"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE AIR CORPS".

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16916, 31 January 1917, Page 8

"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE AIR CORPS".

" X " OF THR FLYING CORPS TELLS HIS STORY. By Lewis R. Fekeman, in the World's Work. It had boon all of nine years since I first met " X " at an estancia in the heart, of the Argentine Pampas, ami hilly seven sinco 1 last saw Mm at a banquet given at the Buenos Aires Jockey Club in his honour a day or two afte'r he had led his four to victory in the finals oE the ltio Plate polo championships; yet, in spite of the pallor of a face 1 had always remembered as bronzed and a slight hitch ■in his once swinging gait, 1 recognised him instantly—it "was the keen, piercing glance, 1 think, and the sudden Hash of white teeth in the quick smile—when he hailed mo from a passing taxi and cameihobbling back along the broad pavement of Whitehall to meet me. "What does this mean?" I asked him, indicating his jaunty Flying Corps uniform, after we had" shaken hands. " I thought you were in the army before you resigned to become an opulent estanciero and 'man-about-the-Pampas.' " * " It -was the army I camo back to," he Replied, " and I was with my old regiment at Neuve Chapelle when a fragment of hand-grenade effected a semi-solution of the continuity of a, tendon of Achilles and put a pt.iod on my further usefulness in that branch of the service. The ' air' was .still open to me, however, and, as I had already dabbled in Hying—l was the first man to pilot an aeroplane across the estuary of the Plate—l got a commission almost immediately, and so lost very little time."

"But your ' lily-white' face and hands, ' I pressed; " I never heard that the air had a bleaching effect on the complexion."' " Oh—that—" "X" looked absently at s _a blue-veined hand and shuffled uneasily), '• that must have come from a spell of ' C.H.'—' Confined in Hospital. , Got knocked up a, bit. Flyino- over Belgium. Got shot down, and hit the edge of Holland a trifle too hard w.hen I volplaned over the boundary. Telescoped a few vertebra?, that's all. Now be a good chap and stop asking questions, and hop in with me and come along to the clubT"

.Neither on this nor on any of two or three subsequent, occasions on which I saw "X" was I able to "pet him up in the air ' (to discuss, I mean, the things he had been doing), and it was not until what turned out to be the last time I saw him before his return to the front that I heard him tell anything of his work. It was only a fortunate combination of circumstances that was responsible for his '"lapse" even on this occasion but the sequel, withal, may be worth settin« down. * °

-X had asked me to join him for dinner at a famous old restaurant in the fatrand, where, as he put it, "a few of the living Corps chaps from overseas are ln the habit of rendezvousing while in London. The gathering was even more informal than I had anticipated. One of the long tables, it appeared, was set aside ior the "8.F.C." officers and their friends, and these dropped in by tw'os and threes as suited their convenience, all the way from 7 to 10 o'clock Ihere were a half-dozen men at the table as "X" and I entered, and these— all of whom had stalls for a new revue presently took their leave. They were all from the Antipodes, and two of them were discussing something about flax in New Zealand, three were locked in A triangular argument about the "Melbourne Cup " and the sixth sat grinning over the latest bydney Bulletin. No one of them said a word of flying, and it seemed to occur to none of them to ask questions, when a chap" joined us who said he had just come trom France that afternoon, and who accounted ..for a bandaged hand by savins that he had caught a finger in some of the gear of his machine-gun. By 9 aJI of those with theatre or other engagements had come «nd gone, and the eight or 10 still seated at the table were eisurely diners with the evening on their hands. Yet not even among these unhurried ones was there evident any inclination to talk of their work. On*the contrary, indeed,' I fancied I discerned an inclination to avoid, to "side-step" it When they were reminiscent, it was the friends' and events of their old life—"treking, "caravaning," "hiking," "mushin^"; Arctic midnights and tropic dawns, strange odds and ends of adventure bv land and sea—that they called up. And when they spoke of the present, it was in connection with little happenings inci dent to their leaves—of the comparative merits of "kit" shops, Turkish baths, revue favourites, of the pros and cons of drink restriction and the extortionate charges of dentists.

—The Plying Type.— Yet every man of them appeared true to what I have since coirfe to recognise as a rapidly-rounding type, the "Flying Type." The army aviator of to-day is picked for his quickness of mind and body, and the first thing that strikes you about him is a sort of feline, "wound-up-spring-like alertness. Then you note his reticence, the cool reserve of a man whose lot it is to express himself in deeds rather than words. And, lastly, there is the quiet seriousness, verging almost on sadMess, of the man who must hold himself ready to look death betwen the eyes at anv moment, and yet keep his mind detached for other things. It was the youngest, and therefore the least "formed," officer of the lot—a lad who had left his cacao plantation in Trinidad to come ."home" and fight who was responsible for the only "shop" discussion <jf the evening. Noting that he was eating but little and constantly passing his hand over his temples, someone asked him banterin'gly if he were "homesick or only love-sick." "Neither," he answered, relaxing his set lips in a forced smlie. "Had a bit of an accident yesterday, and have had a deuce of a heada-che ever since. Can't for the life of me make out whether it comes from going up too high or comino- down too quick. I both went up higher and camo down faster than ever before in my experience. Landan all right, but ever since have felt as though I was bein<* blown up by a tyre-pump that was driv° ing air into every capilliary and nerve-tip. My head feels as though someone was opening up a jack-screw inside of it. Suppose I should have gone to the hospital and found out what was wrong, but didn't want to spoil my leave. Maybe some of you chaps can tell me why 1 feel as though I had to keep holding my head together to stop its flying to pieces," he concluded, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples to offset the seeming pressure from within. - N

■Everyone stopped talking and leaned forward with interest, and for .in instant I thought the curtain was going to drop and reveal something of the experiences, if riot the minds, of these khaki-clad sphinxes of the air. *\X's" coldly ■professional diagnosis dashed the hope. "Altitude, ,, he pronounced laconically "Got over 12,000, didn't you?— Over 13,000? That accounts for it. * And vou went up, wide-open, trying to take 'pride qf place' away .-from a Fokker, 1 suppose? Of course. And when you got there vou began to fee! like a deep-sea fish looks when you bring him up out .of the kelpbeds and his own air-bladders blow him up? A man can go up 15,000 ft by rail or on foot without more than a shortness of breath ajid ocasiormi nose-bleed. "But not every man—and not even even- seasoned flyer—can stand jumping up to 12,000 ft in the few minutes that some of the new machines can negotiate that height in. "The difficulty is almost entirely physical, and it all depends upon how a man is 'made' as to whether or not iris flesh and blood -will accommodate themsch-eseto the suddenly-reduced pressure of the atmosphere. There is no getting used to it. If it 'gets' you once, it is pretty sure to do it again. At the bast you may onlv have a bad headache and a sort of "'boiled owl' feelinp for a week. At i,lie worst you faint, lose control of your machine, and axe Jisted among the", casualties of 'cause unknown.' ' Did you lose control by anv chance?" '

"I think not," was the reply. "It was a second German machine—one that I ha:! not seen—that brought me down. ]t came nose-diving down out of a cloud, shaking its tail, and giving me a regular shower-bath of bullets—the usual Fokker trick. I am almost positive I caa 'remem-

her' all the way down. In fact, with my machine in the shape- that it was after its 7>eppering, any 'lapse' on my part would have started it somersaulting at once. No. Rotten as I felt, I am sure I kept 'connected up' mentally all the way down." * j "X" shook his head dubiously. "You may l>e able to stick to it," he said ; "but before you try any more big-gamo shooting among the high places, best have a few practice flights in the upper empyrean. Tho sooner a man lnanis his 'altitude limit , the better. There's plenty of useful work below 12,000 ft for the man \vho begins to 'blow-up'—mentally or phvsically—above that height." 1 —"Did You Get the Hun?"— Conversation' became general again even before "X" had finished speaking, for to most of them there was nothing new in what he was saying. None bnt the man on the left of the young West Indian ventured an inquiry as to the details of what had happened, and it was only by straining my ears that I was able to catch the drift of the low-voiced, almost monosyllabic exchange. "Get yoivr petrol tank?" "No, for a wonder. Got about everything else, though. aPropeller all chewed up; wings a pair of sieves. Bumped tho bumps all the wav down. Ground was about the softest thing I hit." "Anyone got the Hun?" "None of us. Got himself, though. He came breezing out of a tuft of cirrocumuli all of 15,000 ft up, and seemed to be going wild; sort of running amu-ck. Seemed to be trying to ram me when he nose-dived, and the reason he bored me so full of holes was that he didn't sheer off to give me a berth. Misled me by a hair, and almost upset me with his wind. Bat he never recovered from his dive. Just seemed to lose control and started going end over end. Fell almost into some of our trenches. I landed five miles away from the wreck of him with nothing shot up but my machine and my nerves." "Anyone get the first machine—the one yon went up after?" ' "No. It had the heels of all of us. The Hun's 'Archies' brought down one of our machines that tried to follow it."

"Shop" interest waned at .his juncture, and the conversation upon which I had beeii eavesdropping veered off via -headache remedies an* 5 a pretty Scottish nurse in a hospital in France to the comparative merits of the Empire and Alhambra revues, and I was able to turn both ears to "X," who had been dissertating learnedly for some minutes on the points of the Andean pony-thoroughbred cross as a polo mount. '

Our fellow-diners drifted away as they had come—sinaly and in twos and threes— and by 10 o'clock "X" and I were alone in the deserted lounge yrith our cigars and coffee. He,was expecting to be called up at 10.30, he said, and as the time appreached I could not help noticing that he became distrait and nervous, palpably anxious.

The callcame promptly, and it was with a look of ill-concealed apprehension on his face that he arose to follow the summoning flunkey to the 'phone booth. A minute later he returned walking on air. Twice or thrice he tried to take u<p the dropped thread of Argentine' reminiscence, finally fo give it up as a bad ipb. "I can't help telling you tha* I've just had some very good news," he exclaimed with beaming face. "For six weeks now I have been haunted by a fear that that last jarring up I got was going to put me out of the game for good. Yesterday I had the doctors go over me, and now, after being kept all day on tenter-hooks, comes word that, so far as flying is concerned, I'm going to be as right as rain. Nothing whatever likely to occur to prevent my going back in a fortnight) 1 think I must be just about the- happiest man in-London to-night. I " — Flying Weather.—

He checked himself with a deprecatory gesture. " Really, you'll have to pardon my outburst, old chap; but I wasn't half sure that I wasn't in line for invaliding out. Besides, I've been fairly itching to be ' up' all day. There's been witchery in the air ever since sunrise, i've never known more perfect flying weather. "Which reminds me, by the way, that the Zepps are expected in this vicinity to-night. They were on the ' East Coast' last night, you know. It's just a little too clear for their purposes; but the air itself is perfect—perfect. There hasn't been more than one Qγ two other such days for flying as this one since the war began. " "Sou can't understand it till you've been in the air yourself. It was in the blood of all those chaps at dinner this evening. They talked about everything on earth except flying; and were thinking about nothing else but that. ' Didn't you that they were as restive as the lions in the Zoo an hour before feeding time?" s

Throwing aside all reserve, "X" began to speak of his work—his love of it, the fascination of it, the great and increasingly important part it was playing in the war. This was precisely what, hoping against hope, I had been trying to draw him out on all evening; so, lighting a fresh cigar, I sank back contentedly in my arm chair to play the part of, the appreciative -auditor. Scarcely was I settled, however, than ,- X" abruptly ceased speaking and leaned forward with his head cocked in an attitude of attentive listen-

" Did you hear that?" b,e whispered • " and that,- and that?" " Nothing but the chatter of the first dribble- of the supper crowd," I answered " What is it?"

;" Bombs," was the reply; " three or four of them. And, I think, gun-tire. The Zepps are evidently nearer London thajj-at any time since last October. Let's get 'down to the Embankment, We can see from there if from anywhere. They never wander far from the *' river road.' " The Strand, packed with the crowds from the emptying theatres, -was plainly oblivious and unalarmed, and I promptly taxed "X" with letting 'either the wine or the " perfect air conditions" go to his head. He said nothing, but all the way down the black little canyon of a street we threaded our way along appeared to be listening intently. Not until we were about to emerge to the brighter blankness of the Embankment did he speak again.

" There have been no moro bombs," he said, " but I think the guns are going right along. If the sound is too faint for your ' unattuned' ear, perhaps the fact that you hear no shunting of trains or whistling at Charing Cross or Waterloo (you know of the new order which halts all trains during, air raids) will convince you that the Zepps are about. Or if not that, then come along here and have some ocular evidence. What do you sav to that?" and "X" pointed off* down "past the half-guessed loom of St. Paul's to where the stationary beam of a single searchlight' laid low along the eastern horizon.

— A Zeppelin Story.— " I see the searchlight plainly enough " I said, " but where's the Zepp?" "Take my glass,' said "X," handing me a small pair of semi-collapsible binoculars which was evidently a constant companion. " Now focus on that point of brighter glow, with a shadow behind it halfway down., the shah—right there straight over the back of the ri"ht hand hon at the foot of the Obelisk." I did as directed, fairly to gasp -with astonishment as a tinv blur, so indistinct as to go unnoticed by the passers-by on the Embankment, sharpened to a "lone yellow-ribbed pencil, with pin-points of light—fireflies escorting a glow-worm flashing out and disappearing above and below and round about it.

" The first Zepp to get over London in six months," I ejaculated excitedlv " How long will' she take to get here? Hadn't we better get away from the river and under cover? But no." I went on peering through the glass again; "I don't think she's coming this way. Seems to be standing still. Probably over , the old objective." °

"London! !" laughed "X." "Do you realise that you didn't hear anv bombs, and that nono of these people has any idea that there's a- raiding Zeppelin with shells bursting about it, squarely m their range of vision/ That fellow's all of 25 miles away, and as for its 'hovering,' you map rest assured that when vou see a Zepp with incendiary shells bursting above it, it is either badly hit or else doing. 70 miles an hour toward the homo hangars. As a matter of fact, I've been

expecting to see this fellow begin to arop at any moment, lie's evidently run into better guns and gunners than He counted on. Ah! No hope. ("X" snatched his glass and turned it quickly on the now agitated searchlight beam.) He's gone. Even the light's lost him." "X" turned around disgustedly, led the way to a tench by the kerb, pushed along a somnolent " match-dame " to make room for him, and wearily sat down. " He's slippery game—the Zepp," he observed presently after watching the futile tlotindenngs'of the qnesting searchlight. " I didn't tell you, did I, that it was through trying to get a Zepp that 1 came that last cropper of mine over Belgium.'" " You know perfectly well you didn't," I replied, folding a corner of the old match-seller's straggling cloak back over her knees and sitting down in the space vacated. "Go to it." ' 1 was starting on a reconnaissance qver a corner of Belgium just as the Zepp was returning from a raid over France. I got above him, and just after I dropped my lirst bomb the 'Archies' opened up upon mo from the ground, and put me out at just about the lirst shot. Jollv nervy work, with my machine only a couple of hundred feet above the Zepp. A. little too nervy, perhaps, for I've never been quite certain in my own mind whether it was my bomb or one from the German guns which sent the Zepp—not wrecked, but pretty badly messed updown into a sugar-beet field. I headed

Just a moment," I interrupted, seu sing the end of the tale at the end of "X's" next breath. " You're dumping over your story just about as a -fired-on Zeppelin dumps over its bombs. Now please, back up and tell it properly. The night is young, the raiders are "headed out to sea, and ihe lady and I are here to follow you to the end." i "X" laughed uneasily, fumbled through ms pockets in a vain search for matches, filched a box from the tilted tray of our nodding companion—leaving a sixpence in its place,—lit his pipe, puffed pensively tor a minute or two, and even after all that preparation made his beginning apologetic. " , ," I don't know that I've ever told the yarn from the beginning," he said, " and 1 m dead sure I've never said much about the end If I chatter a bit to-night, you'll Please check it up against the good news Tγ a <T h,le a S°-and the air. A man could pretty nearly walk on the air as it has been to-day, and a machine would slide through it luce tearing silk. Funnv thing but it was in the dawn following ZZf J USt J? 011 *>S ht M this that I went off on the flight I have spoken of. — Flying , Factors.— </•' ' n ?. er ?,.x?, i ; e three main Actors in Hying ( X spoke more freely again as he digressed upon generalities), "the man the machine, and the atmosphere. Theoretically, man and machine are supposed to be sent out in perfect order, ready to take the air as they find it. There are days, of course, when you are ' off,' your m achme 'cranky,' and the air all 'heights' and hollows,' and at such times there is pretty sure to he a ' stormy passage ' if nothing worse. Usually, however, ft'is a tairly fit man and machine against indifferent air. •

But once or* twice a year there comes a period like the last 18 hours, when the air k almost absolutely ' homogeneous, , and then, W!th his engine running ' sweet' the man has spells of fancying himself an air god in fact as well as in name, and acts accordingly, invariably either to ins own or his enemy's sorrow. "It was like that on the morning I am telling you about—man * machine, and air all m synchrony,—yes, and with the usual Tesint, J I would have remembered this night for several reasons, even if the Zepp hadn t come along; for one, because of our ride down the wake of a ' 42' shell on account of the terrific shelling they gave, or tried to give us as we passed over the German lines. ' "The 'meeting' with the shell was merely one of those freak experiences that might happen to anyone, or, just as well never happen at all. It was during the time I am speaking of that the Germans were amusing themselves by a long-dis-tance bombardment of with their biggest guns, arid we—l had jjn observation officer along, a chap named K whom you may have heard of as a longrunner—simply chanced to meander "into the path of one of the shells somewhere about the last quarter of its trajectory. ■'Watching from a distance, you can always see oue of these brutes go 'hurtling along, but this one we only heard—and felt, —and it was like two express trains, going in/ opposite directions, passing at full speed. There was a strange sort of a buzz, growing into a rushing roar inside of two or three seconds, a blow from a solid wall of arr that -was like colliding with the side of a house, and then, for two or three minutes, a. series of bumps like going over a. ' corduroy ' road in a springless cart.' " I don't know whether we interfered very much with the course of that shell, but the shell pretty nearly brought our flight to an end then and there. Onlv the fact' that we met the first big rush of air head-on saved us—l would not have had one chance in a thousand of 'correcting , if it had caught us" sideways—and even as it -was the machine, in spite of its 7§-miles-an-hour headway, was stood up on its rudder like a rearing horse. "After that first 'collision, , our fluttering .flight down the wake of* the ' 42' was only • queer,' but withal a different sensation from anything I had ever experienced. I have no idea how close we •passed to each other. My impression of I the moment was that the distance was inside of 50 yards, though it was doubtless much greater. "Wo were not, of course, going in exactly' opposite directions, for the shell must have been coming down/at a considerably greater angle than that at which we were going up. Yet the ' a-erial surf ' that the passage the Hun's little messenger of .Eood-will stirred up in that smooth stretch ■of atmosphere was heavy and persistent enough to keep my machine wallowing for over a mile. " The air" was going by us in a swift, .steady river as we neared the German lines, and I never recall having been able to climb so quickly and easily. Luck it "was, too, for the enemy—probably in anticipation of a*pursuit of their returning raiders—had their whole trench ' interland' planted with anti-aircraft guns, both stationary and movab'e. " There was a little strip that blossomed out like a poppy garden as they opened up on us, and for a minute or so the smoke from the spreading shell-bursts formed «i good-siztxl little cloud of its own. But they never had anv real chance of getting us. My good little singing like the wind in the telephone wires, had enabled me to get up over 14,000 ft without turning a hair, and at that height you're a lot safer from shells in an aeroplane than from taxis in crossing the" Strand. \ D

"K—— -was feeling the altitude-a bit, I think—l saw him wiping blood from his nose and pressing his hands to his ears—but he gave no signs of real disAs for myself, beyond a little swelling of the fingers and a drumming at my temples, I -was quite as usual. ° — Picking up the Zepp.—

We .passed over *the main 'bouqtfets' " t .. t . h , e Archies without even feelino- the kick of the shells bursting beneatfi us but in dropping down to 10,OOOft a few miles beyond encountered an unexpected plant of them, and the shrapnel bullets were flying all about us for a minute or two. A score of neat little holes winked out in the wings, and one friendly bit of a bu let-spent but still hot from its sharp i g Y.n r °- Ppe( i B ? nti * mto mv lap "and slightly singed the fold of my coat n which it found lodgment. Then we left that 'mare s nest' behind and the gojnsr grew smoother once more. '

It was only a few minutes later, and before any beginning had been made on the work we had come for, that K nicked up a Zepp through his glass and began reporting its progress to mivover the telephone. At first it was verv high, doubtless to keep abovo a U n-fir e in crossing our lines. Once over, however it came down "rapidly, probably, as K 1 suggested, with the purpose of luring the pursuing aeroplanes into easy range of tho German 'Archies. ,

If that was the plan, it was eminently successful; for K presently reported one. of our 'chasers , falling "in. flames

another planing for our own lines, and two or three others turning back. I could see the marauder myself by this time, and noted that it appeared to bo heading off about 25 degTees to the west of me, and Hymg already at a level considerably lower that the 12,000 ft I had run up to m getting away from the last spasm of gnn-

"It was this commanding height together with the fact that my engine' was running as 'sweetly' as when it started, that determined me to take a hand in the game at this juncture. Still keeping well up, I promptly headed across to intercept the returning prodigal. For a minute or two the latter either did not recocnise me as enemy, , or else ignored me entirely. ° " But presently a sharp speeding wp of its engines was apparent, and for a moment 1 tnougp it was going to challenge me to a climbing contest, generally a Zepp's first resort. But a few seconds later it had altered its course through nearly half a quadrant and headed off at top speed, at the same time beginning to descend at what I figured was about an of 10 per cent., or 500 ft to the mile. "The ruse—to draw me down over some concealed line of 'Archies' in that direction—was plain as day; hut I had 3000ffc of altitude to the good, power to burn and, moreover, was bitten deep for the moment with that "air-god' bug I have spoken of. It seemed as natural that I should chase Zepps as that a fox terrier should chase chickens. Without further, thought I accepted the challenge and launched off in pursuit of the speeding 'sausage.'

"It really never occured to me to discuss the tiling with K , but, like the trump he was, he never showed by word or sign that tilting at airships had not been included in cur orders. He, also, twigged the game at once. — One of His Engines is Missing Fire. " 'Guns probably in that thick clnmp of trees by the little pond,' his far-away voice said over ,the-4elephone. 'Best catch, him as far this side there as. yon can. One of his engines is missing badly, and he's not going very fast.' "With a quarter,of an hour instead of a couple of minutes to work in I would have preferred to have kept akmg on a comparatively high level," and only descended, to drop my bombs, at an angle that would have kept me pretty well out of the "zone , of the Zepp's gime. But < K 's warning was too sound to be disregarded, and in this case the quickest way was also the only way. It was really almost a nose-dive as ,it was, and I did. the first half of it with the throttle wide open. So fast did we come up with the Zepp that it seemed almost as if a giant had taken the big gasbag in his hand and thrown it at us.

"The patter of machine-pun bullets sounded only for a second or two—it was not unlike walking over a lawn-sprinkler— and, so far as I could see, did no harm. Then, cold as ice for the work in hand, I shot straight down along the yellow spine of the airship, letting go a cotrple of bombs before my terrific speed carried me beyond my mark.

" Now a perfect torrent of shrapnel burst out around me—the smoke tufts made the still mile-distant clump of trees look like a cotton field—and almost at the same instant there was a strong rush of air from below. The. machine teeteTed ' giddily on one -wing-tip for a moment, and I just managed to right it in time to free a hand to grab the tail of K 's coat as he, apparently unconscious, started to lurch' over the side. I don't seem to have any very clear recollection of being able to\get him back into his seat at all. .'f I didn't have a chance for another good look at the Zepp, but only know that it descended rapidly, although apparently not entirely out of control. My machine, badly shot up as it was, still seemed to have a good deal of 'kick' left, though the reek of petrol in the air was not an en- . couraging indication that its 'vitality , . ~ would lons* continue. The impetus of. my descent quickly carried me out of range of that spiteful but isolated little battery of ' Archies,' luckily, too, in just the direction I wanted to go. " Just before I flew over the Zepp—it was while the machine grin bullets were still pattering, I have since recalled— K. 'phoned me the compass bearing of the nearest point of the Dutch boundary, i and said something about it being our only chance if things went wrong. (That they had already ' gone wrong' with him he gave no hint.) " Strangely, the figures had stack in rayhead, and it was in that direction I sheered as soon as the machine was on an even keel again.' It was not far, thank heaven, and, partly planing, partly under the power of that brave little half-fed i. engine, I somehow managed to keep up long enough to clear the top wire of the boundary fence and pile un in a heap in the hospitable silt of good old Holland." A dozen questions tumbled after each >. other off the tip of my eager tongue, and the old "match dame." who had snored peacefully all through " X's " even narration, stirred and muttered petulantly at the unwonted disturbance. But " X," ris-~ ing and working his stiff joints, essayed jto answer all in a single breath. i " I don't know how much harm -was done to the Zepp, or whether it was I or the Huns' own ' Archies' that did it. K—— died in a Dutch hospital, without regaining full consciousness, two daya later. (It was a bullet from one of the Zepp's machine guns that did for him.) I can't tell you how I managed to get out of Holland, arid " —as a low whistle sounded from Charing Cross and a hooded eye peeped cautiously out of the black shed—".' the trains arc running again; so we may take it that,the little visitor we were watching is now out over the North Sea and on its way home to bed. I think it's high time that we followed its good example on the latter score. Good-night and sweet dreams, mother," and he took my arm and began piloting me back to the Strand to waylay a taxi.

,'""X" has been back at work for si month now, and, so far as I have heard, with no recurrence >of ill-luck. Last week I met another j friend from Argentina—a doctor, returned to ""do his bit " -with the Red Cross. "' X ' has made a brilliant success of his flying.' he said; "did he tell you anything of his exploits?" "Only a little about a brush with & Zeppelin, and scant details at that." " That's all he has ever told anvone. Yet the Dutch patrol swear that he came down in Holland with the tail of his halfdead observation oncer's coat in his teeth (only thing that kept the chap from falling out) ; and there is also every reason, to believe that it was his bombs that brought that Zepp down, and. badly knocked up, too. " Either of them would bring him anvthrng from the 'Military Cross' to the ' V.C if he would tell 'even the 'plain unvarnished tale ' of it. But the qukotio laiot made his report so confoundedly noncommittal that there was simply nothing for his commander to go by."" Was hardly enough to merit ' mention' in despatches ' the way it stood, much less to award a decoration on. "Queer thing, but they.say they've had the same sort of trouble with a number of the flying chapa. Seems to be a sort of cnlt with them. Can't say it's a whollv bad one, either." -