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. I
was simply enormously, terribly INTERESTED....

"There came a tremendous jolt and a lunge, and we were both tipped
forward, so that we were hanging forehead down by our straps, and it
looked as if the sheds were in the sky, then I saw nothing but sky, then
came another vast swerve, and we were falling sideways, sideways....

"I was altogether out of breath and PHYSICALLY astonished, and I
remember noting quite intelligently as we hit the ground how the green
grass had an effect of POURING OUT in every direction from below us....

"Then I remember a jerk and a feeling that I was flying up again. I was
astonished by a tremendous popping--fabric, wires, everything seemed
going pop, pop, pop, like a machine-gun, and then came a flash of
intense pain as my arm crumpled up. It was quite impersonal pain. As
impersonal as seeing intense colour. SPLINTERS! I remember the word came
into my head instantly. I remember that very definitely.

"I thought, I suppose, my arm was in splinters. Or perhaps of the scraps
and ends of rods and wires flying about us. It is curious that while I
remember the word I cannot recall the idea....

"When I became conscious again the chief thing present in my mind was
that all those fellows round were young soldiers who wouldn