north. The sun was low behind a bank of cloud. I was watching a
motor-car, which seemed to be crawling slowly enough, though, no
doubt, it was making a respectable pace, between two hedges down
below. It is extraordinary how slowly everything seems to be going
when one sees it from such an height.

"Then the left wing of the monoplane came up like a door that slams,
some wires whistled past my head, and one whipped off my helmet, and
then, with the seat slipping away from me, down we went. I snatched
unavailingly for the helmet, and then gripped the sides. It was
like dropping in a boat suddenly into the trough of a wave--and
going on dropping. We were both strapped, and I got my feet against
the side and clung to the locked second wheel.

"The sensation was as though something like an intermittent electric
current was pouring through me. It's a ridiculous image to use, I
can't justify it, but it was as if I was having cold blue light
squirted through every pore of my being. There was an astonishment,
a feeling of confirmation. 'Of course these things do happen
sometimes,' I told myself. I don't remember that Challoner looked
round or said anything at all. I am not sure that I looked at
him. . . .

"There seemed to be a long interval of intensely excited curiosity,
and I remember thinking, 'Lord, but we shall come a smash in a
minute!' Far ahead I saw the grey sheds of Eastchurch and people
strolling about apparently unaware of our disaster. There was a
sudden silence as Challoner stopped the engine. . . .

"But the point I want to insist upon is that I did not feel afraid.