"S' LONG, you festive blighters! Good luck!"
With this typically airman's farewell ringing in his ears Flight-lieutenant John Fuller, D.S.O., clambered lightly into the pilot's seat of Seaplane 445B.
Owing to Billy Barcroft's absence on leave a change round had been effected in the composition of the crews of the seaplane carrier "Hippodrome's" little nest of hornets, and as a result Fuller found himself in company with Bobby Kirkwood as his observer.
It was the night of the Barborough raid. The "Hippodrome," bound for the Firth of Forth, had picked up a wireless when some where off the Yorkshire coast, reporting the presence of four Zeppelins. Aeroplanes and seaplanes attached to the north-eastern bases had already ascended in the hope of cutting off the returning air-pirates, and in conjunction with these operations the "Hippodrome" was about to send out her airmen to grapple with the enemy in the darkness.
It was indeed a formidable and hazardous undertaking. The returning Zeppelins would certainly take advantage of the stiff westerly breeze. By keeping to a great altitude and shutting off their engines they drift, silent and unseen, over the East Coast, until it is deemed advisable to restart the motors. Even the disadvantage caused by the immense bulk of the vulnerable envelope would be discounted by its invisibility in the darkness of the night.
The Zeppelins could keep "afloat" by the buoyancy of their hydrogen-charged ballonets; the aeroplanes, being heavier than air, could not, except for a comparatively brief vol-plane, without the aid of their propellers, The roar of the latter would betray their presence to the watchers on the silent airship.
Altogether the seaplane's task savoured of a wild goose chase, only by a pure fluke might one of the aeroplanes "spot" one of the returning raiders, but on the remote chance of being able to do so the "Hippodrome's" aerial flotilla set out on its hazardous flight.
For three-quarters of an hour No 445B flew to and fro parallel to the coast. It was bitterly cold. At a minimum height of five thousand feet was a vast bank of clouds that drifted steadily eastwards.
Occasionally Kirkwood took down a wireless report from the parent ship and handed it to the pilot. Hardly a word was spoken. The voice tube was resorted to only once in that forty-five minutes.
"I'm going further out," announced Fuller. "We'll clear that patch of clouds."