The
greeting party, when I landed, consisted of two men: Maurice Southgate and
Auguste Chantraine, mayor of Tendu and counselor for the district. They whistled to find me. It was a dark night and they hadn’t really
seen where I had landed. I whistled
back--a previously agreed-on code of two descending notes--and that’s how they
found me.
Although I
already knew Maurice, we didn't talk about anything at all. Maurice just asked me, "Did you see
where your bags fell?" I said,
"Listen, it was enough working out how I was going to land myself, I've no
idea, I didn't see them." My bags
had fallen in the water. I only managed
to retrieve them three weeks later.
We went to
Chantraine's farm. Maurice accompanied
me to a barn and pointing to a pile of hay said, "Right, you can rest up
there." I climbed the ladder and
settled down on top, completely dressed.
I didn't sleep much. When I came
down, Maurice said, laughing, "You know, you were asleep on a pile of
supplies in there." They were war
supplies of course. There were at least
20 tons stacked under me...
