The “Osca” was the last machine to arrive at the objective and deliver her bombs and swing for home, and because she was the last she came in for the fully awakened defence’s warmest welcome, and wheeled with searchlights hunting for her, with Archie shells coughing round, with machine-guns spitting fire and their bullets zizz-izz-ipping up past her, with “flaming onions” curving up in streaks of angry red fire and falling blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets ripped and rapped viciously through the fabric of her wings, but she suffered no further damage, although the fire was hot enough and close enough to make her pilot and observer breathe sighs of relief as they droned out into the darkness and left all the devilment of fire and lights astern.
The word of the Night-Fliers’ raid had evidently gone abroad through the Hun lines however, and as they flew west they could see searchlight after light switching and scything through the dark in search of them. Redmond, or “Reddie,” the pilot, was a good deal more concerned over the darkening sky, and the cold that by now was piercing to his bones, than he was over the searchlights or the chance of running into further Archie fire. He lifted the “Osca” another 500 feet as he flew, and drove on with his eyes on the compass and on the cloud banks ahead in turn.
Flying conditions do not lend themselves to conversation between pilot and observer, but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, very brief and boiled-down remarks, on their position and the chances of reaching the lines before they ran into “the thick.” That a thick was coming was painfully clear to both. The sky by now was completely darkened, and the earth below was totally and utterly lost to sight. The pilot had his compass, and his compass only, left to guide him, and he kept a very close and attentive eye on that and his instrument denoting height. Their bombing objective had been a long way behind the German lines, but Reddie and “Walk” Jones, the observer, were already beginning to congratulate themselves on their nearness to the lines and the probability of escaping the storm, when the storm suddenly whirled down upon them.
It came without warning, although warning would have been of little use, since they could do nothing but continue to push for home. One minute they were flying, in darkness it is true, but still in a clear air; the next they were simply barging blindly through a storm of rain which probably poured straight down to earth, but which to them, flying at some scores of miles per hour, was driving level and with the force of whip cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and observer were blinded. The water cataracting on their goggles cut off all possibility of sight, and Reddie could not even see the compass in front of him or the gleam of light that illuminated it. He held the machine as steady and straight on her course as instinct and a sense of direction would allow him, and after some minutes they passed clear of the rain-storm. Everything was streaming wet—their faces, their goggles, their clothes, and everything they touched in the machine. Reddie mopped the wet off his compass and peered at it a moment, and then with an angry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick over and swung round to a direction fairly opposite to the one they had been travelling. Apparently he had turned completely round in the minutes through the rain—once round at least, and Heaven only knew how many more times.
They flew for a few minutes in comparatively clear weather, and then, quite suddenly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. At first both Reddie and “Walk” thought it was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet on their faces; but even when they found it was no more than a wet mist cloud they were little better off, because again both were completely blinded so far as seeing how or where they were flying went. Reddie developed a sudden fear that he was holding the machine’s nose down, and in a quick revulsion pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel her rear and swoop upwards. He was left with a sense of feeling only to guide him. He could see no faintest feature of the instrument-board in front of him, had to depend entirely on his sense of touch and feel and instinct to know whether the “Osca” was on a level keel, flying forward, or up or down, or lying right over on either wing tip.
The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, as suddenly as they had entered it, and Reddie found again that he had lost direction, was flying north instead of west. He brought the ’bus round again and let her drop until the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet above the ground and peered carefully down for any indication of his whereabouts. He could see nothing—blank nothing, below, or above, or around him. He lifted again to the thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the west. He figured that they ought to be coming somewhere near the lines now, but better be safe than sorry, and he’d get well clear of Hunland before he chanced coming down.
Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was cold, bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off them.
But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he could do to fight back a wave of panic which rushed on him with a belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that would bring him crashing to earth.
When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.”
“Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m frozen stiff.”