At dinner the chief had said to us: "When my lights go out you will know that I am flying as a bird flies _for their lines_!" As we stood there watching his flight his lights went out. That was his signal to us; _his farewell_. But we saw him once more when his swift black plane cut across the disk of the yellow moon.
Then I went up. I rose to a height of 600 meters. I turned my last spiral and put out my lights and the lights fixed to the wings, leaving nothing but the little chart lamp.
The earth lay away below us, vast, dark and still. We heard no sound, we saw no light save the pallid light of the moon. The wind was strong. I had no guiding points. I steered by the stars. As we approached the lines the broad fan of a searchlight fixed upon me. I made a rapid turn. Something was coming. We saw two light-bombs and three golden fusees shooting worms of fire.
After a flight of fifty minutes we reached our objective point. I slowed down and we descended. When 500 meters above the earth we dropped incendiary cans and bombs. A shower of light bombs answered us; they showed us what we were doing and made it easier to do our work. Then the lights of powerful projectors fastened on us. But our work was done, and before long we were over our landing.
The home run before the light wind was a pleasure. _But a man always remembers_, and the thought of the damage I had done haunted me! They fired their cannon. We were so close to them I wondered they did not hit us. On that occasion my big machine did well because my motors were normal. But, to sum it all up in a few words, everything was in my favor this last time. We escaped, and, what is more important, we contributed not a little to the success of the French in Champagne.
_Told by Wilhelm Hegeler, Popular German Novelist_
The strange mixture of races on the western front is here depicted by a noted German author in the form of a prison guard's narrative of his daily life.
There they lie in a gloomy room of the railroad station, the English prisoners, together with their allies from the Old and New Worlds. The room used to be the waiting room for non-smokers, and it is no darker or uglier than any of the other rooms, only it seems so because of its occupants.