A DAY-DREAM
_Somewhere in the North of France,
Saturday._
The other day I had a dream; at six o’clock in the morning, at 10,000
feet up in the air, with the biting cold wind whistling by my ears. On
all sides stretched the air, a boundless infinity; beneath, a moving
panorama of wood, river, and hill, of men, guns and battle-field.
Far in the distance, the waters of the North Sea glinted blue in the
early morning sun; when suddenly the air became filled with a strange
purring sound, and from all sides came flying hundreds of aircraft of
varying shapes and sizes. Among them I noticed one, a leviathan. A
long cigar-shaped, silver-tinted, super-airship; beneath and swinging
easily in the breeze, the hull was in the shape of the old-fashioned
sea-going steamer. For’ard was a wide expanse of promenade deck, where
could plainly be distinguished the passengers walking to and fro. In
the center, on a raised dais, a band, resplendent in blue and gold,
were strumming some popular air. Amidships a great bridge, where the
officer of the watch and the quartermaster were directing her course.
Astern was another wide expanse of deck, but this apparently was
reserved for the crew. Now a large group of men were busily engaged
round a small, bullet-shaped aeroplane. With a whirr, she started off
across the wide deck, and a second later was gracefully clearing the
great ship’s side, and missing a green and white balloon buoy literally
by inches, sank rapidly in a southerly direction; and then our wireless
telephone rang. It was the big ship speaking us, “Had we seen anything
of the home-bound mail?” “No, we had not.” “Could we say what the
Siberian weather conditions had been the day previous?” “Well, nothing
extraordinary, slight haze over North China.” “Strange, the Menelaus
left Canton yesterday, should have reported Bombay this morning, Moscow
reports her two hours overdue.” “No, we have seen nothing of the
missing liner;” and, leaving the great pleasure ship miles in the rear,
we skim across the Carpathians, speaking two Serbian cruisers on patrol
duty along the Northern Frontier. From thence we run into a storm,
have to climb to 5000, and by the time the mist and darkness clears
away, the North Sea has loomed into view. Now we are more in the beaten
track, swarms of small pleasure craft go cruising by; the Paris-London
way is chock-a-block with traffic: cumbersome great four and eight
engined merchant vessels, slim graceful pleasure craft, Government
vessels, two giant American liners, and an Australian non-stop
mail-boat, some naval craft and small police patrol craft, endeavoring
to order the converging lines, and two military transports bringing
home leave men from Abyssinia. The Far East fleet, flying majestically
and impressively along with the flagship _Twentieth Century_ leading
the line, the hind portion tapering off gracefully and far into the
rear to the smaller aeroplane--torpedo craft. The air is full of the
crackling of the wireless, every master endeavoring at the same time
to engage a berth in either the London or Norwich aerodromes. Soon the
fleet makes a sharp turn to the left, the less important and smaller
craft scurrying hurriedly away to give her passage. The Home Fleet
looms into view, silent and majestic; in the dim distance the two units
sight each other, and after paying the usual compliments, pass on their
respective ways. Nearer the English coast the air swarms with pleasure
vessels, elegant and tiny airships float lazily in the air, their
occupants lolling idly in the sun. Over Dover can be seen the ugly form
of the new floating dock, said to be large enough to accommodate even
an air dreadnought.
Strung across the North Sea; about 2000 feet up, and well below the
level of the trade routes, are the small gray ships of the Aerial
Sporting League. We speak one of them. There is to be an international
race this morning between London and Petrograd. Amused, we watch the
long gray line at the starting-post, among the green fields of Kent,
presently they are beneath us in a long extended line, two machines
of our own red, white and blue, well to the fore. We give our number
and business to the Patrol airship at the Nore, and come down slowly
to pick up our landing stage, somewhere east of Greenwich, when
suddenly the waters of the Thames below are cleft in twain, as if by an
earthquake, and from the disturbance there rises a squat, peculiarly
shaped craft, that commences to glide along the smooth surface of
the water towards Purfleet, where she climbs gently out onto the far
bank, into a wide gray slipway, some quarter of a mile in width. Still
crawling along on her belly, she reaches the Government repair works
where, taking fresh supplies aboard, she suddenly sprouts two wings
and commences climbing up into the air. Again there is an unpleasant
purring noise, and a yet more unpleasant concussion....
“Shrapnel,” my observer bawls into my ear, “better go higher,” and we
do.