"Towards the silver glittering sea we go
And cross the foam-streaked coast, and leave behind
The fields...."
--_Crossing the Channel._
In the train on the way to Dover my pilot told me, with a dismal
expression over-shadowing his face, a piece of bad news.
"Do you know," he said, "while we were on leave a Handley got shot down
off Zeebrugge! ---- was the pilot, and I think he was drowned. One
gunlayer was saved, badly wounded. A French seaplane which picked up the
other got shot down too! We were well off at Luxeuil!"
With this discouraging information, casting a gloom over the immediate
outlook, we crossed the Dover Straits by destroyer, and arrived at the
aerodrome to find it busy with these daylight patrols.
My pilot had no machine in action, so, though he was not wanted, I was
allocated to a machine on the first patrol that took place. There was a
certain amount of concern at the aerodrome in connection with the
missing pilot, who was very popular, and I was glad to hear that we were
to be accompanied by a patrol of triplanes. This was good news.
One of the pilots, who had been on a daylight Handley-Page patrol, had
described it in his inimitable way as follows:--
"We were tooling along merrily, about ten miles off the coast, when a
Hun seaplane came up from Ostend--a nasty little green blighter. A
'tripe' just turned round--just turned round, mind you, and the Hun
seaplane looked at him and went down quick. When we were off Zeebrugge,
Sinjy, my observer, saw some little specks off the Mole. Of course he
wanted to have a look at them--he is a full-out beggar--said they were
Hun torpedo-boats. We turned on and flew right towards the coast. Sinjy
was full out and got ready to drop the bombs. Then he decided they were
just trawlers. It was just in time, then--_woof_--about a hundred
shells burst all at once just behind our tail. Every battery on the
coast must have opened fire at once. They were just waiting for us to
come right in and then let go. I shoved the nose down to 80 knots and
shifted like smoke out to sea!"
That was very encouraging, especially the part about the triplanes, so
really I felt very anxious to go, although I was frightened. I have
often felt this mingled eagerness and apprehension, and I have come to
the conclusion that although I do not want to do the job, I want to have
_done_ it, to have had so much more experience behind me. Perhaps this
is the impulse behind so many deeds done against personal inclinations.
You think far enough ahead to realise how pleasant your feelings will be
when you have passed through some danger or some excitement.
One afternoon, after many delays, we started on a coastal patrol. The
machine had a crew of five: the pilot, a tremendous fair-haired fellow,
resolute and impulsive, a real Viking, who towered above me, and three
gunlayers, one in the front and two behind. We carried a small load of
bombs, and were under orders to bomb any vessel which was attacked by
the leading machine, and were also told that no vessel this side of the
Nieuport piers, the seaward end of the lines, was to be touched.
The flight was a small one, of three machines only, and the leading
machine was distinguished by white streamers attached to the outside
struts of the starboard and port wings.
It was a sunny day when we left the ground, and rose up in great circles
over the huddled red roofs of Dunkerque, and the pink-and-white seaside
suburb of Malo-les-Bains.
The leading machines started to fly down the coast towards the lines
before we had gained any height at all. Our engines were running badly,
and we were well below the other machines, so the pilot asked me what I
thought.
"Leave it to you!" I said--one half of me whispering "Go back!" the
other half whispering "Push on!"
"Well, I'll see!" he said, as he pulled back the control wheel almost as
far as he dared without "stalling" the machine. The engines complained;
the finger of the speed indicator wobbled undecidedly about 48 miles an
hour, and the height indicator slowly moved to 4000 feet.
So we passed over La Panne, as the two leaders flew bravely along the
coast soaring upwards like swallows, while we followed gamely but
ignobly behind. When we could distinctly see the Nieuport piers and the
Belgian Hoods stretching down towards Dixmude, the leader turned out to
sea. Then to our joy he evidently realised our plight, for instead of
flying on at an angle away from the coast, he swept round in a big
circle to give us a chance to rise up to his level. Then he turned once
more out to sea, the second machine followed him, and we, still many
hundred feet below them, straggled behind.
Above us now flew, gleaming white against the blue afternoon sky,
several triplanes, whose flashing wings brought us their message of
protection. The outlook did not seem so bad after all. The pilot, in a
red silk pirate cap with its tassel blown out by the wind, looked down
at me smiling. I wore a blue silk cap and was wearing an ordinary
overcoat and a muffler, and my thin walking shoes looked very silly
hanging a few inches off the floor in that great machine. The sunlight
came streaming into the cockpit, the sea glittered with a friendly
spaciousness beneath us, and this voyage in the wind seemed a pleasant
spring adventure far from the dangers of war.
We steadily drew away from the coast, whose misty outline lay some way
below us to our right. When we were abreast of the Nieuport piers, and
were about to cross into enemy waters, we could scarcely see more than
the edge of the shore and a mile or so of country inland.
When we had flown on for a few minutes more, I heard a sudden loud
crash. At once I looked to the engine to see if its indicators gave hint
of trouble. They were quite normal. Then I looked back and saw, through
the square framework of the tail, a cloud of smoke.