A HAZARDOUS TASK.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 89, 14 April 1917, Page 13

A HAZARDOUS TASK.

ARTILLERY OBSERVATION PHOM A " SAUSAGE " BAIXOON. UNDER FIRE rv THE AIR. What doe 3 it feel like to have a hostile battery of artillery pick you up and begin shooting at you while you hang in a basket half a mile high ia*a 'captive balloon? tasks Mr. Vv". P. Sims, an American correspondent with the British Forces in France). Suppose, as you dangled lit the top end of the wire cable, no thicker than a child's little finger, the German howitzers should suddenly try to smash the auto truck carrying the winch holding the ground end of the string-? Suppose, you, up there in the winter sky, saw an aeroplane making for voiij and you knew it would do its best to shoot fire arrows into your "sausage," cause it to explode and chuck you headlong- to the frozen earth below?" Or, failing to explode, the balloon caught fire, and you, to save yourself, had to plunge downward at the tail end of a parachute with shrapnel bursting about you all the time? Think you could do your work calmly, accurately? Think you would be sufficiently cool-headed to call up on the telephone, whose wires disappear under you in a dizzy dip ground ward, and tell somebody in a little office about it and have him get your own batteries working? THE USUAL THIXG. These are the working conditions of every day of the soldiers attached to the balloon sections of the army. Thanks to the courtesy .of a major commanding one of these sections, I was allowed to go up with an observation officer in one of these famous "'sausages." High in the air, over a world covered by four inches of snow, while the noise of the Big War bounded up in lumpy explosions and the concussions of the larger guns could be felt distinctly, he explained his work just as you would explain yours, in the shop, or on the farmThrough the glasses the zigzagging white lines of the trenches showed plainly. "See," he said, looking through his glasses, "there are two distinct networks of trenches, with a narrow space between which is free from criss-crossing lines. That space is No Man's Land. Of course, all activity on the other side of that space is German activity, and that is part of the job we are up here to attend to. 'See that village beyond the German lines to the left ?" he continued, steadying himself without touching the sides of the basket—one of the secrets of accurate balloon observation. "And, to the right there, that road where you see the double row of trees, that is the part of the line we—this balloon section—are . interested in. Other parts are under observation from those balloons you see to the north and south of us—though, naturally, we cooperate very closely one balloon with another, so that the minimum observable activity gets past us. Troops in march, supply columns, working parties among or behind the trenches, things like tnat we signal to our artillery and get a battery—or several batteries—working. We give them the range; then, as they fire, we give them corrections. The whole thing is done by telephone, right from this basket. "Here. Put this on your head."' The head-harness of a telephone girl was handed mc. I put it on. CALLS UP BATTivAY. "Time mc," said the (Lieutenant. "I am going to call up a battery. Hello, ABU--44!" he called. "Hello. Battery ABC 44!" came the reply, it seemed almost immediately. As a matter of fact, it has taken 10 seconds. "Test!" the young officer replied into the transmitter. "You 6ee," he went on, "the thing is very rapid. It has to be rapid. Nevertheless my call had to pass through a central. As the sausage swayed gently to and fro, a frosty haze of blueieh purple stole between us and the lines. Beneath, the snowy earth was plainly visible, but objects two or three miles were completely hidden 'from view. High over the haze on the horizon sailed an aeroplane. About it, like a dozen ladies' powder-puffs, shrapnel were bursting. Xhen, without warning, like a do2en Steps of thunder in rapid succession, came the reports of shells bursting about the Lieutenant's balloon. •'Hello," he said calmly, "whafs this?" And slowly he turned to size up the bursts of black smoke drifting away in the wind. "Yes," le. sard, Bpeaking into the telephone, "yes. Yes, it was in our neighbourhood. Can't say. Can't ccc anything from here. It's too thick." "Believe I told you," he casually remarked to mc, "that though there isn't one chance in a hundred of your ihaving to do the thing, if you should have to go ovex, j-emember all you've got to do is to balance yourself on the edge of the basket and then let go. Tae parachute, attached to the harness you've got on, will do the rest." 1 looked down. Jimmy, what a fall! And the face of the earth all chapped and lough and frozen over with snow. BATTERY CUTS LOOSE. "These balloons are much better than the ones we had at the beginning of the ■war," he said, cheerfully changing the subject. "I mean the ones you've no doubt seen with kite-tails. They ..." Another series of thunder-claps, this time on the other side of the balloon. Seemed a≤ if a battery had turned loose all it had with one pull of the trigger. "Don't let that worry you," the Lieutenant said smiling like a cherub with a reddened face. "They nearly always lire short." "As I was saying," he went on, "the old-fashioned balloons were the limit. They wallowed around exactly like a ship in a storm. 'And believe- mc! To be seasick in a balloon —as many an ob-« server has been—and nave to give direc-1 tions to the artillery between sick ' spells, i≤ SOME job. . . . Hello! Hello! -Hello! (This into the tele- ; phone.) Yes, all right. (Then to mc.) Whenever you get ready and think you've seen enough, I'll signal to be ' hauled down." '

Not willing to take up too much of the Lieutenant's time I pretended I had seen as much as I cared to. The journey to the earth seemed slow —about ten years, in fact.