Part 3

There was no lashing the passenger to a seat in the plane. The place in which I sat would not have cramped three men, the pilot being in front. There was a loose leather seat cover atop a wooden box as the only sign of comfort.

"Make the best of it," said the pilot. With that, he turned on a switch, and the propeller whirred a warning of departure to the clouds. It was a parting shot to ascertain that the engines were in trim, and after the engine had been stopped the craft was wheeled out into the waters of the bay, and then again the propeller rent the air with a burring noise which is surprising even if you are more or less prepared for it.

For the first few seconds we apparently swung along on the water's surface, then skimmed along, the floats at the sides of the plane bobbing on the slightly crested sea. It was only a matter of less than a minute before I realised that we were rising in the air between sky and water, and with amazing speed we soared, and soon were 300 feet in the air. Still our aircraft climbed and climbed. The ocean, which had been beating on the sands now outside, seemed peaceful and green. The town which I thought had such winding streets when I walked through them now looked as if it had been laid out by a landscape architect. Up, up we travelled, and the higher we were the more deceptive was the North Sea.

Through, or, at least, far above, the opening to the port the pilot steered the seaplane, and far down in the sea I saw a strip of dusky something pushing a white speck before it. The pilot signalled for me to look down. It was then that I realised that this funny little thing was a British submarine going out to sea. The pilot bellowed something; but I could only see that he was shouting, no sound coming to me above the din of the propeller. We steered straight out to sea, and miles away I saw a grey speck--a warship prowling over the lonely depths.

After listening to stories of pilots who have been tossed on the bosom of the waters for twenty and thirty hours, the thought of the hardships these pilots have to undergo came vividly to me. I thought of how I might feel if a dozen anti-aircraft guns made us their target. Behind us the town now had almost disappeared. The officer kept the nose of his machine towards France, and I thought, as we sped on, of the young officer who had an appointment for dinner with his fiancée, and who had descended in the wrong territory only a week before. These daring pilots, however, think nothing of cutting through the air from England to France and taking a bomb or so with them for Zeebrugge on the way.

I began to think a great deal of my pilot. He was about twenty-seven years old, and was cool and certain. He was a dare-devil, and had only been over in England a short time after spending months on the coast near the front.

The town had disappeared, and it was evident that we were practically at the mercy of the compass. I felt no dizziness at the great height. In fact, I had no conception of the altitude of the seaplane then. Perhaps I was comforted by the whirring of the propeller, the thundering rumble of which was increased by the stiff wind. I looked headlong down, and experienced no sensation of fear. I seemed to be in a solid moving thing as stable as a machine on earth or water. We must have been up 4,000 feet and possibly 100 miles out at sea. There was a sameness about the travelling. You heard the roaring blades, and saw the deceitful sea and clouds on a line with you here and there. The pilot turned the plane, and soon we were headed for land. We kept at the same altitude, and after a while beheld the shore line. The marvellous speed of the aircraft appealed to me then, as it was not long before we were over the harbour gates. At the same time, the seaplane just then did not seem to be making any headway. From a height of 4,000 feet the great vessels looked like fair-sized matches. How impossible it seemed to aim straight enough ever to hit one of those narrow things. As we turned around above the town in the direction of the hangars the trembling wings appeared to waver a bit more than usual. I looked down at the town, and we appeared at a standstill. You can tell sometimes when persons are looking at the planes by a speck of white, which is a face. The earth and sea rose nearer, for, as one does not appreciate, the plane was descending.

Our seaplane swung around and around like a bird about to settle, and, as the seagulls do, alighted on the waters against the wind. With remarkable skill and patience the pilot carefully steered the machine until she faced the ways on which waited a throng of air-station officers and waders. Soon we were properly placed, and a dozen men clad in waterproof clothes splashed forward into the water, and caught the floats of the seaplane's wings. As the engine had been stopped before we landed, I got the first chance to speak to my pilot. He told me to get on the back of one of the waders, and in a few minutes I was again on dry land. Then the first thing I thought of was how the machine looked in the air. The officers congratulated my pilot on a remarkably fine landing.

We had been more than two hours and ten minutes in the air, and we were both glad of a good stretch as we walked to the hangar, the burring buzz of the propeller still in my ears.

III. ADVENTURES IN A SEAPLANE

It was an interesting gathering which faced the warm fire in a smoking-room of an East Coast station of the Royal Naval Air Service. Many of the seaplane pilots who were attired in the blue and gold of naval officers had recently returned from successful endeavours in their hazardous life in the North Sea and on the Belgian Coast. And here they were in old England chatting about their experiences without brag or boast--just telling modestly what had happened.

On one side of the spacious room, on a long, deep leather-cushioned sofa, were an officer of the guards who was known to have an income of at least ten thousand dollars a year, and who had taken to flying for the excitement; a stocky youth of twenty from Salt Lake City, Utah, who was known to have eked out a livelihood on fifty cents a day at Dayton, O., so that he could pay for his training as a pilot; another youngster, scion of a wealthy Argentine family with English connections; and an Englishman, just over thirty, who had been born in California and had heard the 1914 call of the mother country. They were cramped, but comfortable.

In other chairs of the deep, comfy English variety were a rancher from Canada; an Olympic champion, whose name has often figured in big type in New York's evening newspapers; a lieutenant-commander of the Royal Navy, who had hunted big game in three continents; a wind-seared first mate of a British tramp; a tanned tea-planter from Ceylon; a 'Varsity man from Cambridge, whose aim had been a curacy in the English Church; a newspaper man from Rochester, N. Y.; a London broker; the head of a London print and lithographing business, looked upon as one of the best pilots in the service; and a publisher, who in pre-war days had been more interested in "best sellers" than in seaplanes.

All were dreadnoughts who looked upon it as a privilege to give their lives to smash Prussian militarism. If you had asked any one of them for an interview he would have scoffed at the idea. But ordinary newspapermen cannot be blamed for being enthralled at the share of these pilots in the World War. What's printed about them? Just a paragraph to the effect that "Several seaplanes last night bombed Zeebrugge or Cuxhaven." They dashed out into the frigid North Sea with an errand, but their share in the fights and the valuable assistance they have been to Great Britain as scouts are seldom mentioned. Still, they "carry on," asking for no encouragement. And right here it must be explained that "carry on" means to do or die in this war. It is the byword of the British of the day.

It chanced that "Tidy," as we will call him, was the first speaker who had something to say. He had a reason for talking, for some evil genius had followed him for two days. The yarn is best told in his own words, so far as they can be remembered.

"It was my patrol and I started from France at half-past five o'clock in the morning," began the seaplane pilot. "I shot out to sea for about thirty miles, and then continued to run along the coast for about 63 miles. I caught sight of a Dutch ship, and a little while afterwards observed a submarine. Almost as soon as I saw the vessel there was a cloud of smoke. I raced to the scene, knowing then that the Dutch tramp had been torpedoed by a German U-boat. Four miles further on I espied a second submarine. I opened fire on the first submarine, which then I saw had taken in tow a boat evidently containing the survivors of the Dutch vessel. I observed one of the Dutch sailors crawl to the bows of the boat attached to the submarine and cut the rope. At that instant I dropped a bomb, which fell about 25 or 30 feet from the submarine. The under-sea craft went down very quickly, and I descended further and dropped my aerial, and the mechanician-operator sent out a message. I threw other bombs when I thought I detected about where the submarine was in the sea. It was like a hawk after a fish. The other submarine fled without giving me a chance.

"I continued scouting, having warned the British warships that two submarines were in the vicinity. It came over very misty, and in the deep haze I saw three or four German vessels coming out. As I turned, deciding to race home and give the word, my engines failed me. I went down and down, holding off from the white caps of the sea for two and one-quarter hours. My next adventure was the sight of some German aeroplanes. After fiddling around, I got my engine started, and flew up to 1,000 feet above the sea. It was lucky that I started the engine when I did, for the sea was becoming unpleasant. But then my magneto failed me, and I realised what was in store on those wind-torn waters. I was forced to dodge about like a bird with a broken wing. The wind freshened to 40 knots. Although we did our utmost to keep the seaplane off the water, it, of course, had to rest there, and I became horribly seasick. The mechanician and I tried to keep the craft afloat. We fired off our rockets, hoping to attract the attention of a friendly or neutral vessel, but at the same time realising that we might fall victims to the enemy.

"All night the mechanician and I were tossed on the sea without a chance of attracting anyone, as our rockets had given out. The cold was unbearable, and both of us were very seasick.

"Dawn came, and there did not even then seem much more chance of our being rescued than at night time. You could not imagine anything lonelier than a seaplane on the bosom of the North Sea when you are without food or drink. The rocking of the light craft would have made a good sailor keel over with seasickness. The happy moment, however, did come. We were spotted by a mine-sweeper, and she raced to the rescue. Our mangled machine was hoisted on the kite crane of the little vessel. We had been thirty-six hours without food and water, and most of the time bumped about on the sea.

"That would seem to be about enough for the evil genius to perform, eh? But we were doomed to have another surprise in store. I went to bed in a room in a little hotel, and had hardly closed my eyes when there was a great explosion; the whole place seemed about to fall down. I put on an overcoat, and tore outside to discover that those blamed destroyers which I had seen earlier were bombarding the place where I went to sleep. A lucky shot demolished the building next to the one in which I was in bed; then I went back to bed, too tired to care what else happened."

IV. SWEEPING THE SEAS FOR MINES

There are days when a mine-sweeper captain, who is continually running the gauntlet of death, reckons that he has been fortunate. Usually this is when he just escapes being blown to bits with his vessel or sees what can happen to a steamship when it strikes one of the enemy mines planted at random in the North Sea. There are days when he goes out and sees nothing worth while. However, despite the great danger, unseen and unheard until all is over, these mine-sweeper men guide their vessels out daybreak after daybreak, with the same old carefree air, to perform their allotted task in this war.

Many of these men were fishermen, who looked as if they had slipped out of funny stories in their thick jerseys and sou'-westers; now they are part and parcel of the British Navy, proud of the blue uniform and brass buttons and--when they have them--of the wavy gold bands on their sleeves. There are others who were officers and so forth in the mercantile marine in pre-war days. They have sailed the seas from John o' Groats to Tokio: and to them New York is merely a jaunt.

One of the latter, who was a passenger-vessel officer, attracted a deal of attention at an East English port by his indefatigable labour and fearlessness in his risky job, until he was rewarded for more than two years of grinning at death by the Distinguished Service Cross.

He knows Broadway well, can tell you where he likes best to get his hair cut, and where he considers they put up the best cocktail. One day I was permitted to take a trip with this captain-lieutenant--and get back. Mine-sweeping has been written about by persons from Kipling down, so I will just tell you the story as I then saw it.

The skipper stood on the bridge of his dusky-coloured vessel as she soused through the waters of the grim North Sea, his keen eyes ever on the alert fore and aft, and occasionally on the sister ship to his, coupled along with the "broom." They were "carrying on," as usual. This skipper was a man just in his thirties. His face was cheery and round, and body was muscular and thick-set. In spite of the watch he and his first mate kept on this particular occasion, he found time to give me his opinion on certain things interesting to the men who go down to the sea in ships, and also an idea of what it means to be in command of a mine-sweeper.

"You should have been with us on Sunday," he said, as he lighted his cigarette between his cupped hands. "It was more interesting than usual--had something of this damn thrill you talk about ashore and don't know what it is until you've been at the firing front or in one of these blessed ocean brooms. That chap across the way found a mine in his kite, and we had to cut the hawser in double-quick time, and get far enough away from it before we pegged a bullet in one of the horns."

The skipper explained that none of the mines are exploded less than 200 yards from the vessels. He said that the experience he had just related would have sufficed for a day, but that an hour later, when he was still brushing up a part of the North Sea, not far from the coast, he received a warning from a trawler that a mine exposed at low water was just ahead of him. Not in his time had he seen a steamer go astern quicker. Afterwards, they deftly fished around for the mine, snapped its mooring rope, and brought it to the surface. When the mine was at a safe distance from all vessels, a couple of men then aimed their rifles at it until there was a loud explosion which sent sand-coloured water 35 feet and more into the air.