TRYING OUT HIS AIR NERVE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 45, 18 November 1918, Page 8

TRYING OUT HIS AIR NERVE

PETER'S FIRST FLIGHT

,A GRAPHIC SKETCH

Mr. H. G. Wells, in "Peter and Joan," gives a very graphic 'ind wonderfully real description (if the sensations of an air-novice on his first flight:—

Early in llll'i Peter.got himself transferred from the infantry lo the Eoyal Plying Corps, hi those days the-Flying Corps was still a limited and inaccessible .force with a huge waiting list, and it needed a considerable exertion of influence to tecurc a footing in that select band. But nt last a day came when i'eter, rather self-conscious in his new leather coat and cap, walked out from the mess past a group of chatting young pilots towards the aeroplane in which he wa.= to have his first experience of flight. He had a sense of being scrutinised, but indeed hardly anyone upon the aerodrome noted him. This sense of an audience made him deliberately casual in his bearing;. He snluted his pilot in a jjiauner decidedly offhand. He clamber-:, ed up through struts and wire to the front as if he wa-3 a clerk ascending the morning omnibus, and strapped himself in as if it hardly mattered whether he was strapped in or not. "'Contact, sir," said the mechanic. "Contact," came the pilot's voice from behind. The engine roared, a gale swept backwards, and Peter vibrated like an aspen leaf. .' The wheels w'ere clenred, the mechanics 'jumped aside, and Peter was; careering across the grass in a series of light leaps, and then his ptogrese became smoother. He did not perceive at first the reason for tliis suddtn steadying of the machine. He found himself .tilting upward. He was off the ground. He had been off the ground for some seconds. He. looked over the side and saw the grass fifty feet below, and tile b!a:k shadow of the aeroplane, as if it fled before them, rushing at a hedge, doubling up at the hedgo, nnd starting again in the nets .field. And up he went. Peter stars:! »at. fields, hedges, trees.sheds and roadways growing small below him. lie noted cows in plan and an automobile in plan,, in a going, it seemed, very sldwly.indeed. It seemed a. stagnant world below in comparison with his own forward sweep. His initial nervousness and self-consciousness _ had passed away. Ha was enormously interi ested and delighted. Hβ was trying to remember when it was that Oswald had said: "I doubt if we'll see a flying machine in my lifetime—or yours." It was soinewh'eu long ago at Limpsfield. Quite early. ...

' And then abruptly I'oler was clutching the side with his thick-gloved hand; the aeroplane was coming round, in a close ciirve and banking steeply, very steeply. tfii' a moment it seemed as though there was nothing at all between him and England below." If he fell out-!

He looked over his* shoulder and met the hard regard of a pair of steel-blue ■eyes. . He .remembered that after all he wfls ■under observation. This was no mere civilian's joy ride. He affected a .concentration upon tho sceiyry. The aeroplane swung slowly, back again to the level, and hie hand left the- side. . . . ■ They were going up very rapidly- now. The world seemed to be rolling in at the edges of a great circle that grew constantly larger. Away to .the left «wero broad spaces of brown sand and grey rippled and smooth shining -vater channels, and beyond, the sapphire sea; beneath and to the right were fields, houses, villages, woods, and a' distant range of hills that seemed to be coming nearer. Tho- scalo was changing, nud everything-,was becoming maplike. Cows were little dots now, and men scarcely visible. . . . And then suddenly all the 6cenery seemed to be rushing upward before' Peter's eyes, and he had a feeling like the feeling one has in a lift when it starts, a down-borne feeing. He affected indifference, and gave the pilot his whistling profile. - Down they . swept, faster than a lurc on the swiftest ice run, until one could see the ditches in the shadows beneath the. hedges, ami cows were plainly cows again, and then once' more they were heeling over and curving round. But Peter had been ready for • that this time; he had been telling himself over and over again that he was strapped in. Ho betrayed no surprise. But ho was getting more and more exhilarated.

And then they were climbing flgain and soaring.straight out towards the sea. Up went this roaring dragonfly in which Peter was sitting at a. hundred and' twenty miles or so perhour, leaving the dwindling land behind. Up they went and up, until the world seemed nearly all sea and the coast was far away; thev mounted at last above a (little white clond puff, and then above a haze of clouds, and when Peter looked down he saw at a vast distance below through a clear gap. in that filmy cloud fabric three little ships smaller than any toys. Of the men he could distinguish nothing. How sweet the cold air had be•Ud high above the world, in the lonely sky above the cloud fleece, the pilot saw fit to spring a little surprise upon Peter. Hβ was not of the general and considerate order of t.eachivs; he believed in weeding out duds as ?wiftlv as possible. He had an open mind as to whether this rather over-iutelligent-looking beginner might not under certain circumstances squeal. So he just tried and without a note of preparation looped the.loop with him. , The propeller that span , before the eyes of Peter dipped. Peter bowed in accord with it. It dipped more- and more steeply, until the * machine was almost nose down, until Peter was looking at the sea • and the land as one sits and looks at a wall. Ho was tilted dowir and down until he was face downward. And then as abruptly he was tilted up; it was like being in a swing; the note of the engine altered; the sea and tho land seemed to fall away below him as though he left them for ever, and the blue sky swept down across his field of vision like a. curtain;" h'o was, so to speak, on his back now, with his legs in the air, looking straight at the sky,, at nothing but' sky, and expecting to recover. This was surely the end of the swing. Only—most amazingly—he didn't recover! Ho wanted to say. "Ouch!" He was immensely surprised —too surprised to be frightened. He went over backwards—in an instant—and the sea and tho land reappeared above the sky, and also came down like curtains, too, and then behold; Hie aeroplane was driving down and tho world was in its place again far below. "The Loop!" whispered Peter, a little dazed, and elnnjwl. back at his pilot and smiled. This was no perambulator excursion. "Tljs Loop—first journey!" The blup eyes 'seemed a'little less hard, the weather-red face was smiling faintly. Then gripped by an irresistible power, Peter found himself win.? down. down, down almost vertically. The pilot hnd apnarontly stopned the cmmie. ... Poter watcluxl the majestic pxpansion of the landscape as they fell. They had como back over the land. Par away he could see the aerodrome like a scattered oollccrioi! of little toy huts, and growing Weger and bigger every instant. He sat quite still, for it was all right, it must bo all right. But, r.ow they were, getting very near the. ground, and it was still rushing un to meet th n ro, and ponrimr outwardly as it rose. A cat now wnuld be visible

It was nil riuht. The engine pieked up wilh a roar lib* n ?coro- of lions, and the pilot levelled out .a hundred feot ahove the trees. ...

Then presently thev were dronpins to the aerodrome neain: down until the hfd?es were plain ami Hie (rrazing eattlo ctec i>'-d lUstinct; and then, with a souse of infinile reTet, Peter pTcpivfd Hint they werc'bnol; on the tnrf wain, and I hat tlm flight, ws over, They (Vuioed over, the , turf. Tlip'r rusli slow, od down. Thev tnxied genHy un to |he I'nnanr, and lihe on>Hnp. with a nath"tic dr<H> to <silpnfl n . slivddpred pnd '-tonned.

•\ little sfifflv, Potev unTw'-lert himrMf ™d d-d set him=elf to cumber to the ground.

TTis «"iiior nodded !n hi"i nnd smilnd faintlr. . . .

■MB M-<i«'Wfnl—niul /Hsariviint. ing in that f , was so soon over, ''ways

at the end of a flight thero is that same lunch of chagrin that one has at the nd of n. successful swim. It might havegono on longer; one might have gor; higher and further. There were still great pieces of the afternoon 'left.-;... j