Part 7

"Couldn't do it, Jimmy. I'm _awfully_ sorry. It's this beastly signal light system. It isn't direct enough; I wish I could guide you better. It isn't your fault, but I can't stop you in time. I'll try again in a second if you swing her round."

In a great circle we sweep round to our old starting-point, and I get ready to make another attempt.

"I'll try very hard this time, old man. Let's get into the wind as near as we can, and you steer by some light, and I'll try to give as few changes in direction as I can. The worst is, I can't see the beastly aerodrome till we are almost on top of it, and then I can't get a decent 'run'. We must get that front cockpit position!"

I stand up and look over the front, and try to fix the exact position of the aerodrome and its surroundings in relation to the machine.

I hurry into the back and look through the trap-door again. I can hardly see, owing to my running eyes; but I wipe them dry, and look intently ahead in a horribly uncomfortable position, my head and shoulders hanging out of the bottom of the machine. Right ahead of us is the pale shape of the aerodrome. The pilot is flying magnificently. We are moving steadily forwards. As we draw nearer, I wriggle back into the machine and look down the bomb-sight. The thin direction-bar lies right across the aerodrome. I joyously press the middle button, so that the white light laughs out: "Good! Good! Good!" into the pilot's face. We begin to drift slightly to the right. I do not touch the key-board, but stand up and push my body forwards beside the pilot and shout furiously--

"Turn her very slightly to the left, Jimmy! We're doing fine! We'll get her this time! I'll press central when we're on it."

In a flash I am underneath the seat and looking at the bomb-sight. It swings slowly, slowly to the left. Just before it arrives over the aerodrome I press the white light button deliberately. The movement stops, and the bomb-sight begins to creep steadily forwards over the hangars and surface of the aerodrome. With my anxieties past I have a wonderful feeling of relaxation and happy excitement. Just before the two luminous range-bars actually touch the edge of the line of hangars, I grasp the bomb-handle and begin to press it forward slowly. I hear the sharp clatter of opening and closing of the bomb-doors behind me, and I see two plump bombs go tumbling downwards below the machine. Again, and a third and a fourth time, I press forward the bomb-handle, and can feel the little drags on it as I release bomb after bomb. I look behind, and see that they are all gone. I shine my torch through the racks to make sure, and I see the gunlayer busy with his torch also. I look below through the door, and see four or five bomb-flashes leap out across the aerodrome, while behind them lies apparently the smoke of others near the hangars. I slam the door to with a feeling of thankfulness, and get back to my seat.

"All gone, Jimmy! No 'hang-ups.' You did jolly well; they went right across the aerodrome. Let's push north-west back to the coast. I'm absolutely frozen."

I have a hurried look at my pressure-dials, to see that they are all right; and when I have adjusted them, I uncork my Thermos flask, have a comforting drink of hot tea, and eat some chocolate. I beat my gloved hands together and try to restore the circulation, and stamp my feet on the floor. Feeling tired and cold, I sit on my seat with my head on my breast, feeling languid and limp after the subconscious strain.

Towards the distant coast-line, with its steady flickers of lights at Ostend and Blankenberghe, we move, forgetting already the place on which we have just dropped our bombs. The turmoil of Bruges has subsided--only two wary searchlights stand sentinel at either side of the town, alert and scarcely moving. Those two are enough to give us warning, however, and we sweep to the left to leave the simmering inferno well to our starboard.

Below lies the pallid moonlit country,--field and forest, chateau and canal,--clearly etched in a soft black pattern of shadows and dim light. Far, far to the south Ypres flashes and flares on the horizon, with its night-long artillery fire.

Now that our job is done, we are not so fearful of being over enemy country, partly because we are used to it by now, and partly because we are leaving the interior farther and farther behind us, minute by minute, as the coast-line draws nearer.

Unexpectedly I notice below the machine a curious white patch on the face of the country. Then I see others behind it, and realise that the coast-line is becoming swiftly blotted out under a layer of clouds.

"Jimmy! Look--clouds! We'll have to go carefully," I remark, and have a look at the compass. "Let's turn a bit more south-east, and we are bound to see Ostend."

We turn swiftly, and in a few minutes are above a white carpet of cloud, through which, to my joy, I can see very hazily the flashing light of Blankenberghe to my right. Over towards Zeebrugge rise a few parting strings of green balls as the last British machine turns out to sea.

For ten minutes we fly on by compass, which I check by the coldly glittering North Star, that shines faithfully for us high in the deep blue of the sky.

Then I see, running to and fro, and round and round, on the carpet of the clouds, little circles of light. Now and then one comes to a rift on the bank, and for a moment a beam of light shoots up into the sky, only to vanish again. The Ostend searchlights are vainly looking for us; our engines have been heard.

Now we are approaching a new formation of clouds, lovely towering masses of cumulus, pearl-white in the light of the moon. Over an unreal world of battlement and turret, of mountain summit and gloomy valley, we move in a splendid loneliness beneath the scattered stars. This billowy world of soft and silvery mountain ranges is made the more strange by the restless discs of radiance which run and swoop and circle and dance in a mad maze of movement across the curving pinnacles and ravines. Now and again a searchlight, striking into the heart of some towering summit of cloud, illuminates it with a glorious radiance, so that it seems for a moment to be woven of the fabric of light.

Suddenly the scene becomes even more fantastic, for in one place on the clouds appears a spot of vivid green. The spot of light spreads and spreads until it is a circle of emerald light, a mile or more in diameter, and from the extreme centre appears a ball of brilliantly green fire which pops out of it quickly, to be followed by another and another, until the whole chain of beads have freed themselves from the entanglements of the vapour and rush gaily upwards high over our heads, to end their brief career in a lovely splendour above the milk-white billows of the cloudy sea.

Another point of cloud glows green, there is another swiftly expanding circle of colour, and another string of these quaint gems float upwards in a swaying curve. The sight is one of such exquisite loveliness that it is difficult to describe it. It is all so beautiful--the star-scattered vault of night, gold flowers in a robe of deepest blue: the soft white wonder of the rolling clouds, mile upon mile, as far as you can see, moonlit and magic, a playground for the gambolling figures of light which, like a host of Tinker Bells, rush deliriously from side to side, climb up hills and slide down valleys, and jump excitedly from peak to peak: the expanding flowers of emerald light from whose heart rise the bizarre bubbles of scintillating brilliance, to live through a few glorious seconds of ecstatic motion before they die in the immensity of the night.

It is a scene of a strange and ever-altering beauty, and one that very few eyes have seen. It is a world beyond the borders of the unreal. Forgotten is the material country of fields and forests far below--as forgotten as it is unseen. To a paradise of vague moon-kissed cloud we have drifted, and float, dreaming, between the stars of heaven and the purgatory beneath.

Then for a moment a great rift in the barrier appears beneath us. Across the dark space with its edges of ragged white lie two hard beams of light. Then we see, far below, a chain of green balls rush up from the darkness, and as they appear they light up a great circle of the earth, and slowly there appears nearly the whole of Ostend lit up by a ghostly greenish light. I see the shining sea, the line of the shore broken by the groins, and the huddled roofs of the houses. For a moment the scene is clear and distinct, then with the upward course of the balls of light it dies away, and the two searchlights throw blinding bands across a pool of obscurity.

What we have seen, however, is a sufficient guide. We know we are above the coast. The machine swings to the left, and above the rippling spots of light we roar on westwards. Soon we leave this fantastic dancing floor behind us, and, seeing through the misty curtains a watery glow of white light blossom out into a hazy gleam and fade away, we know that we are somewhere near the lines.

Onwards we fly, watching the compass, watching the North Star, watching the pale veils of vapour beneath us. The cloud barrier grows thinner, and more and more rifts appear in it. About ten minutes after we have passed the lines, we see ahead of us a pale searchlight flash in the masses of cloud, now shooting up through a gap, now losing itself in the lighted edges of a floating wisp. It flashes three times, and stops. Again it appears, three times stabbing the sky, challenging us with the "letter of the night" in Morse code.

I load my Very's light pistol and fire it over the side. A green light drifts down and dies. The searchlight goes out; we fly on.

"That light is somewhere near Furnes, Jimmy. Let's put our navigation lights on now; I'll try and pick up some landmark below,--the coast if I can ... it's awfully thick to-night!"

Beneath in the murk I can see now and again a twinkling light, and then, to my delight, I pick up the shore. We fly on above it for a quarter of an hour. Then the pilot begins to get anxious.

"Can you see Dunkerque yet, old man? We ought to be there!" he asks.

I look below, and see sand-dunes and the unbroken coast running a little way on either side into the mist, which has now taken the place of the cloud.

"Can't quite make out, Jimmy. We had better fly on a bit. We must be past La Panne!"

For four or five minutes we fly on. Once I lose sight of the coast, and ask the pilot to turn to the right, not telling him the reason. To my relief I pick it up again before he suspects that I am lost.

"Anything in sight yet, Bewsh?" he asks. "We must be up near Dunkerque by now. We can't have passed it!"

Still the unbroken coast below.

"I'd better fire a light," I suggest.

"All right," he says. "Carry on--stop a minute, though! We _are_ over the lines, aren't we?"

"We _must_ be ... I think. We passed Nieuport miles back. I can't make out where we are. I'll give a white!"

I load my Very's light pistol and fire it over the side. A ball of white fire drifts below towards the mocking emptiness of the mist. I stand up and look all around. Through the haze comes no welcome gleam.

"No answer, Jimmy! What _shall_ we do? If we go on we'll get miles down towards Calais! If we go back, we get over the lines. Go up and down here, and I'll try to find Dunkerque--it _must_ be somewhere near!"

I fire another white light, and then another. No answer comes from the ground. No searchlights move across the sky. All we can see is a vague circle, bisected by the coast-line--one half being sea, the other half sand-dunes.

Then, in my excitement, I accidentally fire a Very's light inside the machine. The ball of blazing fire rushes frantically round our feet and up and down the floor. I hurriedly stamp it out amidst the curses of the pilot, who says later that in my eagerness I picked it up and threw it over the side.

Now I press a brass key inside the machine which operates our big headlight. R-O-C-K-E-T-S, I flash piteously; and again, _Rockets_. Another Very's light I fire, and then click and clatter the key, "_Please fire rockets_"; and again, "_Rockets--we are lost!_"

"What shall we do?" asks the pilot in a hopeless voice. "Shall we land on the beach? I am getting fed up!"

"Just a second--I'll ask Wade."

I climb into the back and flash my torch through the bomb-racks. I see the face of the gunlayer in the ray of light. Pushing my head and shoulders into the maze of framework, I shout out at the top of my voice. The gunlayer shakes his head. I go forward and ask the pilot to throttle down a little.

The noise of the engine dies away. I hurry back and shout out again.

"Can you make out where we are, Wade? I'm quite lost. Have we got to Dunkerque?"

"Don't know, sir. I don't think so! I can't make out at all!"

I climb back into my seat, and say--

"Put the engines on again! It's no good. He doesn't know either! I don't know _what_ to do!"

The key taps once more the vain appeal. Again and again I fire a white light. The floor round my feet is strewn with the empty cartridge cases of brown cardboard. I feel depressed and tired and irritable. What a silly end to a raid, it seems, to lose yourself right over your own aerodrome! It is undignified. I am ashamed to have had to ask the gunlayer where we are. I feel a pretty poor observer.

Then I see in the mist a little ahead of me a white light rise up and die away.

"Look, Jimmy! A white light! Good! They've seen us at last!"

But the pilot is not so trustful, and says--

"You're quite sure it isn't the _lines_?"

"Oh no! I'm sure! Throttle down a bit and glide that way!"

As we draw nearer I suddenly see the two piers of Dunkerque and the docks materialise in the mist, and on the other side the dull glow of landing flares from an aerodrome.

"No! It's _not_ Ostend! It's all right, old man! There's St Pol! I'll fire another white!"

I fire for the last time, and scarcely has my ball of light died out before the answering signal soars up from the ground.

The engines are throttled, and we drift downwards on our whistling planes over the long basins of the Dunkerque docks. When we are about a hundred feet off the ground I press a small brass stud in front of me. A white glare of light bursts out under our right wing tip and throws a quivering radiance on the dyke round the aerodrome, on the hangars, and on the landing field itself, at the end of which are two or three red lights. We sweep gently on the surface of the ground, and before we have stopped rolling forwards, a little figure runs towards us flashing a light, and we hear its voice call--

"Turn to the left soon. The ground is full of bomb-holes ... where those red lights are!"

Guided by the figure on the ground we "taxi" up to the hangars and stop our engines. In a second I am on the ground.

"Didn't you see our Very lights?" I asked almost rudely. "Didn't you see us flashing signals? I signalled Rockets--rockets--rockets--till my hand ached! We got lost. We were going to land on the beach. Why didn't you help us?"

"We _wondered_ what you were doing. We saw you firing lights on the other side of Dunkerque! But, I say, things have been humming here since you left!"

I can find no admiring audience for the experiences of the raid. Every one is eager to describe the German attack.

"By Jove! you were lucky to be away to-night!" says one. "They've been bombing us ever since you left. They must have dropped a couple of hundred during the night. No damage was done. The C.O. nearly got hit. He lay flat and one burst on either side of him. All the time you were bombing them they were bombing us!"

No one wants to hear our adventures. It is human nature all over again. They want to tell us what happened to them.

"Off Ostend we saw one of their patrols. It had a whacking big----"

"But you should have heard them whistling. Bob and I were talking outside the mess, when suddenly we heard----"

"We got over the clouds coming back. You ought to have seen the----"

"You've _missed_ something, ... and I reckon you're lucky! The noise was terrible!"

And so on, and so on goes the one-sided conversation of the two self-centred groups!

So ended a raid which is to my mind very unsatisfactory. I realise that we have to learn by experience, and I feel that to-night I have been taught a great deal. I am determined to have the bomb-sight and bomb-handle fitted in the front cockpit, so that with a splendid field of vision I can steer the pilot by the direct wave of my hand, by means of which I will be able to show emphasis or the reverse. The personal touch is essential. I will also be able to watch the enemy's defences and to counter them as much as possible.

In my next chapter I hope to show how this worked out in practice, and what it was like to attack a volcano such as Bruges.

VI.

BRUGES.

"Sleep on, pale Bruges, beneath the waning moon, For I must desecrate your silence soon, And with my bombs' fierce roar and fiercer fire Grim terror in your tired heart inspire; For I must wake your children in their beds And send the sparrows fluttering on the leads."

--_The Bombing of Bruges._

Overhead sounds the beating of many engines, and here and there across the stars I can see moving lights. The first two or three machines are already up. The carry-on signal has been given. A machine which has just left the aerodrome passes a few hundred feet overhead with a roar and a rush. Its dark shape blots out the stars, and I can see the long blue flames pouring back from the exhaust-pipes of the engines.

I walk along the dim path and a shadowy figure meets me.

"Is that you, Dowsing?" I ask, recognising my servant.

"Yes, sir!"

"I'm just off on a raid. Fill my hot-water bottle about quarter-past nine, and put it right at the bottom of the bed. If you think the fire too hot move my pyjamas back a little."

"Good luck, sir!"

I pass on to the aerodrome. To the right is the mess, near which is the control platform where the raid officer stands all night despatching machines and "receiving" them as they return. A crowd of officers and men, wrapped in heavy overcoats, stand in groups watching the departure of the machines. In the middle of the aerodrome shine the lights of the landing T of electric-light bulbs laid across the grass. To the left are the vast hulks of the hangars, in front of which are lined up the machines yet to go.

Passing by two machines whose engines are running, I come to my own. Under its nose stand half a dozen mechanics. One hands me a piece of paper.

"Wind report, sir!"

Flashing my torch on it I see it is a report of the speed and direction of the wind at different heights up to 10,000 feet, information which has been obtained by a small meteorological balloon whose drift has been watched through an instrument on the ground.

Among the mechanics stands another figure as heavily muffled as myself.

"Are you my rear gunlayer?" I ask him.

"Yes, sir! Mr Jones told me to...."

The engine just above our heads is started up with a sudden deafening thunder. I take the gunlayer by the sleeve towards the tail to hear his message.

"Oh! Yes! You have never been on a raid. I'll tell you what to do. I warn you Bruges is pretty hot, but, touch wood" (the tail-plane is near), "if we are lucky we will come through. Mr Jones is a very good pilot, and _I_ don't like taking any risks. Don't you get worried. It will be all right. You know all about the Lewis guns, don't you? Good! Well, if a German searchlight holds us, open fire on it at once. Only if it _holds_ us, mind, not if it merely tries to find us, or the tracer bullets will give us away. If a German scout attacks us, open fire on him at once with your machine-gun. When I have dropped my bombs--you will be able to see me in the front cockpit--shine your torch on the back to see whether any have hung up. If one has stuck in the back racks near you, get him through somehow,--stand on him if necessary. If you want to say anything to me flash your torch over the top of the fuselage--you know Morse code, don't you?--and I will answer you back in Morse code. You'd better get in the back now. Don't worry! If you feel frightened, remember I am just as frightened as you--if not more!"

He walks up towards the nose of the machine, stoops under the tail to the rear of the main planes, and climbs up into his little platform in the back. I walk round the wings to the front of the machine and, facing the two propellers, walk slowly and carefully between their two whirring discs until I come to the little step-ladder under the triangular door on the floor. I walk up it, and with a certain amount of difficulty work my unwieldy body and my various impedimenta through it, assisted by the two engineers who have been starting up the engines from inside.

I suddenly remember the wind report, so I climb into the front cockpit, and, shining my torch on the bomb-sight fixed in front of the extreme nose, adjust it in accordance with the report, for I know from which height I intend to drop my bombs--that height being the greatest possible, as we are going to Bruges.

As I am turning the little milled adjusting wheels, the machine on our right moves off with a sudden roar of power. I hurry back and sit beside the pilot.

"Are you all right now, Paul?" he asks. "We are next off."

A wave of noise sweeps over to us from the middle of the aerodrome as the next ahead, gathering speed, rushes across the aerodrome. We both watch it with slowly turning heads.

Gradually the machine rises, and with a change of note roars up into the sky above the farm buildings to the left.

A series of flashes from a signalling-lamp on the control platform. It is the _next-machine-away_ signal. The pilot at once opens up the engines. We move slowly across the grass, bumping and swaying as we pass over the uneven ground. When we come to the end of the landing T, the starboard engine is put on, and we swing round to the left till the line of electric lights stretches ahead of us. The noise of the engine dies away. The pilot takes his goggles out of a wooden box, which he hands to me, and snaps them over his eyes. He straps himself in his seat with a safety-belt, and pulls on a pair of fur-covered gloves.

"You quite ready, old man?" he asks.

"Yes!"

"We'll start off now! I think it will be all right; don't you?"

"Yes!"

Soon we are off the ground. Below the wings streak the little lights of the cross-bar of the landing T. I can see the illuminated blades of grass round the bulbs. We climb up and up, and clear with ease the roofs of the farm buildings. Over the tall trees lining each side of a wide canal we pass, and beneath us lie the coruscating scarlet and white lights of a railway junction. I can see the fiery red smoke of a locomotive moving down one line of tracks.

"What a target!" says the pilot. "Have a look at the engines!"

I switch on my torch and shine it on to the two engines, to see whether the sinister white scarves of steam and water are sweeping back from the top of the radiators. Fortunately, to-night the engines are working splendidly. If either engine were to be boiling, after one or two efforts to prevent it, the pilot would land the machine at once. If not, disaster would probably follow, as it did during my last terrible raid.

For a while, as ever, I am a little nervous of looking below. I prefer to hunch myself inside the big collar of my overall suit, and to make continual adjustments of the petrol pressure, which is recorded on two little dials whose pointers move slowly forwards or backwards in accordance with my opening of the release or the pressure tap.