The searchlights do not go out, and, assisted by our green light, sweep
on to the machine.
The pilot begins to get really angry.
"Hell to them! What is the matter? Look at them--right on the machine.
Fire a green, and keep on firing them! They are giving away our course
and position. I'll get some devil shot for this when I land ... give
them another ... that's right! What is the matter with them?"
So he storms on, ablaze with a natural anger. The searchlights lose us.
We are now about three miles from the lines, so the pilot presses a
switch on the dashboard, which extinguishes the wing and tail navigation
lamps.
Below us the reflection of a drooping star-shell on the waters of the
floods rises towards its falling counterpart, and as they meet I can
almost imagine that I hear the hiss of the burning globe of light.
Another star-shell rises below us throwing a brilliant radiance over a
circle of flood and water-filled shell-holes and a twisted line of
trench. In turn it sinks quivering to death. Two sharp red flashes leap
up in the dim country beyond the German lines, and in a few seconds I
see, on the ground beneath, the swift flash of the bursting shell, and
another near beside it. In one place is a faint red glow where perhaps
some wretched soldier tries to keep warm by a fire in some inconceivable
shelter in the mud. Glad am I to be an airman, well-clad, well-fed, and
warm in my sheltered aeroplane, with the thought of the welcoming fire
and white sheets and hot-water bottle which will greet me when I return,
to buoy me onwards through the momentary discomforts of a few hours in
the air! As I see the water-filled shell-holes shining in the moonlight
like strings of pearls, and picture the cold and the mud and the
desolation, I realise that it is the infantryman, the man on the ground,
who suffers most and has the worst time. I snuggle up in my warm furs
at the very thought of the misery which is not mine.
We hang right above the lines now. Over the wings I see the faint
quivering glare of light, cast upwards by some star-shell far below over
the lonely floods. In front of us two sharp flashes again appear on the
German side of the lines, to be later answered by the flame of two
bursting shells on the ground behind us.
We turn to the right, and for a little while fly along over the lines
looking for a landmark to help us onwards. Though we know the way well
enough, and could travel to Bruges by instinct, we know by experience
that it is best to travel along some fairly well-defined route in order
to keep a close check on our position in case at any time we get lost,
or fall into any trouble.
Soon we see the circular mass of poor Dixmude--shell-shattered and
mutilated--lying at the landward end of the black waters. Stretching
eastwards from it, into the heart of the German territory, is the thin
line of a railway. We sweep to the left and fly eastwards again, leaving
the lines steadily behind us.
A few minutes pass, and then we see to our left the two mighty beams of
the Ghistelles lights stab upwards into the night, and move slowly and
with an uncanny deliberation across the sky. There is something
strangely alive about these searchlights. They appear to have a volition
of their own. They seem to be seeking the hidden terror of the gloom
with their own intellect. Look at them! They lean over towards one
corner of the sky--keen swords of blue white steel, piercing upwards
fifteen thousand feet of darkness. They have heard something: they are
suspicious. In that one corner they move, sweeping, sweeping, through a
small area. They wait motionless, then again they hear the faint hum of
the hidden traveller; again they stalk wearily with tense eager arms,
strained with the expectation of touching the evil presence for which so
anxiously they grope. Suddenly one swings over a vast segment of the sky
with a hurried gesture. Does some new menace approach--or is it
deceived? It sweeps uncertainly for a few moments, and then darts back
to join its companion who has not been faithless to his steady
conviction. Look at them, slowly rising more and more upright as the
unseen machine draws more and more above their heads! You can imagine
them following the object of their hate, growing ever angrier as they
fail to discover it. Then--look! look! half-way up the beam there is a
spot of light! They have found the elusive night-bird! The other beam
leaps over to it with a vicious grip and holds it too. See the two beams
crossed like a gigantic pair of scissors, and in the hinge a white speck
whose quickening movement is followed, followed, followed by the
inexorable tentacles.
Flash, flash ... flash. Shell upon shell bursts, sullen and angry,
above, below, on either side of the blinded bird, lit up so clearly and
helplessly. Spurt, spurt, spurt of flame on the ground! A few seconds
pass like the ticking of a clock--flash, flash, flash--the answering
shells burst into brilliance near the crossing of the two beams.
"Oh! Look, Jimmy! They've got somebody over Ghistelles! By Jove! They
_have_ got him too. He is not going to escape. They are giving him hell.
Look! I say ... That was a close enough one ... and another! He _is_
having a rough time! Wonder who it is!... Bombs! Look--one, two, three,
four! He is dropping them on the aerodrome--probably had engine failure,
and wants to get back!"
Faster and faster moves the little bright spot in the searchlight as the
anxious pilot pushes the wheel farther and farther forward. Still the
searchlights follow it, and now lean at a wide angle over towards the
lines. Then the beams of light begin to move irregularly. They have lost
their prey. Still they grope towards the west, but now they sweep up and
down, and to right and left, vainly trying to recapture the intended
victim, which has freed itself. They can still hear him, for they lie
over towards our direction, moving but slightly in their restless
probing into the obscurity of the night, which, with friendly darkness,
hides their home-bound enemy from their useless eyes.
With gladness I witness the fortunate escape, and once more turn to my
own work. In front of us now stands a challenging sentinel--the solitary
beam of Thorout.
It is but a pallid and slender blade, moving uncertainly across the dark
depths of the sky, and scarcely to 10,000 feet does its menace seem to
reach. It is an almost negligible threat--yet I feel uneasy. The fear of
the searchlight, of being clutched by a hand of light, overcomes me.
"That's Thorout, Jimmy! Shall we push on? Let's throttle and turn!" I
suggest, looking sideways at my pilot's face.
"Oh! Not yet! We will go right ahead!" he answers.
Steadily forwards we fly, and it is easy to see how, with the ever more
distinct roar of our engines, the searchlight becomes more excited and
more eager to find us. Nearer and nearer, with a slow beat from side to
side like a pendulum, it draws towards us. I almost want to pull back my
head to avoid having my nose taken off. Then the searchlight flashes on
the machine for a moment, becomes tremendously excited, and leaps back
again towards us.
The pilot swiftly pulls back the throttle and throws over his wheel. The
thunder of the engine ceases; we turn to the left and leave him
wondering.
Now the time for activity approaches. Near Ostend flashes the incessant
lighthouse. To the right near Blankenberghe flashes its companion. Soon
I know we will reach the wide canal running from Ostend to Bruges,
which will lead me so directly to the docks that, once I have
distinguished it, I will be free from any further anxiety about finding
my way, and I will be able to devote my whole attention to the problems
of attacking Bruges.
Six or seven minutes pass and then I see, far below me, running across
the moonlit mosaic of the fields, the straight black line of a canal.
Slowly we pass over it, and then I ask the pilot to turn the machine to
the right. The machine sweeps round, and I stand up and, looking out
over the nose so that I may see the canal, give the order to stop when
we are flying parallel to it.
"Jimmy! I am going to get into the nose now. We are about seven miles
away. I am going to drop the bombs down-wind. I shall drop all at once.
See here--these are my signals! Right hand out--turn to right. Left hand
out--to left. Hand straight up--dead ahead. One hand on my
head--half-throttle the engines. Both hands on my head--throttle the
engines altogether. When I have dropped I will wave my arms. I think it
will be all right. I will try my best. I will adjust the pressure
first!"
I look to my pressure gauge, and adjust the necessary taps. Then I
collect my case and my torch, shout out "Cheero! Good luck! It will be
all right!" and kneel on the floor of the machine. I unlatch the little
door in front of me and crawl through it, and shut it behind me. Now I
am kneeling in the cockpit, whose sides come a little above my waist.
Around me is the ring of the Lewis gun mounting. I grasp this, and,
lifting a lever, turn the machine-gun round till it is behind me and out
of my way. I look over the nose of the machine, and shine my torch for a
moment on to the bomb-sight which I adjust for our height. On my
right-hand side, fixed on the floor, is the little bomb-handle, held
safely by my piece of string. From this short vertical bar of wood runs
a Bowden wire back under the pilot's seat to the bombs, which are some
fifteen feet behind me.
A wonderful spectacle is now before my eyes. I can see the whole Belgian
coast in one long sweep to Holland. On the left, and a little behind me,
Ostend haunts the night with its pale restless beams of light, while
near it to the east flashes the aerial lighthouse of de Haan. Along the
edge of the shore is a fringe of moving beams, as far as Zeebrugge,
where another thick cluster wheel and hover in the sky. There a rich
chain of emeralds floats upwards to some suspected menace, and a few
shells burst in a scattered group above the distant Mole. On the left,
beyond these signs of an uneasy enemy, lies the dim and unemotional sea.
Ahead of us, like a sea of twinkling gems, glitters Flushing. Along its
quays shines a white line of electric arc-lamps. The dull silver band of
the moon-kissed Scheldt winds through the dim territories of Holland,
and on either side the Dutch villages flicker with little lights. Ahead
of us, unlit and waiting, lies the dark circle of Bruges with the water
gleaming in its docks on the left, and a little light on the factory to
the right of it. While far far away to the east over remote Ghent
ghostly searchlights dance in a goblin measure.
Two problems face me as I kneel there in my little cockpit in the
forefront of the machine. In the first place, I know well that there are
nine hundred or a thousand Germans waiting round that black town for me.
By the fourteen searchlights; by the forty or more anti-aircraft guns;
by the machine-guns; by the "green-ball" batteries; by the
sound-detectors, the signal positions, the controls--they are
waiting--nine hundred or more trained eager men, determined to stop me
taking these fourteen bombs to their docks, so crowded with destroyers
and submarines, with soldiers and stores and ammunition, and all that
they are most anxious to keep intact. I am equally determined to drive
home my blow if I can.
That is my first problem. My second problem is a more subtle one. If we
are heard, we are doomed. So clever are the searchlight operators that
if one murmur comes down to them from the dark skies, their powerful
beams of light will leap over to us and hold us in a grip of radiance
which will dazzle us. Our only weapon is silence. The only way we can
become silent is by throttling down our engines. If, however, we
throttle down our engines, we begin to lose height. Therefore if we
throttle down too soon, we will be so low when we arrive over the docks
that we will be seen by those on the ground. The searchlights will be
turned on to us, and, blinded and shelled, we will become impotent, and
perhaps will be destroyed. If, on the other hand, we throttle down too
late, the men on the ground will hear us before we are silent. Again the
searchlights will swing over to us and will blind us. So it is necessary
for me to give the order to throttle at the last possible moment I can,
and I must be very careful, for a second too soon or too late may ruin
all my plans. Therefore I kneel down and lean over the front, looking
below intently, trying to read every sign and signal, trying to work it
all out, watching my height and my speed and my distance--trying to
think what the Germans are thinking almost before they think it
themselves.
No light, no sign of activity, breaks the darkness below. We are as yet
unexpected. I glance behind for a moment, and in a spirit of bravado
throw a kiss to the pilot as he switches on the lamp which shows him the
white faces of the instruments in the engine casing. For a moment the
light gleams, and then is extinguished. On the pilot's face, steady and
determined, the cockpit lamp shines faintly, and as I turn forwards I
feel that I have behind me, to follow my advice, a strong man with whom
I am safe--unto the last moment of safety.
Three miles ahead of me now lies the dim circle of the town. I look at
the pallid phosphorescent figures of the height indicator. The wan line
of the pointer lies over the luminous 8. I look down below, and steadily
we move forwards. Now we are getting very near, and cold and
wind-battered, I kneel upright with a feeling of triumph because I have
drawn so close unobserved. Soon we will be able to throttle, and will
glide in with no difficulty. Everything is going splendidly. I have
worked it very well. I am tremendously pleased with myself. I was
frightened of Bruges. Bruges! Why--I laugh to myself--it will be easy.
There is nothing to be afraid of. So with a boastful sense of ease I
lean against the side humming the cobbler's song from "Chu Chin Chow,"
my invariable night anthem.
Then suddenly, like a mighty spear, a powerful searchlight leaps up to
my left, and its wide blue-white beam, with its sense of thrust, as
though the light was pouring upwards, lies a few hundred yards in front
of us. My heart jumps inside me. My hands grow clammy. My mouth tightens
with dread. A wave of hot fire followed by an icy chill sweeps over me.
Another great spear is flung upwards on the right, and the two towering
shafts of dazzling light cross in front of us like a gigantic pair of
scissors of gleaming steel.
At once I put one hand on my head to give the signal to throttle the
engines down a little. I dare not stop them entirely as yet. We are not
sufficiently near. I hear the clamour lessen and change, and immediately
the two searchlights, so strong, so vividly menacing, identify our
position more accurately, owing to the momentary alteration of the note
of the murmur amidst the stars, and they sweep even nearer to us. I
watch and wonder and hope. The white arms become undecided and move far
far away from us, wheel round in a great circle, and swiftly one becomes
a dull red beam across the stars, and below a dull red eye which slowly
fades away. What relief--what a sense of danger past is mine then! The
other ray of light in answer fades to obscurity, and once more, to my
joy, we are moving in darkness, unsuspected and unsought-for.
Bruges lies below, scarce a mile and a half away. I dare not risk
detection a second longer. Slowly, deliberately, I place both hands on
my head and turn round, and in the moonlight I see the pilot's gloved
hand go forward to the aluminium throttle which he slowly pulls right
back. The noise of the engines dies swiftly, completely. The nose drops
as we begin our long silent downward glide. No longer does the roar of
the engines beat upon my ears, but I can hear that most wonderful of all
sounds to a night-bomber--the whistle of the wind through the wires and
on the planes, which tells me that we are no longer heard by those
below. I begin to peer downwards, checking my aim. The direction bar
swings slowly off the docks to the right. I throw out my left arm, still
gazing downwards. The movement of the bar stops, and gradually it moves
to the left across the rectangles of the harbours. It swings past them
as the pilot turns the machine. I now throw out my right hand, and in
response the machine swings back. Flinging my arm upright before the
moving bar has become central I stop in time the too rapid turn of the
machine, and slowly, slowly we move straight forwards over the dark and
unlit basins where shines not one little hostile light or flicker. I
hurriedly gaze through the luminous range bars, fixed at right angles
to the direction bar. The time has not yet come. Holding my hand
upwards, I keep the machine dead ahead in a straight line. I am becoming
more and more excited. The strain has become intense. I have forgotten
everything--forgotten that I am two miles in the air, forgotten that my
bare hands are freezing, forgotten that I am in a hostile place. My
whole being is concentrated on keeping that little bar of metal laid
across the two black patches below. I am not conscious of being above
human beings--it is not a real countryside which lies beneath. It is an
unlit map made up of lines and curves and patterns and round spots. I am
entirely impersonal: I have become a surveyor at his instrument waving
his hand to make corrections.
The two pale-glowing bars come in line with the edge of the nearest dark
rectangle. I throw my arm upright for the last time, and then, putting
my right hand behind me, I catch hold of the bomb-handle with a firm
grip and push it over at a moderate speed. One, two, three, four little
tugs I feel on it as the four hooks are pulled away from the four bombs
fifteen feet behind me. I pull it back and push it forward the second
time, scarcely looking over the front as I do it. I lean forwards over
the nose, and see that the direction bar has drifted slightly. Throwing
out my left hand, I see the bomb-sight move to the left, and then push
forward again for the last time the bomb-handle. At once I move it to
and fro, six or seven times quickly, in case I have not pushed it
forwards far enough at any time, and failed to release any bombs. As
soon as I have finished I turn round, crawl through the little door,
twisting sideways to avoid jerking the great rudder on which rests the
brown leather of the pilot's boot, stand up, and turn again and sit
down, shouting breathlessly--
"All gone, Jimmy! Turn quickly! South-west--down-wind. Got a priceless
line. There'll be hell to pay now! Keep throttled--whatever happens."
I stand up and look down at the dim pattern of the docks. This is the
most exciting moment of the raid. I know the fourteen bombs are going
down--the Germans do not know it, and I know they do not know it. For
the moment the men in the air are triumphant. There we move in silence
and unseen above the very heart of the enemy's stronghold. The fourteen
bombs are whirling at a terrifying speed towards the docks, and the
valuable material which they contain. No one below expects the sudden
disaster which inexorably draws nearer and nearer. What use are the
waiting watchmen a thousand strong? What use are your plans, O ye
cunning enemy,--what use your well-oiled guns, the clear-polished lenses
of your great searchlights--the long belts loaded with your green-tipped
pom-pom shells? We have come, we have struck home! Down, down below with
intent eyes I gaze, waiting to see the bursting of the missiles. Hours
seem to pass. I wonder if the bombs have failed to explode; I wonder if
they have dropped. In a fever of expectancy I peer to the gloomy bottom
of the great pool of night. Then a great flash leaps out of the earth
and slowly fades, leaving by the dim strip of water a pale moonlight
cloud of smoke. Another and yet another leap up in the basin itself.
Then another and yet two more burst on ahead in a line. "Ah! good!
good!" I mutter to myself. Seven bombs clearly I see explode, and then I
can scarce see the ground at all, for with the bursting of these first
bombs the whole fourteen searchlights are flung into the sky like a
handful of white ribbons of light, and begin at once to move to and fro
in a slow determined motion. Above us, below us, to right of us and to
left of us, behind us and in front of us, move these brilliant bands of
up-pouring light. So bright are they that some, though they are seventy
or eighty feet away, throw a white radiance over the machine. The dim
country is slashed and cut across by these almost dazzling beams which
wheel and hesitate and cross each other in gigantic patterns. Against
the stars over our heads move their long pale arms, which slowly fade as
height destroys the power of their thrust.
A few seconds after the appearance of this company of searchlights there
rise from three or four points in the neighbourhood of the docks long
chains of vivid green balls, which cast an unearthly gleam upon the
water of the basins, and light up with their fantastic glow a circle of
vaguely-seen country. Right in front of us they pass, passing upwards
in an orderly hurry and giving a greenish tinge to my hands, the pilot's
face, and to the planes on either side. They bend over slowly in the
upper sky, and one by one fade away to red sparks dropping swiftly.
Through the thin trails of vertical smoke left by their passage we pass,
and I am reminded of the magic beanstalk of the fairy tale, rising up
into unimagined heights and joining the world of reality to a world of
dreams.
Then breaks into action the third weapon of this opposition--of this
turbulent maelstrom to which I gave birth when I pressed over the wooden
lever in the cockpit. Four little red flashes break the darkness below,
and then two more a mile away, then four others to the west, and yet
four more ... as anti-aircraft battery after anti-aircraft battery comes
into action against the machine. Four or five seconds pass, then, a few
hundred feet away, appears a swiftly-vanishing flame. Another appears to
the left, and dotted at random here and there they leap out and vanish
in quick succession, shell-burst after shell-burst. Round puffs of white
moonlit smoke whirl by us as we go gliding onwards in silence, and
untouched, through this turmoil of flame and radiance.
On all sides move the long blue-white swords of dazzling light--thirty
feet wide they lie right before us, barring our way. To our right and
our left they follow us, trying, trying to touch us. Behind our tail
they dog us relentlessly, yet seemingly in vain. Below they lie across
the vast depths of the sky, blinding our eyes and hiding the country
from our sight. Above they move, pale beams, across the ten thousand
watching stars. Here and there among their white anger move the jealous
ropes of glowing jade, which pass upwards in swaying curves and mingle
their green brilliancy with the searchlights' glare, which is clearly
reflected on our great wings. Shell after shell, red, vicious, and
sharp, bursts and bursts above us and around us--protesting with its
storm of temper at the vain groping of the searchlight--the useless
beauty of the green balls. Lastly, the swift-moving streaks of the fiery
tracer bullets from the machine-guns cut across the sky in a dozen
directions.
Wherever we may look we see this boiling volcano of shell and bullet,
searchlight and green ball. White, green, and red play the colours over
our hands and faces. The chorus of the bursting explosive clamours
around us, and above its sound we hear the splendid noise of the
fourteen bombs, the sound of whose detonation has at length risen to us
from the earth far below. When we hear that welcome sound we realise
that our duty has been done, and we have driven the blow home. We are
exhilarated by the thought, exhilarated by this ferment of opposition.
Its very power only seems to show us that the enemy must value what he
is defending so fiercely. I almost want to sing with delirious joy. What
matter the blazing rays of light--what matter the crashing shells and
the chains of emerald balls? We are inviolable, and we will continue our
enchanted immunity from danger.
Then I become suddenly conscious of a glare upon the machine. I look
down to the left, and at once I see a great dazzling eye of light, so
brilliant and strong that it shimmers and wheels and boils as I gaze
into it. We have been caught by a searchlight, and held. In a swift
moment I see the long arms in the sky about us move with a common
impulse towards the machine, until wherever I look I see eyes, eyes,
eyes in a vast circle around us.
"Oh, Jimmy! They've got us! _They've got us!_" I cry out. "Shove on the
engines, and push her down to ninety! Keep straight on--quick! _quick!_
Push her down to ninety!"
No need is there now to be silent. We are by chance discovered, and are
in the pitiless grip of fourteen powerful arms of radiance. Wherever I
look there is light, light. I cannot see the ground below; I cannot see
the stars above. We swim in a sea of brilliance. I am as blinded as when
at times I have met upon a dark country road at night some car with huge
head-lights, whose white glare has dazzled me and pinned me to the side
of the road in fear. Each of these searchlights upturned against me now
are many times more brilliant than the acetylene lamps of a car, and
there are fourteen of them.
I am tense and quick-breathed. I feel stripped, naked, and ashamed. I am
most tremendously conscious of my visibility to those below, and know
that one and all they hate me. I put my hand across my eyes. I crouch
lower inside the machine. _Crash, crash ... crash!_ Ah! Now the shells,
no longer scattered in an idle barrage, begin to explode near the
machine, which, like a white bird, at the apex of a gigantic pyramid of
light, so slowly crawls through the sky.
"Jimmy! They're shelling us! Shove the nose down--shove the nose down!
Make it a hundred!"
Red flash the shells through the white haze of light in which we move.
Green pour the bubbles of light in upward progress by the machine. Over
the wings and over my pilot's grim-fixed face play the three colours,
scarlet, emerald, and brightest white, in an unending, ever-changing
ripple of colour. Now sounds the staccato and unexpectedly loud thunder
of the machine-gun behind us as the gunlayer begins to direct downwards
to one of the searchlights a stream of fiery tracer bullets. What use
are they, I wonder? If one searchlight is destroyed there are yet
thirteen to hold us in their grasp.
My heart is jumping wildly inside me. I make my hands adjust the brass
taps at my side so that the fingers of the white-faced dials keep to the
needful figure, but I know any second there may be a rending crash, and
we may spin swiftly down and down.... Still we are held. Still the
dazzle of light lies round us--still the blue-white eyes of fire stare
at us with their hypnotising whirl and boil of brilliancy which makes
them look so huge although so distant. Still the whole machine is
clear-cut to the smallest wire in their all-exposing luminance.