I’ll let you know right enough when I want any more garments. Our linen goes off to be washed at any old time, as there are plenty of laundries near here—an old woman, an old wooden bat, and a smooth worn stone by a dirty stream. The stuff comes back wonderfully clean, however.
Don’t you worry about my food while night flying. I get that all right; it was a very ’ceptional case the other day. If we have an early stunt we always get hot cocoa and bread-and-butter. But you see, I was orderly pilot that day, and the Huns weren’t polite enough to ring me up the night before and tell me what time they were coming; and so I had to move rather more quickly when they did come. I can get chocolates and biscuits at the Canteen here.
This is what you will call another “restful” letter because I have had no flying yesterday or to-day. We rather like bad weather here when it is sufficiently bad.
Dunno why the other squadron was “mentioned” in despatches. They have about seven of our chaps there—perhaps that’s why—or perhaps the General lost some money at bridge to the C.O., or perhaps they drew lots for it.
* * * * *
“Hot Air Stuff.”
I had some ping-pong to-day—quite a relaxation after the job I did this morning. I went out with an observer on a howitzer shoot, an officer in this case. We went over to the lines, arriving there about 11.15 a.m. and “rang up” the battery. All being well, we ploughed over the lines to have a look at the target in Hunland. The battery then fired, and the observer watched for the burst and wirelessed back the correction. Each shot fired meant a journey over the lines, and each time we went over the Huns got madder and madder, and loosed off “Archie” at us in bucketsful.
Archie to right of us,
Archie to left of us, etc.
We were fairly plastered in Archie. Each time I crossed the lines I did so at a different altitude. The first five times I climbed higher each time to throw the range out, and the next five times I came down a bit each time. The last five times I was so fed up with their dud shooting that I went across at whatever altitude I happened to be at, and that probably upset ’em more than ever! At any rate they fired about 600 shells at us in the course of that “shoot,” allowing roughly forty shells per crossing (at least) and fifteen crossings, and the only damage they did was to put a small hole through my top plane. My, they must have been disgusted![9]
The “strafe” took place between 5,000 feet and 6,000 feet altitude. The Archies got so near sometimes that we went through the smoke from the shell. Of course it would never do to go on flying a straight course; it is a case of dodge, twist, turn, and dive at odd and unexpected moments, and when it gets really too hot, run away and come back at a different altitude.