[CHAPTER XIII]
A BALLOON-TRIP BY NIGHT
Imagine a great bare meadow-land, lonely, wind-swept, and dark with inky blackness, out of which there plunges an occasional hurrying figure, that misses one by inches and passes on with a muttered oath. In the background, tall and sinister, two large gasometers. In the center of the field a wide tarpaulin laid along the ground, and edged by a circle of sand-bags, from the midst of which there rises a great round shape, like a mammoth tomato.
It is the balloon not yet fully inflated, fed by two curling rubber tubes, that disappear in the direction of the gasworks. We are waiting, waiting patiently until she fills. Blackened, distorted shapes, that stand around in eerie circle, and at the sudden gruff command of a hoarse voice that booms ever and anon out of the voids of darkness, seize each a heavy sandbag and slowly and clumsily lower it mesh by mesh in the netting that covers the balloon.
At last she is filled. The car is attached below, as rapidly and securely as the faint and flickering light of a stable lamp will allow of. The crew tumble in, one on top of another. She is let up only to be pulled down again with a nerve-racking bump. The gruff voice decides that she is now ready to get off; there is a slight slackening of ropes, an almost imperceptible lift, the figures on the ground recede rapidly, grotesque shadows in the darkness, and the lights begin to disappear one by one.
We rise to a ticklish situation; there are tall trees, factory-chimneys, and protruding roofs all waiting calm and invisible in the night, to be crashed into and collided with. But all these obstacles we may miss if we have only sufficient preparatory lift. We are all silent and cowed, trying to make out each other’s faces. There is a sudden tearing sound. The craft lurches like a drunken man and we are thrown a struggling breathless mass into a corner. But the suspense is only momentary. By a miracle of grace, she frees herself from the branches of a tree, and soars rapidly heavenwards.
Eagerly we watch the glimmering, winding streak of gray that is the river, and our only visible landmark; apparently we are making off in a north and west direction. Once out of the shelter of the houses and the trees, the breeze is stiffish: in fact, considerably more so than was expected.
What is this sensation like? Dark to the left of us, dark to the right of us, dark on top of us, and darker below us; in a frail uncontrollable craft, that drifts aimlessly and helplessly before every varying wind of the heavens. Unlike the aeroplane the passage is easy and pleasant, free from noise and we know we are flying. North and west, but the first change of the wind, and we will be bowling along merrily in quite another direction.
It is quiet, intensely quiet, no motion of any kind to be felt. But where are we? Occasionally we discover a small patch of light that may be a village, again a larger patch, evidently of a town. We watch the altimeter with as much loving care, as a mother would her child, for it is our sole deliverer from destruction. How it varies: now it is 8000 feet, now 2500. If possible, we try to keep above the latter level. The surface of the country is unfortunately not too level, and as the altimeter registers height above sea and not land level, allowance must be made. Ballast is ready to hand for emergency uses.