Suddenly the pilot exclaimed, "It is them, the swine, I saw them fire!" and impetuously threw round the wheel and pushed forward the rudder. The machine swung round at a tremendous pace, and a most curious incident occurred. Ahead of us were the two machines, some way below us, with their noses pointing downwards. Now to our amazement we saw them mount up, up, up, into the sky, with their tails down as though they were climbing furiously, and then the coast shot round and rose up into the sky as well.
In the midst of this mad inversion of the universe the pilot turned to me and calmly said—
"What the blazes has happened, Paul—it looks all wrong? What shall I do?"
"Shove her nose down, old man!" I said. "It looks mighty rum to me—but we'll get out somehow!"
The universe swept round us again, the coast fell down, the Handley-Pages dropped below us with their noses towards the sea. The pilot looked at me, I looked at him.
"What on earth was that?" he said.
"Must have been jolly nearly upside down!" I suggested, feeling a bit dazed.
The memory of that brief and mystified conversation, as we sat side by side in a machine which had assumed some incomprehensible position, has remained in my memory as one of the strangest moments I have known.
The shells still burst near us and the pilot got annoyed.
"Let's drop our stuff on them! Get in the back! They can't be British. They must be able to see our marks. We're only seven thousand."