“I was within fifteen feet of the ground, absolutely sick at heart
with the uselessness of it all, my thoughts having turned to home and
the worry they would all feel when I was reported in the list of the
missing, when without warning one of my nine cylinders gave a kick.
Then a second one miraculously came to life, and in another moment the
old engine—the best old engine in all the world—had picked up with a
roar on all the nine cylinders. Once again the whole world changed for
me. In less time than it takes to tell it I was tearing away for home
at a hundred miles an hour. My greatest safety from attack now lay in
keeping close to the ground, and this I did. The ‘Archies’ cannot fire
when you are so close to earth, and few pilots would have risked a
dive at me at the altitude which I maintained. The machine guns on the
ground rattled rather spitefully several times, but worried me not at
all. I had had my narrow squeak for this day and nothing could stop me
now.
“I even had time to glance back over my shoulder, and there, to my
great joy, I saw a cloud of smoke and flames rising from my erstwhile
_bête noir_—the sausage. We afterward learned it was completely
destroyed.
“It was a strange thing to be skimming along just above the ground
in enemy territory. From time to time I would come on groups of Huns
who would attempt to fire on me with rifles and pistols, but I would
dart at them and they would immediately scatter and run for cover. I
flew so low that when I would come to a clump of trees I would have
to pull my nose straight up toward the sky and ‘zoom’ over them. Most
of the Germans were so startled to see me right in their midst, as
it were, they either forgot to fire or fired so badly as to insure
my absolute safety. Crossing the three lines of German trenches was
not so comfortable, but by zigzagging and quick dodging I negotiated
them safely and climbed away to our aerodrome. There I found that no
bullets had passed very close to me, although my wingtips were fairly
perforated.
“That evening I was delighted to get congratulations not only from my
Colonel, but my Brigadier as well, supplemented later by a wire from
the General commanding the Flying Corps. This I proudly sent home the
same evening in a letter.”
“LIKE SHOOTING CLAY PIGEONS”
There seems to be a general feeling among airmen that theirs is not a
business or profession, but a game. Colonel Bishop declares that it did
not seem to him to be killing a man to bring down a machine; “it was
more as if I were destroying a mechanical target, with no human being
in it. Once or twice the idea that a live man had been piloting the
machine would occur to me, and it would worry me a bit. My sleep would
be spoiled perhaps for a night. I did not relish the idea of killing
even Germans, yet, when in a combat in the air, it seemed more like
any other kind of sport, and to shoot down a machine was very much
the same as if one were shooting down clay pigeons. One has the great
satisfaction of feeling that he had hit the target and brought it down;
that one was victorious again.” The fascination that such a game has
for the airman is easily understood.
Bishop brought down his fortieth enemy plane six miles within the enemy
lines, and escaped in spite of a hail of shells from anti-aircraft
guns for five miles of the return trip, his machine being fairly well
riddled; and, one day just at that time, his cup of happiness filled
and overflowed with the award of the Victoria Cross.