I was quite aware at the time that my moral sense and my mental sense had been thrown overboard for the moment but my attitude was simply: " Goodbye, Jonah ! "
For the first time in my life I was being absolutely myself, freed from all the inhibitions of body, intellect, and training which keep us, normally, in what we call sane courses of action.
I seem to remember asking myself if I was insane, and answering, " Of course I am-sanity is a compromise. Sanity is the thing that keeps one back."
It would be quite useless to attempt to describe the drive to Barley Grange. It lasted barely half a second. It lasted age-less eons.
Any doubts that I might have had about myself were stamped under foot by the undeniable facts. I had never driven better in my life. I got out the sea-plane as another man might get out a cigarette from his case. She started like an eagle. With the whirr of the engine came Lou's soft smooth voice in exquisite antiphony :
" O Thou trembling breast of the night, that gleamest with a rosary of moons ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O! "
We soared towards the dawn. I went straight to over three thousand. I could hear the beat of my heart. It was one with the beat of the engine.
I took the pure unsullied air into my lungs. It was an octave to cocaine ; the same invigorating spiritual force expressed in other terms.
The magnificently melodious words of Sieveking sprang into my mind. I repeated them rapturously. It is the beat of the British engine.
" Deep lungfuls ! Deep mouthfuls! Deep, deep mental mouthfuls ! "
The wind of our speed abolished all my familiar bodily sensations. The cocaine combined with it to anaesthetise them. I was disembodied; an eternal spirit ; a Thing supreme, apart.
" Lou, sweetheart ! Lou, sweetheart ! Lou, Lou, perfect sweetheart ! "
I must have shouted the refrain. Even amid the roar, I heard her singing back.
" O Thou summer softness of lips, that glow hot with the scarlet of passion ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
I could not bear the weight of the air. Let us soar higher, ever higher ! I increased the speed.
" Fierce frenzy ! Fierce folly ! Fierce, fierce, frenzied folly ! "
" O Thou tortured shriek of the storm, that art whirled up through the leaves of the woods! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
And I felt that we were borne on some tremendous tempest. The earth dropped from beneath us like a stone into blind nothingness. We were free, free for ever, from the fetters of our birth !
" Soar swifter ! Soar swifter ! Soar, soar swifter, swifter! "
Before us, high in the pale gray, stood Jupiter, a four-square sapphire spark.
" O Thou bright star of the morning, that art set betwixt the breasts of the Night ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
I shouted back.
" Star seekers ! Star finders ! Twin stars, silver shining ! "
Up, still up, I drove. There hung a mass of thundercloud between me and the dawn. Damn it, how dared it ! It had no business to be there. I must rise over it, trample it under my feet.
" O Thou purple breast of the storm, that art scarred by the teeth of the lightning ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
Frail waifs of mist beset us. I had understood Lou's joy in the cloud. It was I that was wrong. I had not had enough cocaine to be able to accept everything as infinite ecstasy. Her love carried me out of myself up to her triumphal passion. I understood the mist.
" O Thou unvintageable dew, that art moist on the lips of the Mom ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "
At that moment, the practical part of me asserted itself with startling suddenness. I saw the dim line of the coast. I knew the line as I know the palm of my hand. I was a little out of the shortest line for Paris. I swerved slightly to the south.
Below, gray seas were tumbling. It seemed to me (insanely enough) that their moving wrinkles were the laughter of a very old man. I had a sudden intuition that something was wrong; and an instant later came an unmistakable indication of the trouble. I was out of gas.
My mind shot back with a vivid flash of hatred toward King Lamus. " A case of indiscretion ! " He'd as good as called me a fool to my face. I thought of him as the sea, shaking with derisive laughter.
All the time I had been chuckling over my dear old squad commander. Not a great flyer, am I ? This will show him I And that was true enough. I was incomparably better than I had ever been before. And yet I had omitted just one obvious precaution.
I suddenly realised that things might be exceedingly nasty. The only thing to be done was to shut off, and volplane down to the straits. And there were points in the problem which appalled me.
Oh, for another sniff I As we swooped down towards the sea in huge wide spirals, I managed to extract my bottle. Of course, I realised instantly the impossibility of taking it by the nose in such a wind. I pulled out the cork, and thrust my tongue into the neck of the bottle.
We were still three thousand feet or more above the sea. I had plenty of time, infinite time, I thought, as the drug took hold, to make my decision. I acted with superb aplomb. I touched the sea within a hundred yards of a fishing smack that had just put out from Deal.
We were picked up as a matter of course within a couple of minutes. They put back and towed the 'plane ashore.
My first thought was to get more gas and go on, despite the absurdity of our position. But the sympathy of the men on the beach was mixed with a good deal of hearty chaff. Dripping, in evening dress, at four o'clock in the morning! Like Hedda Gabler, go one doesn't do these things."
But the cocaine helped me again. Why the devil should I care what anybody thought ?
" Where can I get gas ? " I said to the captain of the smack.
He smiled grimly.
" She'll want a bit more than gas."
I glanced at the 'plane. The man was perfectly right. A week's repairs, at the least.
" You'd better go to the hotel, sir, and get some warm clothes. Look how the lady's shivering."
It was perfectly true. There was nothing else to be done. We went together slowly up the beach.
There was no question of sleeping, of course. Both of us were as fresh as paint. What we needed was hot food and lots of it.
We got it.
It seemed as if we had entered upon an entirely new phase. The disaster had purged us of that orchestral oratorio business ; but, on the other hand, we were still full of intense practical activity.
We ate three breakfasts each. And as we ate we talked ; talked racy, violent nonsense, most of it. Yet we were both well aware that the whole thing was camouflage. What we had to do was to get married as quickly as we could, and lay in a stock of cocaine, and go away and have a perfectly glorious time for ever and ever.
We sent for emergency clothes in the town, and went stalking a parson. He was an old man who had lived for years out of the world. He saw nothing particularly wrong with us except youth and enthusiasm, and he was very sorry that it would take three weeks to turn us off.
The good old boy explained the law.
" Oh, that's easy," we said in a breath. "Let's get the first train to London."
There are no incidents to record. We were both completely aneasthetised. Nothing bothered us. We didn't mind the waiting on the