CHAPTER XIII

A BALLOON-TRIP BY NIGHT

Imagine a great bare meadow-land, lonely, wind-swept, and dark with inky blackness, out of which there plunges an occasional hurrying figure, that misses one by inches and passes on with a muttered oath. In the background, tall and sinister, two large gasometers. In the center of the field a wide tarpaulin laid along the ground, and edged by a circle of sand-bags, from the midst of which there rises a great round shape, like a mammoth tomato.

It is the balloon not yet fully inflated, fed by two curling rubber tubes, that disappear in the direction of the gasworks. We are waiting, waiting patiently until she fills. Blackened, distorted shapes, that stand around in eerie circle, and at the sudden gruff command of a hoarse voice that booms ever and anon out of the voids of darkness, seize each a heavy sandbag and slowly and clumsily lower it mesh by mesh in the netting that covers the balloon.

At last she is filled. The car is attached below, as rapidly and securely as the faint and flickering light of a stable lamp will allow of. The crew tumble in, one on top of another. She is let up only to be pulled down again with a nerve-racking bump. The gruff voice decides that she is now ready to get off; there is a slight slackening of ropes, an almost imperceptible lift, the figures on the ground recede rapidly, grotesque shadows in the darkness, and the lights begin to disappear one by one.

We rise to a ticklish situation; there are tall trees, factory-chimneys, and protruding roofs all waiting calm and invisible in the night, to be crashed into and collided with. But all these obstacles we may miss if we have only sufficient preparatory lift. We are all silent and cowed, trying to make out each other’s faces. There is a sudden tearing sound. The craft lurches like a drunken man and we are thrown a struggling breathless mass into a corner. But the suspense is only momentary. By a miracle of grace, she frees herself from the branches of a tree, and soars rapidly heavenwards.

Eagerly we watch the glimmering, winding streak of gray that is the river, and our only visible landmark; apparently we are making off in a north and west direction. Once out of the shelter of the houses and the trees, the breeze is stiffish: in fact, considerably more so than was expected.

What is this sensation like? Dark to the left of us, dark to the right of us, dark on top of us, and darker below us; in a frail uncontrollable craft, that drifts aimlessly and helplessly before every varying wind of the heavens. Unlike the aeroplane the passage is easy and pleasant, free from noise and we know we are flying. North and west, but the first change of the wind, and we will be bowling along merrily in quite another direction.

It is quiet, intensely quiet, no motion of any kind to be felt. But where are we? Occasionally we discover a small patch of light that may be a village, again a larger patch, evidently of a town. We watch the altimeter with as much loving care, as a mother would her child, for it is our sole deliverer from destruction. How it varies: now it is 8000 feet, now 2500. If possible, we try to keep above the latter level. The surface of the country is unfortunately not too level, and as the altimeter registers height above sea and not land level, allowance must be made. Ballast is ready to hand for emergency uses.

At last the depressing silence is broken; one youth, wiser than his years, has remembered to provide himself with food. It is handed round, and over beef sandwiches we get communicative. It gives us fresh life and inspires one of the party with a humorous turn of mind, to recite with great vividness and vivacity all the alarming accidents that have befallen night-balloonists, concluding with an impious hope, “that we likewise may have some fun.”

We get it!

Happily, as we are wallowing in the throes of this most dismal expectancy, the conversation is turned by an eager and heated discussion between two younger members of the party, as to the merits and demerits of their respective musical-comedy idols (female). The argument grows in intensity. But we have neglected to watch the altimeter. Out of the inky darkness below there rushes a volcano of spark and flame. It is a railway-train speeding on through the night. Sheepishly we discover that we are only 800 feet, and wonder unpleasantly what might have been.

On and on through the night. Now we are getting tired; there are suggestions that we should land, but they are overruled. Coming down again to 800 feet, we catch sight of a wide glimmering sheet of water. Maps are seized in a hasty impulse to guess our whereabouts. The argument grows heated, for similar stretches of water there are, alike in Essex, Kent, Surrey, Middlesex and Berkshire: in fact, in every one of the Home Counties, and for the matter of that in the Midlands, and likewise in every county in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

The argument abates, our eyes grow weary and more weary. It seems a life-time since we last saw the pleasant and undulating lines of the earth. One or two heads are already nodding, when there is a sudden shout of “the dawn.” Instantly all are wide awake. There sure enough, are the first few streaks of gray creeping slowly across the eastern sky; without even that, it would be an obvious matter, by reason of that intense cold, which, in the air, always precedes the hour of daybreak and freezes us to the bone.

It would be an inadequate expression to say that dawn in the air is beautiful. It is more than beautiful, it is wonderful. It is more than wonderful, it is unusual; a view only to be enjoyed by the minority, and that of the smallest. Gradually earth and sky begin to dissemble. In tint the picture is white, black, gray, blue, crimson, golden, purple, green and every other color--now like a painter’s canvas smudged with regular irregularities, edged with red and gray, now an animated panorama stirring with resuscitated life. The sun rises, a ball of flame above the horizon, lighting up the rotund shape of the balloon with an unearthly hue.

We say nothing, but look and marvel; a word would be out of place in this sacred and awesome stillness. Suddenly we are roused by a cry, more, much more, alarming than the last.

The sea! We are almost on top of it. In shimmering, level surface it stretches on into obscurity. We are lost. We cannot avoid it, yet less can we land thereon. One of the crew loses his head. He snatches the thin red tape that hangs down from the envelope. There is a tearing, rending sound.

He has ripped the balloon at 2000 feet. Pious prayers and curses intermingle. Down she sinks, with a great hole rent in her side--down and down, faster and faster. Over go the bags of ballast, one after another. Now all have been dropped. She slackens speed; but only momentarily. Down she goes again, the upward current of air whistles unpleasantly through the rigging. In a last feverish effort boots are unlaced and hurled overboard, together with coats and every portable object to hand.

Too late. We hit the edge of a cliff; bounce back several feet into the air, then sink down on to the beach below. Another crash, again we are bundled and bounced about in the confined space of the car. The sand gets in our ears and eyes and mouths. The balloon lies along the sand a woebegotten shape, as flat as a pancake. When we eventually sort ourselves out, we find luckily, that there is but one casualty: a broken wrist, sustained by the foolish idiot that ripped! Just retribution!

And to end the adventure, a stolid British policeman, ponderous official-looking note-book in hand, approaches and demands our names and addresses, and asks if we are of British nationality!