We are in luck’s way, however; for presently the guns are all silenced. The searchlights go out one by one. All becomes quiet and dark, dismally dark. We cruise around for another ten minutes or so, then descend cautiously and gradually. With one eye glued to the altimeter, to make certain of the height, I peer over the side with the other to pick up the first sign of lights or landmarks.
Eight thousand feet! Seven thousand feet! Getting horribly cold! Six thousand! Five thousand! Shall we never get down? Four thousand! Three thousand! it seems like an age. Two thousand! One thousand! Cautiously now or our necks will be broken!
At last we are safe back on Mother Earth again, and very thankfully seek the refuge of our beds!
_Somewhere in the North of France, Saturday._
To-day our special delight has been a bombardment from enemy aeroplanes.
They came over about noon and roused the fearful and subdued the proud while we were all at lunch. They circled overhead for about five minutes, dropped a dozen or so bombs, then cleared off hurriedly before our own men had time to get away.
One man here had a most ingenious “funkhole” for aerial bombardment. He utilized a large stone drain-pipe for this purpose, and it was his custom when enemy aircraft were reported to be in sight to crawl into this thing, take a book with him, and calmly read until they had taken their departure. He advertised this comic shelter one day as:--
“A novel bijou residence, completely detached, every convenience, within easy reach of the firing line. Bullets and bombs pass the door every few moments.”
Figuratively speaking, our mission was target-registering.
But having previously heard that the “mother” (naval 9:2-inch gun) with which we were to have worked was incapacitated, and the afternoon being fine and sunny, we determined to seek adventure further afield, and turning her nose in a south-easterly direction kept straight on.
“Am making for Dixmude to see if we can raise a Hun or two.”
This latter by means of a note passed over my shoulder by the pilot. And here let it be said that a proper understanding between pilot and observer is one of the essential features of war flying. What the latter misses the former often picks up, for when flying at high altitudes of over 10,000 feet, field-glasses for observation purposes, with the excessive vibration of the engine, are at first very difficult to manipulate.