[By arrangement with The London Chronicle]
The night mists came creeping up like a smoke screen, and the battalion
that marched up toward the edge of the battlefield along the road that
skirted the far end of the aerodrome was a regiment of shadow forms. A
band of drums and fifes was playing them out with a merry little tune,
so whimsical and yet so sad also in the heart of it.
It had been decided that an important railway junction behind the
German lines was to be bombed. All day long had been the continuous
roar of death, and now, when night had fallen, all the sky seemed on
fire with it. Voluminous clouds, all bright with a glory of infernal
fire, rolled up to the sky, the most frightful and tragic thing it has
ever been given to men to behold, with an infernal splendor beyond
words to tell.
With a tense, restless emotion the order to set off out over the enemy
lines was awaited. In the ground-fog the machine, with a load of bombs
tucked away under the wings, looked a mysterious, weird thing, and
shadowy forms flitted hither and thither across the aerodrome. The
tramp of marching men could be heard, and the tap of drums to the
rhythm of their feet, and those transport columns which shake the
Flemish cottages of the little hamlets as they pass along.
At last the order was given, and up into the chill air the machine
rose. Circling round a couple of times, the nose of the airplane was
set in the direction of the objective, away behind the inferno of the
hell-fires of No Man's Land.
Only the mighty voice of the engine could be heard, and headlights were
switched off just before crossing the line. There was still a dank,
heavy mist hanging over the ground, and visibility was not so good as
might have been desired.
But down below one of those terrible bombardments, a beautiful and
devilish thing, was in full blast. All the sky seemed on fire with it,
and thousands of gun flashes were winking and blinking from hidden
places and hollows. Shells rushed through the air as though flocks of
colossal birds were in flight. Amid all the noise and din of those
fires of hate and hell it was certain the monotonous drone of the
engine would not be heard.
Then, when the Hun lines had been crossed without trouble from
"Archies," glancing back, star-shells could be seen bursting and
pouring down golden rain. And as far as the eye could see, northward
and southward, stretched seemingly unbroken lines of Verey lights. The
enemy was also sending up his flares, as he often does, to reveal any
masses of men who may be moving between his shell craters and ours.
Quickly the "eggs" were dropped on the objective, and two terrific
bursts of flame indicated the explosions. Evading the beams of a
searchlight that sought to pick up the machine, home and the friendly
darkness were sought.
The German lines were recrossed, and, glancing below, it was seen that
S O S light signals, with their little cries of color to the German
gunners behind, were being sent up into the skies. It was some time
ago that such lights were first seen up in the sky, and they had never
ceased their winking for a single night, though now they appeared
blurred in the white breath which had arisen from the wet earth.
And to pass over all this is to conceive a great admiration for these
gunners, who, amid all the tumult, deafening and nerve splitting, of
our batteries, work with an endurance and courage to the limit of human
nature. G. B.