At any moment, too, a U-boat might pop up and either make a target of us for their quick-firer or take us in tow for the Belgian coast, which was uncomfortably near at hand. However, come what might, we were in a mood to fight to a finish. Unfortunately, my wireless transmitter was worked from the engine direct, otherwise I might have rigged up an extempore aerial from the spare reel carried, and sent a "S.O.S." from accumulators. It is doubtful if such a scheme would have proved effective, but it would have been worth trying. But in the circumstances I was helpless. The heat was now simply awful, the sea dead calm. We had taken off our leather coats long since, and now rigged them up across the fuselage overhead, for shelter from the sun's rays. Presently it became so hot and stuffy on the seats that both the pilot and myself took our boots and trousers off, climbed down on the floats, and stretched ourselves along them in the comparative shelter of the wings and fuselage body. The stern part of the floats was, of course, submerged, so we lay with our lower limbs under water, and felt cooler. This we did for about three hours, each of which seemed an age. What with the heat and the want of food, which caused a dull throbbing in my temples, by noon I was in such a state that I did not care what happened to us. The pilot (poor chap) had only recently been married, and he rattled along continually about his young wife. I have no wish to be in like straits again, but if such a misfortune _should_ happen, I earnestly trust I shall not have the misfortune to be beside a young fellow newly wedded! In the long weary time we spent together I had the whole of his history, from childhood to courtship, and I suppose he had mine! What surprised us was the great number of logs floating about. Apparently a timber boat had foundered somewhere close by. Every log that hove in sight through the haze we thought was a ship. It was a terrible time. At intervals we either heard--or imagined we did--the engines of aircraft. Sometimes they seemed all around us; sometimes a long way off. "Our only chance is a relief seaplane being sent after us," said the pilot. "Otherwise we are done for!" There was precious little chance of us ever being spotted, we reckoned, owing to the extremely low visibility. At least a dozen times, as the day wore on, we heard the unmistakable roar of aircraft, and it was torture to listen to them. "It's coming nearer. They will see us!" the pilot would cry, hopefully. Then the sound would recede into the distance, and we would become despondent again. III--"WE WERE FLOATING OVER DYNAMITE" It was extremely irritating, whilst anxiously following these sounds with straining ears, to hear the swish, swish of the water across the floats, the ripple as it rejoined the ocean again, and the creak, creak of the great wings as we rose and fell with a squelch on the gentle undulations of a swell.