. At nightfall I was still alive. When I came to I was concerned only with one thing and terribly afraid. I dared not ask what state I was in. Presently a faint humour stirred, and when I spoke I wondered if my voice was squeaky.

  Suzuki had stayed by me all night, and in the morning he came over to me.

  'Suzuki, my eye – about my eye—'

  'The doctor say he think you save that.'

  Then I came to the only question that mattered to me at that moment; was I a eunuch?

  'He say he think you save everything.'

  That was one of the greatest moments of my life, and I put everything I could into the effort to get well again quickly. Now I wanted to know what had happened, for I had absolutely no idea of what had hit me or what I had hit.

  What had happened was this: there were seven steel telephone wires stretched from the highest point on the outer rim of the harbour to the top of the hill behind the township. This was a long span, of perhaps half a mile. It is almost impossible to spot wires in the air when moving fast towards them, and the longer their span the less chance there is of seeing them. In this case I had no information that the wires were there, and I had no thought of wires so high up right across the harbour. I had flown straight into those wires. They had stopped the seaplane in flight, and catapulted it back. One or more of the float struts or booms had been cut through. The seaplane was shot back until the wires were at full stretch, and then the wires, hooked up behind the cut boom and struts, catapulted the seaplane forward again. Next, the wires cut through all the booms, struts and rigging stays of one float. It was cut away in mid-air, and fell apart from the seaplane. I think that this must have occurred when the seaplane was stopped again, after being catapulted forward. Then it somersaulted, and shot straight to the ground. I must have been already badly bashed, and I wonder if my attempt to deflect the seaplane into the water had any effect. Whether I was responsible or not, the seaplane was deflected, and hit the sloping wall at the edge of the harbour. It piled up at the foot of the wall.

  Seen from the ground, this must have been a most fantastic accident to watch; a seaplane stopped in mid-air, catapulted back, then forward, torn apart in the air, then catapulted vertically down to the ground. I am only sorry that I could not have been on the ground myself to watch it! I wish I knew how long the whole accident had taken, for I should like to know how long was the period during which the scenes, the feeling and thoughts flashed on to my brain. Suzuki's account of things ran like this:

  'You have wonderful good luck. Nobody understands. They rush to pull you out before the fire catches. You must be dead. Great is their wonder to find you still alive. It was terrible a sight. I am nearly sick. Everybodies is so sorry for you. Everybodies prays to God for you. The doctor thinks you do not live for ten, twenty minutes.'

  They decided to send me to Dr. Hama's hospital at Shingu 10 miles away. Suzuki continued, 'All young men carry you to train, very careful. They carry you all way one hour train journey.'

  This crash took the form of the nightmare I had had perhaps fifty times – that my sight went black while I was flying, and left me waiting for the inevitable crash.

  Although I had had a terrific impact with the ground, and could count thirteen broken bones or wounds, I was not seriously hurt. Things like a broken arm and crushed ankle seemed minor troubles. I suppose my damaged back was the worst thing, probably because with the language difficulty the doctor was not aware of it. It was ten years before I was completely recovered from that. Hama was a brilliant doctor; I had a slash in my leg about a foot long, and he used to dress this with some ointment, and I marvelled at how fast it healed.

  The customs of a foreign country, though, can be hard to bear, and sometimes I feared that the Japanese kindness would make me mad. They were immensely sorry about the accident, and sympathetic with the foreign
birdman who had come to grief. Thousands came from near and far to visit me. All day they passed through my room at the end of my bed. They walked in, dressed in robes of ceremony, black kimonos, with an unusual black skirt suspended outside by two black bands from the shoulders. Often I would come out of the doze I seemed to drift into against my will, to find them within the doorway or at the end of my bed, bowing silently, or perhaps with a faint hiss of indrawn breath, standing in black silk stockings with the big toes separate. They always carried fans; their straw hats they usually left outside.

  If Suzuki were there he would introduce them to me:

  'This is directors of the ice factory at Katsuura; they pray to God for you, and send you ice every day.' A 2 cwt block of ice would arrive every morning, sometimes with a message in Japanese inside, or a bunch of flowers or some reeds and a fish frozen in. When there was a fish in the ice I waited patiently for it to melt out, hoping every time that it would come to life, but it never did.

  'This is lady who has hotel outside where you fall.'

  'Tell her that next time I hope I shall arrive without messing up the pavement.'

  This was a stock joke always sure to bring down the house.

  'Here is a priest of Buddha; they pray to God for you that you get well soon.'

  Many of the people brought me presents of fruit or fans, dolls, photographs or sake. I always tried to make them a little speech of thanks, but sometimes I am sorry to say that a wild unreasonable mad fury possessed me, and I felt that I was being tortured. Any other personality near me was like a concrete thing, an actual weight pressing on me. Hot fire would rush through my nerves until I was scared of breaking out into violent speech, and I would say, 'Please ask everyone to leave, I am tired and must sleep.' I knew that the people there were sometimes deeply offended. The Japanese could not understand that nerves could be so on edge as to drive a person crazy. Mine were; I sweated in an agony of fear if the nurse dressing my wounds twitched a single hair. I offended them, too, when I asked visitors to leave me alone when I was having my wounds dressed. Some of these wounds were in quaint places and I was at first embarrassed when women and young girls at the end of the bed watched them being dressed. Later I grew used to being watched, as I grew used to other Japanese customs, and to Japanese food.

  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.'

  PART 4

  CHAPTER 22

  BACK TO ENGLAND

  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.