The Man from the Clouds | Page 4

thoughts in the course of that
drift. It seemed to me that there was hardly an incident in my life which
didn't fly through my brain like a cinema being worked at lightning
speed. Some of the most vivid incidents were the last three balls of the
over in which I topped the century in the 'Varsity match, my interview
with my poor dear uncle when I broke the news that I had to face the
official receiver and chuck the diplomatic service, and the first night of
"Bill's All Right" when I made my début on the stage. A brilliant career!
And very swiftly reviewed, for just as I had reached the theatrical
episodes, there was an extraordinary change in the light, and my
thoughts very abruptly shifted from my past misdemeanours.
It had been evening when I dropped from the clouds, but the mist kept
the light very white though rather dim. Now a sudden blackness
seemed to rise up underneath my descending feet, and at the same
moment the mist thinned out till I could see for a space all round below
me. This space was green and almost before I realised what the
greenness meant I was sitting in a field of clover.

II
THE MAN ON THE SHORE
The breeze that had been driving the balloon along high overhead was
evidently an upper current only, for it was almost quite still in that
clover field. What between the falling of evening and the thin mist, my
vision was limited to a radius of about a quarter of a mile or so, but I
can assure you I studied that visible space more intently than I have
ever studied anything in my life. It seemed to be an almost flat country
I had landed in, all cultivated but very bare. I was within fifty yards or

so of a low rough stone wall, and on the further side of that lay a field
of corn. On every other side other fields faded into the evening and the
mist, and that was all there was to be seen. I saw no sign of a house, or
of a tree, or of a hedgerow, and I heard not a sound but the cry of a
distant sea bird.
In the gay days when I was attaché at Berlin I had acquired a fair
general acquaintance with Germany, and I instantly put down the place
I had landed in as some part of the flat wind-swept country not far from
the North Sea coast. In fact the crying seagull suggested that the shore
was fairly close at hand. This so exactly fitted in with our calculations
that I made up my mind definitely and at once to start with it as a
working hypothesis and behave accordingly.
But how precisely was one to behave accordingly? In which direction
should I turn? What should I aim at? Should I look for a house or a
native and trust to my German still being up to its old high water mark,
or should I lie low for the night? I simply stood and wondered for some
minutes, and then I decided on one prompt and immediate deed. The
parachute must be hidden, so far as that countryside was capable of
hiding anything.
I packed it up as neatly as I could, and then started for the low wall. My
first steps on the firm ground with its soft mat of clover and grasses
gave me an extraordinary sensation of pleasure. Merely to be alive and
on the earth again seemed to leave nothing to wish for. Close to the
wall a peewee rose suddenly from my feet and flapped off into the dusk
with one melancholy cry after another. "Peewee! Peewee!" I shall never
hear that sound without thinking of that lonesome misty field. I stopped
and looked round me anxiously, but not a living thing besides had been
disturbed, and presently I was stowing the parachute away in a bed of
high rank grass and docken just under the wall.
Then I stood still and listened again. Once more a distant sea bird cried
and I decided to make for the sound on the chance of finding the coast
line and getting at least one bearing. I followed the line of the wall,
crossed another low wall and another field of thin rough grass, and then
I realised that I was almost on the brink of the sea. The wash of the

swell on rocks met my ear and the dull misty green of the land faded
into the misty grey of wide waters.
I stepped over yet another of those low tumbledown walls and now I
was on the crisp short grass that fringes coasts, with rocks before me
and