HAZARDOUS TASK

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 98, 25 April 1917, Page 4

HAZARDOUS TASK

ARTILLERY OBSERVATION

FRQM A "SAUSAGE" BALLOON,

UNDER FIRE IIST THE AIR.

' What does 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 in. a captive balloon? (asks Mi-. W. P. Sims, an American correspondent with the British Forces in France).

Suppose, as you dangled at ,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 ths winter sky, saw an aeroplane making for you, and you knew it would do its best to shoot fire arrows into your "sausage," cause it to explode and chuck you head-" ' long to the frozen earth below? Or, failing to explode, ths balloon caught fire, and you, to save yourself, i had to plunge downward at the tail end ! of a "parachute with shrapnel bursting about you all the time? Think you could do your workicalmly, accurately? Think' you would be sufficiently cool-headed to call up on. the tele-, phone, whose wires disappear under you m a, dizzy dip groundward, and tell somebody in a little office about it and have him get your own batteries working? . THE USUAL THING. : ', 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 thdse 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 office, shop, or on the farm.' Through the glasses the zigzagging white lines of the (trenches showed plainly.

"See," he said, looking through his glasses, " there are two distinct networks of trenchee, with a narrow space between which- is free -^ron> crias-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 wo are up> here to attend .to. ■■'■•' \ •-..,

" See that village beyond the German, lines ( to the left?" he continued, steadying himeelf without touching the sides of tha basket—one of the secrets of accurate balloon observation. "And, to the right, there, that Toad where you see tho double row cf tr«&, that is the part of the Ihio we—this balloon section 1 —are interested in. Other ..parts are 1 under observation from those balloons i you see from the north, and south of us— though, naturally, we co-operate very closely one balloon with another, so that the minimum observable activity gets 1 past us. 1 Troops in match, supply columns, working parties among or behind the trench€ 3, things like that we signal to our artillery end 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 i basket. " Here. Put this on your head." The head-harness of a telephone girl Vra* handed me. I put it on. CALLS UP BATTERY. "Time me," said the* lieutenant. 'I am going to call up a battery. Hello, ABC 44!" ha called. "Hello. Battery ABC 44!" came the reply, it essnisd almost immediately. As a matter of fact it" has taken ten seconds. "Test!" the young officer replied into the transmitter. "You see," 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 haza of bluiab purple stole between us and the lines. Bei neath the frosty earth was plainly visiible, but objects two or three miles were completely hidden from viow^. , Hip;h over tife haze on the horizon, sailed an aeroplane.- About it, like a I dozen ladies' powder-puffs, shrapnel were bursting. Then, without warning, like a dozen claps of thunder in rapid succession, came the reports of shells bursting about the lieutenant's balloon. "Hello," he said calmly, "what's this?" And slowly he turned to size np the bursts of black smoke drifting away in the wind. rYes," he said, speaking into the telephone, ' yes. Yes, it was in our neighbourhood. Can't say. Can't sea any thing from here. It's too thick." "Believe I told you,V he casually remarked to me, "that though there isn't one chance in a hundred of your having to do the thing, if you. should have to go over, remember all you've got to do is to balance yourself on tbe.edge of the basket and then let go. The parachute, attached to the harness you've got on, will do the rest. I looked down. Jimmy, what a fall! And the face of the earth all chapped and rough and frozen over with snow. * BATTERY COTS LOOSE. . ''These balloons are much better than the ones we had afc tho beginning of tho war," he said,, cheerfully changing the subject. "I mean the ones you've no doubt seen with kite-tails. They . Another eeriea of thunder-claps, this time on the other side of ■ the balloon. Seemed as if a battery had turned loose all it had with ono pull of the trigger. "Don't let that worry you," the Lieutenant said amiling like a cherub with a reddened face. "They nearly always fire short." "As I was saying," he went on, the old-fashioned balloons were the limit. They wallowed aionnd exactly like a ship in a storm. And believe mo! To be seasick in a balloon-—as'many an observer has been—and have to give directions to ■ the -artillery between sicK spells, is SOME ■ job. . .Hello!. Hello! Hello! (This into the telephone.) Yes, all right. (Then to me.) 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.. •