So we kept on eastward. The diary records the tenseness of the moment. Log book: “Can’t use radio at all. Coming down now in rather clear spot. 2500 feet.
“8:50 2 boats!!!! (These were two little ones which not only didn’t disturb us but gave us pleasure as the first sign of life we had seen.) Then. Trans steamer. Try to get bearing. Radio won’t (I meant wouldn’t respond to Stultz’s frantic calls). One hr’s gas. Mess. All craft cutting our course. Why?’’
“Mess” expressed our situation as well as any single word I could think of at the time—our puzzlement, our helplessness with a diminishing fuel supply, our exasperation at our inability to communicate with the ship just below us.
It turned out the ship was the America, commanded by Captain Fried. Later he told me that every time he had learned of a contemplated crossing by air he had seen to it that bearings were painted on the deck every two hours in the hope that the flyers might come his way. But none ever had. Of our flight he had heard nothing in advance so his paint pots were not in readiness. For this lack of preparedness he afterwards apologized to me profusely, and, I understand, has since kept cans of paint ever ready to serve in a similar emergency.
As it turned out, we were within a few miles of the mainland when we sighted the America. Though we did not know it, Ireland had been
