40 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
“O Thou unvintageable dew, that art moist
on the lips of the Morn! 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! 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! 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.