He looked back, and turned to me dubiously.
"What the blazes is it? It can't be the Westende guns--we're too far
from the coast!"
Then I saw below me three or four shell-bursts leaping out near the
water, not far from two destroyers which were lying below us, small and
slim lines of black on the sparkle of the sea.
"I can't make it out!" he said. "It's very rum. Let's push on!"
Some way ahead of us rose and fell the dark outlines of the two other
Handley-Pages, and we could notice that curious optical delusion of the
air, the apparently slow revolution of their propellers, blade after
blade appearing to go round in a jerky fashion, though in reality they
were whirling invisibly at a speed of 1600 revolutions a minute, or even
more. The only explanation of this spectacle, which can often be seen by
an airman, is that the vibrations of his machine affect his eyes like
the rapid shutters of a cinema camera, and he has continual momentary
glances of the propeller in a fixed position.
Soon we were abreast of Ostend, and we could see the inland lake of its
Bassin de Chasse lying beyond the edge of the coast. We passed Ostend,
and far ahead of me to my right I could see the curve of the Zeebrugge
Mole, very small and dim in the distant haze.
I scanned the sea with my eyes, looking in vain for submarines or
destroyers or seaplanes. No mark of any kind broke the shining surface
of the water. Now and then a triplane or a "D.H._{4}," flying on some
coastwise expedition, slid up to us and dived down past us, or flew a
hundred feet above our heads, showing its distinguishing letters and its
red, white, and blue cockade. The pilot sat beside me, his huge body
almost half out of the machine, his aquiline nose and pronounced chin
driving firmly through the rush of the wind, which flapped and fluttered
our silk caps; the sunlight shone with the pale gold of spring across
our shoulders and arms, and though I was ten miles out to sea in a land
machine off an enemy shore, I felt curiously safe, curiously unafraid.
The sea seemed to be a safeguard. Little did I know that I was passing
over the scene of my midnight tragedy a year later, when I was to regard
the sea in a different aspect--when I was to learn by a bitter lesson
its pitiless power.
The machines in front of us swung round to return. We swung round too,
to give ourselves a chance of gaining height before we were passed. This
was not needed, for to our amusement we saw that whereas, as was only
natural, the other machines had flown up the coast with their nose well
in air, climbing steadily, now they were returning homewards with their
noses well down, getting out of the danger zone (and it _was_ a danger
zone for a slow cumbersome Handley-Page) as quickly as possible.
They passed nearly a thousand feet beneath us, and this time we followed
them easily. When we were almost abreast of the Nieuport piers once more
I suddenly saw a little puff of hard black smoke appear in the air in
front of us. Its clean-cut outlines grew less distinct and more hazy as
it spread and grew thinner. Another puff appeared near it and a little
above it, and in turn began to enlarge and dissipate.
"Why! They're shelling us!" exclaimed my pilot.