Green Balls Part 10

"Put the engines on again! It's no good. He doesn't know either! I don't know _what_ to do!"

The key taps once more the vain appeal. Again and again I fire a white light. The floor round my feet is strewn with the empty cartridge cases of brown cardboard. I feel depressed and tired and irritable. What a silly end to a raid, it seems, to lose yourself right over your own aerodrome! It is undignified. I am ashamed to have had to ask the gunlayer where we are. I feel a pretty poor observer.

Then I see in the mist a little ahead of me a white light rise up and die away.

"Look, Jimmy! A white light! Good! They've seen us at last!"

But the pilot is not so trustful, and says--

"You're quite sure it isn't the _lines_?"

"Oh no! I'm sure! Throttle down a bit and glide that way!"

As we draw nearer I suddenly see the two piers of Dunkerque and the docks materialise in the mist, and on the other side the dull glow of landing flares from an aerodrome.

"No! It's _not_ Ostend! It's all right, old man! There's St Pol! I'll fire another white!"

I fire for the last time, and scarcely has my ball of light died out before the answering signal soars up from the ground.

The engines are throttled, and we drift downwards on our whistling planes over the long basins of the Dunkerque docks. When we are about a hundred feet off the ground I press a small bra.s.s stud in front of me. A white glare of light bursts out under our right wing tip and throws a quivering radiance on the d.y.k.e round the aerodrome, on the hangars, and on the landing field itself, at the end of which are two or three red lights. We sweep gently on the surface of the ground, and before we have stopped rolling forwards, a little figure runs towards us flas.h.i.+ng a light, and we hear its voice call--

"Turn to the left soon. The ground is full of bomb-holes ... where those red lights are!"

Guided by the figure on the ground we "taxi" up to the hangars and stop our engines. In a second I am on the ground.

"Didn't you see our Very lights?" I asked almost rudely. "Didn't you see us flas.h.i.+ng signals? I signalled Rockets--rockets--rockets--till my hand ached! We got lost. We were going to land on the beach. Why didn't you help us?"

"We _wondered_ what you were doing. We saw you firing lights on the other side of Dunkerque! But, I say, things have been humming here since you left!"

I can find no admiring audience for the experiences of the raid. Every one is eager to describe the German attack.

"By Jove! you were lucky to be away to-night!" says one. "They've been bombing us ever since you left. They must have dropped a couple of hundred during the night. No damage was done. The C.O. nearly got hit.

He lay flat and one burst on either side of him. All the time you were bombing them they were bombing us!"

No one wants to hear our adventures. It is human nature all over again.

They want to tell us what happened to them.

"Off Ostend we saw one of their patrols. It had a whacking big----"

"But you should have heard them whistling. Bob and I were talking outside the mess, when suddenly we heard----"

"We got over the clouds coming back. You ought to have seen the----"

"You've _missed_ something, ... and I reckon you're lucky! The noise was terrible!"

And so on, and so on goes the one-sided conversation of the two self-centred groups!

So ended a raid which is to my mind very unsatisfactory. I realise that we have to learn by experience, and I feel that to-night I have been taught a great deal. I am determined to have the bomb-sight and bomb-handle fitted in the front c.o.c.kpit, so that with a splendid field of vision I can steer the pilot by the direct wave of my hand, by means of which I will be able to show emphasis or the reverse. The personal touch is essential. I will also be able to watch the enemy's defences and to counter them as much as possible.

In my next chapter I hope to show how this worked out in practice, and what it was like to attack a volcano such as Bruges.

VI.

BRUGES.

"Sleep on, pale Bruges, beneath the waning moon, For I must desecrate your silence soon, And with my bombs' fierce roar and fiercer fire Grim terror in your tired heart inspire; For I must wake your children in their beds And send the sparrows fluttering on the leads."

--_The Bombing of Bruges._

Overhead sounds the beating of many engines, and here and there across the stars I can see moving lights. The first two or three machines are already up. The carry-on signal has been given. A machine which has just left the aerodrome pa.s.ses a few hundred feet overhead with a roar and a rush. Its dark shape blots out the stars, and I can see the long blue flames pouring back from the exhaust-pipes of the engines.

I walk along the dim path and a shadowy figure meets me.

"Is that you, Dowsing?" I ask, recognising my servant.

"Yes, sir!"

"I'm just off on a raid. Fill my hot-water bottle about quarter-past nine, and put it right at the bottom of the bed. If you think the fire too hot move my pyjamas back a little."

"Good luck, sir!"

I pa.s.s on to the aerodrome. To the right is the mess, near which is the control platform where the raid officer stands all night despatching machines and "receiving" them as they return. A crowd of officers and men, wrapped in heavy overcoats, stand in groups watching the departure of the machines. In the middle of the aerodrome s.h.i.+ne the lights of the landing T of electric-light bulbs laid across the gra.s.s. To the left are the vast hulks of the hangars, in front of which are lined up the machines yet to go.

Pa.s.sing by two machines whose engines are running, I come to my own.

Under its nose stand half a dozen mechanics. One hands me a piece of paper.

"Wind report, sir!"

Flas.h.i.+ng my torch on it I see it is a report of the speed and direction of the wind at different heights up to 10,000 feet, information which has been obtained by a small meteorological balloon whose drift has been watched through an instrument on the ground.

Among the mechanics stands another figure as heavily m.u.f.fled as myself.

"Are you my rear gunlayer?" I ask him.

"Yes, sir! Mr Jones told me to...."

The engine just above our heads is started up with a sudden deafening thunder. I take the gunlayer by the sleeve towards the tail to hear his message.

"Oh! Yes! You have never been on a raid. I'll tell you what to do. I warn you Bruges is pretty hot, but, touch wood" (the tail-plane is near), "if we are lucky we will come through. Mr Jones is a very good pilot, and _I_ don't like taking any risks. Don't you get worried. It will be all right. You know all about the Lewis guns, don't you? Good!

Well, if a German searchlight holds us, open fire on it at once. Only if it _holds_ us, mind, not if it merely tries to find us, or the tracer bullets will give us away. If a German scout attacks us, open fire on him at once with your machine-gun. When I have dropped my bombs--you will be able to see me in the front c.o.c.kpit--s.h.i.+ne your torch on the back to see whether any have hung up. If one has stuck in the back racks near you, get him through somehow,--stand on him if necessary. If you want to say anything to me flash your torch over the top of the fuselage--you know Morse code, don't you?--and I will answer you back in Morse code. You'd better get in the back now. Don't worry! If you feel frightened, remember I am just as frightened as you--if not more!"

He walks up towards the nose of the machine, stoops under the tail to the rear of the main planes, and climbs up into his little platform in the back. I walk round the wings to the front of the machine and, facing the two propellers, walk slowly and carefully between their two whirring discs until I come to the little step-ladder under the triangular door on the floor. I walk up it, and with a certain amount of difficulty work my unwieldy body and my various impedimenta through it, a.s.sisted by the two engineers who have been starting up the engines from inside.

I suddenly remember the wind report, so I climb into the front c.o.c.kpit, and, s.h.i.+ning my torch on the bomb-sight fixed in front of the extreme nose, adjust it in accordance with the report, for I know from which height I intend to drop my bombs--that height being the greatest possible, as we are going to Bruges.