Over the Seas for Uncle Sam

by Unknown

It was a squally, rainy morning—the sort you expect in the North Atlantic. The sea was rough, and I suppose we were making about thirteen and a half knots. There was considerable wind on our starboard bow.

In the balloon basket was a young officer. He understood managing the big bag, so we sent him up about a thousand feet. We passed through a rain squall and the balloon rode that tip-top. He telephoned to the officers below that he'd like to stay up for a while as the wind seemed to be dropping.

About a half-hour later we entered another rain squall. It was a nipping cold one—far colder than the first. The combination of chilled rain and strong wind was too much for the balloon. First thing we knew the bag had crumpled up like a crushed-in derby. And, before you could say "Jack Robinson," down she flashed like a shot, her buoyancy gone, and the little basket suspended about fifty feet below her, riding the crest of the big waves like a tub.

Inside the basket, busy as the busiest bee that ever came out of a hive, was that young officer, throwing out ballast as fast as the good Lord and his right arm would let him.

It had the desired effect. Up rose the balloon, until it climbed to about five hundred feet, but with its ballast gone it was like a kite without a tail—a wild balloon at the mercy of the wind. That was a sight you did not soon forget! All hands were on deck staring up with bated breath—a few tried to shout advice, but the gale drowned out their voices and the boy in the basket was far too busy hanging on for his life to heed us.

The facts of the case were that he was virtually a prisoner, with the ropes so twisted about the basket, as it swung on high in its fantastic dance of death, that he could not have saved himself if he would. We didn't get onto that at first. We rather expected to see him shoot like a projectile through the air. It certainly seemed to us that he must be the one exception to the law of gravitation, for by all rights he should have been hurled earthward at least a hundred times by that careening, dipping kite. And as it swung and lunged and turned over on itself in wild contortions it reminded me of a mad beast tugging frantically at its leash to be free.

There was only one chance of saving him and that chance was a small one against the almost certain sacrifice of many lives. To stop the ship was the one chance, but a ship with engines dead in the war zone is a first-class target for the subs, and I can tell you that any man with the responsibility of hundreds of lives on his shoulders is loathe to give the order. But the sight of that pitching, rearing devil, with its fragile cargo—one human life—was a sight no man could well resist, and the captain finally gave the order to slow down.

We went aft. The balloon hung over our port quarter, and, as we drew it toward the ship, we got hold of a trailing line from the nose of the bag. The big kite came docilely enough, as though it were tired of the game it had been playing and was sorry for the damage it had done. But the basket, with the man inside, was in the water, half submerged and in great danger of going down before help could possibly reach him.

Now here is where the hero part of the story comes in. It was so quietly done that we did not know, until we saw a man flash over the side of the ship and down one of the basket lines, that a rescue was being attempted.

The ship still had headway and the sea was running high, neither of which argued well for any chap trying to save a human being caught fast in a maze of rope.