J. saw a scrap in the air to-day in which one of our machines was brought down. He was too far off to help. The report came in first that it was my ’bus which was down, but neither I nor my escort machine saw the fight, which must have been some distance off.
* * * * *
Hide and Seek.
All goes well, and I have finished my job for to-day (a three hours’ patrol) without seeing a Hun or getting an Archie. Two of us went up and F had streamers on his wings; he was going to direct the flight, and I was to follow him. It was very cloudy, and F being in a skittish mood played hide-and-seek round them. This was good fun for the first hour, but after that it became boring. Once, when I was following him a short distance behind, he ran slap into the middle of a huge cloud. I said to myself, “If you think I am going to follow you there you’re jolly well mistaken”; so I waited outside the cloud, and was gratified to see him come out at the bottom in a vertical bank, about 500 feet directly below me. It turned out that he had been pumping up the pressure in his petrol tank, roaring with laughter as his passenger gave a little jump at every pumpful, for the passenger sits on one of the large petrol tanks, which swells or “unkinks” itself as you pump, and to his disgust he had run slap into the cloud without seeing it. It was a wonderful sight among the clouds, and to see the other aeroplane dodging in and out of grottos, canyons, and tunnels, poking its nose here and there, sometimes worrying a zigzag course through a maze of cloudlets, and sometimes turning back from an impenetrable part with a vertical bank, outlining the machine sharply against the cloud. Finally we came down to a height of 5,000 feet, and there, just by the lines, we had a sham battle for the amusement of the Tommies in the trenches.
* * * * *
“I have nothink to write about this time. I got a letter from Bert the other day, he’s out in France, and old George’s group is called up too. I wonder when those Saterday nites with them will cum back, they were times. Then that supper with me and him at Eliza’s after—my! Everyone thinks as how the war will be over with luck in a few years’ time. ’As Pa got that job or is he still at the ‘Green Man’? Well hoping this finds you as it leaves me at present, in the pink. I wish you’d send our cook the resepe for them cooked chips you used ter do on Saterday nites. Give my love to Rose.”
No, I’m still sane—merely a temporary lapse owing to an overdose of censoring. The squadron yesterday, noticing that I was orderly officer, decided to give me a run for my money, and wrote millions of letters.
My Flight Commander—one of the finest fellows I have ever met—is busy cooking tobacco with E. in a tin by means of a spirit lamp! They are trying to determine its “flash point,” and I have sent word round to the M.O. to stand by with stretchers.
I was up with K. yesterday, strafing some trenches. We started at 3,000 feet and the clouds descended lower and lower till we ended up at a height of 1,200 feet over a well-known town, where it became too wet and too hot at the same time for our job. To-day the clouds are crawling about just over the ground, so there is nothing doing.
Our food here is English right enough. We get French bread as well, and it is generally preferred to ration bread. The gardens here have flowers—planted out mostly—pansies, nasturtiums, etc. I suggested that asparagus would be rather a good thing to plant, but the idea didn’t seem to catch on!