Never mind what the deed was. All I will say is that it is comparable to
the glorious feat of Lieutenant WARNEFORD, who bombed the Zeppelin from
above and sent it crashing down. My friend is an aviator too, and since
I am not allowed to describe his great performance in detail let us
pretend that it was an exact replica of the WARNEFORD triumph. Armed
with his bombs he saw the approaching Zepp and flew high, six or seven
thousand feet, to get above it. So far he had merely obeyed the dictates
of his brave impulsive nature. He had given no thought to the chances of
danger or death, but had flown direct to his duty. So far he was
instinctive. But my friend, as well as being unusually brave, is a
singularly retiring kind of man. He hates publicity, ostentation. Very
shy and very quiet, he moves about the world unperceived, and has all
the reluctances of the anchorite. Nothing but his deep feeling about the
War could have got him to do anything as prominent as aviation, so that
it is not unnatural that, as he mounted higher and higher and came
nearer and nearer to the desired point over the Zepp, he should suddenly
realise what it would mean for him if he succeeded in bringing it down.
Not that he had too much time for such reflections, for until the
envelope intervened between him and the Zepp's marksmen he was being
blazed at steadily. Bullets whistled about him. But one thinks swiftly,
and in a flash he saw the extremely distasteful consequences to
humility, and the dislocation of his secluded way of life if, dropping
his bombs accurately, he earned (as he was bound to do) the Victoria
Cross. All this he saw, and was properly furious at his bad luck--at the
trick that destiny had played on him. He then dropped the bombs, the
envelope ignited, and the Zepp, with its crew and its deadly cargo, fell
to earth and was blown to atoms.
Now my point is that for such a hero as my friend, whose whole soul is
to be outraged by publicity and _réclame_, and much of whose dearly
loved privacy is to be lost for ever, there ought to be a V.C. above and
beyond the ordinary V.C.--a super V.C.; for he performed not one deed,
but two: he not only destroyed the Zepp but he surrendered his
sanctuary.
* * * * *
An Exhibition of Mr. Punch's War Cartoons is now being held at the
Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square.
* * * * *