AT GRIPS WITH DEATH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18566, 23 August 1922, Page 8

AT GRIPS WITH DEATH.

A BREATH-TAKING ADVENTURE ’TWIXT HEAVEN AND EARTH

Many men have looked death between the eyes and are alive to-day to tell the story of their experiences and sensations; but probably none under such conditions of long-pro-tracted peril as Sapper Clincheniaile, who for seven hours was literally suspended over the jaws of death. Clinchemaile was one o£ a number of men of his engineer regiment employed in bolding down a captive French Army balloon during the process of filling it with gas, when the wind caught it broadside with such force that the wire coupling snapped. “ Twas holding the rope with half-a-dozen of my comrades,” Clinchemaile says, “and it tore through my hands like lightning. Several of the men let go; two, who held on for a time,, dropped off, and one was killed. As for myself 1 gripped the rope . with my legs in a foolish determination to hang on to it; and soon found myself some fifty feet in the air hanging head down. Luckily my feet had caught, or I too would certainly have been a dead man. “It was a terrible moment when I realised my position. There was I, hanging head downward from a rope suspended from a giant balloon, which was soaring with me to the skies and being swept goodness knows where, before a strong wind! It would be difficult to imagine a more awful position; for it seemed that nothing but a miracle could save me from a dreadful death.

A FIGHT FOR LIFE. “But luckily I kept my head and set to work to regain a vertical position—a matter of much difficulty, as the rope was swaying wildly to and fro like a ‘drunken’ pendulum, and jerking so violently that at any moment I expected to be hurled into space.

“With infinite caution and exertion I managed, after what seemed a very long time, to clutch the rope above me with both hands, and to raise myself upright. I then succeeded in disentangling my feet, round which, luckily for me, the rope had tightly coiled itself. “Then, clinging to the rope with hands and knees, I looked down and saw the aerodrome hal£-a-mile or so beneath me—dwindled to the dimensions of a toy, with ant-like figures running excitedly about it. I confess my feeling at that moment was one of amusement at the scare I must have given my comrades down below. But this feeling quickly passed, merged in the horror o£ my own position, and the conviction that I should never set foot on earth again alive. “But I soon realised that I had no time to indulge in fears and speculations. I knew that, strong as I am, I could not hang on long to the rope without better support than my hands and knees; and I realised that hours must pass before the balloon, which was three-quarters full of gas, would be sufficiently deflated to come again to earth —if it did not, as was quite likely, fall into the sea.

“If I could only have climbed ub to the valve and opened it to release the gas, I could soon bring the ‘sausage’ down; but, alas! it was 200 feet above me, and my only link with it was this slender, swaying rope. Luckily there was. some fifty feet higher up, a large iron ring, which we used to attach a second mooring rope to, when the balloon was on the ground. If I could only reach this and attach myself to it.

RELIEF IN SIGHT. “This was the object I set myself to accomplish. Inch by inch 1 laboriously pulled myself up the rope, which was still swaying and jerking, worse than a boat in a stormy sea; and at last I was able to clutch the ring, which, fortunately, was large enough for me to put a leg through. This I did; and I shall never forget my feeling of relief and thankfulness when my exhausted arms and hands, from which the skin had been torn away, no longer had to bear the weight of my body. Thus supported, it was quite an easy matter to lake of£ my belt and secure myself to the rope with it. “At last, thus 'moored,’ I felt that I was safe. I could hang on for an indefinite time until the balloon took it into its head to descend. My only fear now was that it might carry me out to sea and drown me there. And it was then that I heard the sound of an approaching aeroplane, and soon saw it circling round and round me. It had been sent up by my friends below in the vain hope of helping me in some way, or at least of seeing that I was still alive. This was soon abundantly clear to the pilot when 1 waved my handkerchief to him; and thus reassured, he left me to my fate. “Hour after hour passed as the balloon carried me, now forwards now backwards, at a height of some two miles over the earth. Then to my joy I found the earth gradually approaching. The balloon was descending at last. Lower and lower it dropped until the rope actually touched the earth. It trailed for a mile or so over ploughed fields; and finally got caught in a small wood.

“This was my opportunity. With great difficulty I extricated niy leg, which was numb and half-frozen, from the ring, unbuckled my belt; and, as I scraped the top of a tree, I let go, falling from branch to branch until 1 landed on my feet, considerably shaken, but little the worse for my tall or my terrible adventure.”