A STORM OF BULLETS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11400, 18 April 1899, Page 3

A STORM OF BULLETS.

KXTRIUUNCK IN A WAR BALLOON.

The bnlloon rose about us fast us a cubic; cur runs, mid for the first 20ft or 30ft in llie run wo did not Jiear ;i shot, 'i'lio bag was drifting well over the water when we heard the first "ping! ping!" of the Mauser bullets across the side of the basket and against the bag. When the millets came singly, it sounded as if they were striking against a stone wall. A few boles in the balloon did no damage, and we kept on rising, though it was a sura thin;,' that we were in for trouble. We knew that the Spanish firing line was within 1500 ft, and that they had the range on us. A thousand feet below I saw a Spanish sharpshooter drop out of a tree once in a while, and I could tell by the way he dropped that' his fall was no accident. He was knocked out; that was a sure thing. Then I could see the Spaniards crawl through the tall grass to their entrenchments. The aeronaut, " Bud," was quietly sailing the balloon, moving a lever now and then to change the rise or fall, and he and I were carrying on a quiet talk. I looked over the basket, and as I did so remarked: "'Bud,' there drops another dago from a tree;" and "Bud" answered, "Say, that fall was easy to the one we will get." Well, the balloon was probably to its full height—lsooft—and 1 was pushing away on the ticker when trouble began. It seemed as if the Spaniards had turned all. their guns upon us. The noise of those Mausers against the bag was. like 40 hodcarriers falling down ladders with their hods. The aeronaut crouched down in the basket, hanging on to his lever, while Lieutenant M'Norn stood at his place, glass in hand, and kept on writing despatches. The bullets were flying like hailstones by the basket and into the bag, and striking it in a storm. Nobody was rattled. We kept right on playing ball. I expected that the big bag would-be ripped in a thousand pieces,1 and that it would fall like a lot of bricks. Instead of that, we began to gradually descend. The balloon was being plunked full of holes, but very little gas was escap-' ing. / The rain of . bullets never let "up for a second. "Bud" had just asked me if I wasn't getting a little nervous, when he veiled: "My God, they've got me! " He dropped over to the bottom of the basket with two wounds, one in his left groin, and the other in his left foot. I noticed two holes in the basket as he. dropped the. lever. I had just been wondering who the first man would be. The lieutenant looked around and asked how badly the aeronaut was hurt. Then he said: "Now, I have got to stand here and watch out, and if 'Bud' gets so bad that he can't handle the lever, you do his work and your own, too." Then he wrote on a sheet of parser from his note-book :—" Bountiful. M'Norn." ~, . This message meant: " One man shot. But the rain of bullets was doubled, probably because the Spaniards saw they were getting the best of us. I couldn't understand why the balloon did not fall like a dead weight, until I was told later that the holes closed .up almost as fast as the bullets came through. There was now enough gas escaping to cause the balloon to drop faster. . The basket was swaying from siae to side as the bcllcon • shifted. The outlook was very "leery," for I expected every minute that the balloon would rip, and therp was nothing below us but wate--. Lieutenant M'Norn was a* cool. as. ice. He had just written a despatch and handed it to niß when he was hit. He was standing close to the edge of the basket. The basket had taken » sudden turn when hs fell with his head across the edge of the basket and a bullet in his right side.

Then followed the hottest ten minutes of my life. I caught the lieutenant with one arm and drew him back intp the basket, which was swinging so that it was a guess whether wo wouldn't all \w. spilled out at the naxt turn. With the . other nand I telegraphed to my friend Uonsidine at the other end: '"The lieutenant is hit. Jt am holding him up with one hand and wiring with the other. .1 don't know how badly he is off, but it looks like '30' with him."

It was a luu-d place for a fall, and I was soared more over fa'lliric; out "of the basket than from the bullets that kept swarming. C.onsidinu wired back: v ,'

" Keep ynu»- nerve. The balloon is coming down "easy, and we will stand by until it touches the.'land.' ( I was covered -with the lieutenants blood, and he,was unconscious. The aeronaut was breathing, but could do nothing. With mv fvse.Jiand-I again wired .to Considine:

"Get the ambulance and the doctors. They have missed me, but ths other men ;tro unconscious." )' was told afterwards that it .was 12 minutes by the watch between the first message from the balloon and the landing. It seemed like 12 years. I stuck my head over the edge of the basket t-6 see how the balloon was drifting, and I thought that, there was a chance ■ when I. saw it. turning to tlis land. For perhaps two minutes before the landing the shower of bullets let up. . , Finally the basket crazed the beach and I climbed out. My feet were fairly on the ground when a sharpshooter's bullet struck my face under the left eye and covered my hond with blood. It. was a lucky shot, and pained 'me, but I knew that it was not serious. ■ ■ The boys ran up and carried the lieutenant and aeronaut from tho basket, and I turned around in time to see the big balloon collapse slowly to the ground.—P. J. DKLANEY, in the New York World.-