The memory of those wet days! Men of all sorts and conditions exchanging personal experiences: anecdotes of hair-raising escapes from bursting shrapnel shells, thrilling fights with Air Huns, miraculous evolutions in mid-air, and a thousand and one other subjects dear to the heart of the airman. I will here endeavor to relate several of the best stories that have so far come my way, but it is impossible to tell more than five per cent. of them, for their name is Legion.
The first story concerns a well-known aerodrome somewhere in Flanders. The pilots of the station, when the weather was too bad for flying, filled up their spare time by playing football; until one day a wag amongst them suggested that a ball should be blown up as tight as possible; taken up in an aeroplane and dropped on the German lines. This suggestion was duly carried out and the first fine day the ball was put aboard a machine going up the Belgian Coast for a reconnaissance trip. Arrived over the town that had been decided upon, it was dropped overboard, with quite accurate aim into the market square. Seeing this dark awesome object falling through the air and taking it for a bomb the Germans took to their heels. Landing on the cobbled pave, it must have bounced nearly twenty feet into the air, then gradually lower and lower, until at last it rolled into a ditch. Then and only then did the Germans reappear, one fat soldier going over to it and giving it a vicious kick.
An instance of air _camaraderie_ was that of the Bosche who brought Pégoud down after a fight in mid-air. Hearing that he had been killed, and where he was to be buried, he came over and dropped a wreath on the scene of his burial ground--a pretty compliment that was greatly appreciated.
The story concerning Captain M---- is the most striking of the war. Poor fellow, he has since been killed. It happened one very misty morning. M---- was on a reconnaissance trip. His engine failed and had to come down a good ten miles behind their lines. However, he landed safely, and had just burnt his machine, when he saw three dark figures coming up out of the fog, and taking discretion to be the better part of valor he fled, and hid himself in a ditch hard by. He was there for the whole of a day and a night, and it has since been ascertained that there were close on five thousand Bosches searching for him the whole time. When he found the coast was clear, he crept out of the ditch, and marched off boldly down the road until he met a friendly Belgian peasant; from this chap he wheedled an old suit of clothes, and, thus attired, walked on nearly to Lille. Here he acted somewhat foolishly. He boarded a tramcar bound for the city, not knowing where to ask to be put down. The car was full of Prussian officers. The man came for his fare; and for a moment he was nonplussed. Then he had a brain-wave. Remembering that every town in Belgium possesses a glorified market square, he demanded _à la grande place, s’il vous plait_, and pulled out a handful of silver coins to pay the man. Such a thing as a silver coin had not been seen in Lille for months, ever since the Germans had captured it in fact. Fortunately the Prussians were too much occupied in their own conversation to take any notice of _ein schweinhund_ of a Belgian peasant. Arrived in the city, luck again favored him, and he obtained shelter in a garret for three weeks. Then the police grew suspicious, and late one night he was forced to clear out hurriedly. After leaving the city he had a terrible time. He tramped right across Belgium, always at night, and every moment in fear of his life, feeding on anything he could find, crusts and offal thrown to the pigs, and stale bread thrown away by the German soldiers. Footsore, weary, hungry and exhausted he at last arrived at the Dutch frontier. Here occurred another agonizing wait. Again for a day and a night he lay hidden in a ditch, until late that evening the sentry paused on his beat to light his pipe. This was his opportunity. It was a moonlight night. He dashed across the intervening space. The sentry fired three shots and missed each time. He got across Holland, to a seaport town, stowed himself aboard a fishing smack, got to England and reported himself to the astonished officials at the War Office.