[CHAPTER XII]
SPORT EXTRAORDINARY
Somewhere in the North of France,
Monday.
There is an undoubted fascination in being about at sunrise on a clear, fine morning. And especially so when up in the air.
Our day was of this variety. A day when a man’s heart yearns for a moor, a dog, and a gun. For moor we had the long, flat, dreary sandhill and marshes of the Belgian coast; a dog was not needed, and in fact would have been in the way.
And our gun was not of a type particularly well-known or approved of in sporting circles—a “Lewis” machine-gun, fitted above with a tray of forty-seven cartridges.
Our quest was “wild ducks,” an idea as novel as it was entertaining, originating with the padre of the station—a cheery individual, who divided his attention between writing insufferably bad verse, and collecting mess-subscriptions from irritated members.
The sun rose over the sea, lighting the blue surface with a thousand scintillating rays. The tents of the camps thousands of feet below began to show up against the gray of the earth, and the red flashes of the rifle volleys combined with the white cloud and roar of the belching heavy-gun to complete our picture of the waking world.
But we had not much time to pay attention to these matters, for our minds and eyes were concentrated on the one subject.
From what direction would they first appear? Would they come up to us, or would we have to put “her” down to them? The sun was well up in the sky, and signs of life and movement were beginning to make themselves manifest “down there,” before several tiny black specks appeared on the horizon coming up from the ground behind the marshes at Nieuport.