Then a flight of four or five British aeroplanes went up and soared around the balloon, evidently bent on its destruction.
As we watched we saw a flash and a puff of smoke! A bomb had struck the balloon, but seemed to have no effect.
The aeroplanes withdrew, and a minute later we heard the boom of the anti-aircraft guns.
The second shot was a dead hit, for we saw a flash of fire clean through the centre, a volume of blue smoke, and then it buckled in the middle. The flame spread, and the blue smoke increased in volume until the balloon resembled a curious shapeless mass, twisting and turning and shrinking as it quivered and fell to earth; meantime, anxious eyes were also turned to the parachute, which by this time had approached to within a few hundred feet or so of the earth.
Both armies must have watched the spectacle in silent wonder, for no shot was fired at the falling figure from the German lines.
It was difficult to tell from where we were just where it might fall. It seemed to me from where I stood that the odds were in favour of it reaching the ground in No Man's Land.
As it neared the earth it began to sway to and fro, in ever-increasing violence, and finally disappeared from view behind a clump of trees. So far as I could observe, it did not seem in any way possible for the parachute to have delivered its human freight safely to the earth.
Next day we began a three days' march to a village some thirty-eight miles back of the line.
We were to be rested and fattened for the Somme.
The mention of rest camps to men at the front generally raises a smile, for if there is one thing more noticeable than anything else during a rest period, it is the hard work which has to be done.