Now some one reports that he can see the lights of a machine far away near the coast. A renewed activity moves through the quiet band of watchers.
"White light, sir!" chants the look-out.
Through the silver skies falls slowly a ball of glittering white fire. There is a short report, and from the upturned pistol of the raid officer a white light shoots upwards and falls in a graceful curve. Louder and louder grows the sound of the motors of the returning Handley-Page. The red and green lights on its wings can be clearly seen. Then the throbbing sound dies, the lights turn and vanish, and for a time the sky is silent and empty. A faint hissing is heard, the lights reappear, and then a dazzling glare breaks out in the sky, lighting up the underside of the Wing to which it is attached. Lower and lower floats the machine. Every eye is fixed intently on it as it draws nearer and nearer the aerodrome. An excited officer, whose invariable habit it is to land mentally each machine, begins to utter his hurried words of advice.
"Now then, Andy!" he says, "shove your engines on, boy! Shove your engines on! That's right! Pull her back! Hold her! Over the telegraph wires! Throttle! Throttle...! Throttle! That's right! Hold her back! Hold ... her ... back! Gently! Gently! You're really on the ground, boy! Take care—you're all right! Gently! On the ground! Thank God you're safe!"
With a triumphant roar from the engines, the machine sweeps round and rolls up to the hangar.
We crowd round the nose and greet the furred and helmeted airmen as they climb down from the bottom of the great machine.
"Yes! Dropped on Zeebrugge! Hell of a time! Caught three times! Yes! Lots of Archie! Green balls nearly hit my tail! Yes! Ten on the mole! Coming into the mess, Bill?"
So one by one these adventurers of the night skies, their eyes bright with excitement, stamp proudly into the mess, and I feel jealous of the glorious joy of life which is theirs, the sense of safety after passing through so many great dangers.
The last German machine has long since landed in his distant aerodrome. Two alone of our machines are to return. I walk casually up and down a ditch near the "band-stand," throwing stones at shadowy rats playing in the darkness, when suddenly I hear a voice say—
"There are two lights low down right over there ... yes! I can hear the engine. He's getting very low! My God! Did you hear that! He's crashed!"