"One crowded hour of glorious life,
Is worth an age without a name...!"
CHAPTER VI
A ZEPPELIN NIGHT
Per ardua ad astra
IT was a bright sunny morning in September during the great war, as the mail packet slipped out of Calais breakwater, and headed for the white cliffs of Dover. For two days the service had been suspended for a special reason. Her decks were crowded with overdue mails, including those from India, Egypt and Australia, which had come overland from Brindisi.
There was also a fair sprinkling of passengers, including not a few officers, home on short leave from the Somme front, where the great push was still in progress.
Amongst the latter was a young officer, not more than twenty-two, clad in a "British Warm" and wearing the well-known service cap of the Flying Corps, with its circular badge, consisting of a wreath of laurels and the magic letters, R.F.C.; letters which have already woven themselves into the romance of English history, for the daring deeds of our airmen had already gained for this juvenile corps traditions which will never die.
"Good-bye, Dastral! Come back soon!" shouted several of his comrades, who had come to the edge of the quay to see the hero off to Blighty on his well-earned leave. For the youth in the service cap was none other than Dastral of the Flying Corps, the brilliant young pilot who had fought with the German air-fiend, Himmelman, only a few days before and had perhaps done more than any other individual towards wresting the supremacy of the air from the wily and cruel Boche.