We are in luck’s way, however; for presently the guns are all silenced. The searchlights go out one by one. All becomes quiet and dark, dismally dark. We cruise around for another ten minutes or so, then descend cautiously and gradually. With one eye glued to the altimeter, to make certain of the height, I peer over the side with the other to pick up the first sign of lights or landmarks.
Eight thousand feet! Seven thousand feet! Getting horribly cold! Six thousand! Five thousand! Shall we never get down? Four thousand! Three thousand! it seems like an age. Two thousand! One thousand! Cautiously now or our necks will be broken!
At last we are safe back on Mother Earth again, and very thankfully seek the refuge of our beds!
[CHAPTER XVI]
AN AIR FIGHT WITH A HUN
Somewhere in the North of France,
Saturday.
To-day our special delight has been a bombardment from enemy aeroplanes.
They came over about noon and roused the fearful and subdued the proud while we were all at lunch. They circled overhead for about five minutes, dropped a dozen or so bombs, then cleared off hurriedly before our own men had time to get away.
One man here had a most ingenious “funkhole” for aerial bombardment. He utilized a large stone drain-pipe for this purpose, and it was his custom when enemy aircraft were reported to be in sight to crawl into this thing, take a book with him, and calmly read until they had taken their departure. He advertised this comic shelter one day as:—