Part 27 (2/2)

It may be well to mention again the airs.h.i.+p chart system by which the entire region is numbered and lettered in small squares. Black lines drawn across the detail map of the neighbourhood divide it into lettered squares, A, B, C, and so forth, and these lettered squares are again subdivided into four small squares, 1, 2, 3, 4. Thus the direction B 4, or N 2, is a very specific one in directing the fire of a battery.

”Did you accomplish much to-day?” I inquired.

”Not as much as usual. There is a ground haze,” replied Colonel M----, who had been the observer in that day's flight. ”Down here it is not so noticeable, but from above it obscures everything.”

He explained the difficulties of the airs.h.i.+p builder, the expense and tendency to ”pinholes” of gold-beaters' skin, the curious fact that chemists had so far failed to discover a gasproof varnish.

”But of course,” he said, ”those things will come. The airs.h.i.+p is the machine of the future. Its stability, its power to carry great weights, point to that. The difference between an airs.h.i.+p and an aeroplane is the difference between a battles.h.i.+p and a submarine. Each has its own field of usefulness.”

All round lay great cylinders of pure hydrogen, used for inflating the balloon. Smoking in the hangar was forbidden. The incessant wind rattled the great canvas curtains and whistled round the rusting crane. From the shop next door came the hammering of machines, for the French Government has put the mill to work again.

We left the hangar and walked past the machine shop. Halfway along one of its sides a tall lieutenant pointed to a small hole in the land, leading under the building.

”The French government has sent here,” he said, ”the men who are unfit for service in the army. Day by day, as German aeroplanes are seen overhead, the alarm is raised in the shop. The men are panic-stricken.

If there are a dozen alarms they do the same thing. They rush out like frightened rabbits, throw themselves flat on the sand, and wriggle through that hole into a cave that they have dug underneath. It is hysterically funny; they all try to get in at the same time.”

I had hoped to see the thing happen myself. But when, late that afternoon, a German aeroplane actually flew over the station, the works had closed down for the day and the men were gone. It was disappointing.

Between the machine shop and the administration building is a tall water tower. On top of this are two observers who watch the sky day and night. An anti-aircraft gun is mounted there and may be swung to command any portion of the sky. This precaution is necessary, for the station has been the object of frequent attacks. The airs.h.i.+p itself has furnished a tempting mark to numerous German airmen. Its best speed is forty miles an hour, so they are able to circle about it and attack it from various directions. As it has only two ballonets, a single shot, properly placed, could do it great damage. The Zeppelin, with its eighteen great gasbags, can suffer almost any amount of attack and still remain in the air.

”Would you like to see the trenches?” said one of the officers, smiling.

”Trenches? Seven miles behind the line?”

”Trenches certainly. If the German drive breaks through it will come along this road.”

”But I thought you lived in the administration building?”

”Some of us must hold the trenches,” he said solemnly. ”What are six or seven miles to the German Army? You should see the letters of sympathy we get from home!”

So he showed me the trenches. They were extremely nice trenches, dug out of the sand, it is true, but almost luxurious for all that, more like rooms than ditches, with board shelves and dishes on the shelves, egg cups and rows of s.h.i.+ning gla.s.ses, silver spoons, neat little folded napkins, and, though the beds were on the floor, extremely tidy beds of mattresses and warm blankets. The floor was boarded over.

There was a chair or two, and though I will not swear to pictures on the walls there were certainly periodicals and books. Outside the door was a sort of vestibule of boards which had been built to keep the wind out.

”You see!” said the young officer with twinkling eyes. ”But of course this is war. One must put up with things!”

Nevertheless it was a real trench, egg cups and rows of s.h.i.+ning gla.s.ses and electric light and all. It was there for a purpose. In front of it was a great barbed-wire barricade. Strategically it commanded the main road over which the German Army must pa.s.s to reach the point it has been striving for. Only seven miles away along that road it was straining even then for the onward spring movement. Any day now, and that luxurious trench may be the scene of grim and terrible fighting.

And, more than that, these men at the station were not waiting for danger to come to them. Day after day they were engaged in the most perilous business of the war.

At this station some of the queer anomalies of a volunteer army were to be found. So strongly ingrained in the heart of the British youth of good family is the love of country, that when he is unable to get his commission he goes in any capacity. I heard of a little chap, too small for the regular service, who has gone to the front as a cook!

His uncle sits in the House of Lords. And here, at this naval air station, there were young noncommissioned officers who were Honourables, and who were trying their best to live it down. One such youth was in charge of the great van that is the repair shop for the airs.h.i.+p. Others were in charge of the wireless station. One met them everywhere, clear-eyed young Englishmen ready and willing to do anything, no matter what, and proving every moment of their busy day the essential democracy of the English people.

As we went into the administration building that afternoon two things happened: The observers in the water tower reported a German aeroplane coming toward the station, and a young lieutenant, who had gone to the front in a borrowed machine, reported that he had broken the wind s.h.i.+eld of the machine. There are plenty of German aeroplanes at that British airs.h.i.+p station, but few wind s.h.i.+elds. The aeroplane was ignored, but the wind s.h.i.+eld was loudly and acrimoniously discussed.

The day was cold and had turned grey and lowering. It was pleasant after our tour of the station to go into the long living room and sit by the fire. But the fire smoked. One after another those dauntless British officers attacked it, charged with poker, almost with bayonet, and retired defeated. So they closed it up finally with a curious curved fire screen and let it alone. It was ten minutes after I began looking at the fire screen before I recognised it for what it was--the hood from an automobile!

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