LAND AND 5V:ATER( 
August 14, 1915. 
scathed to ihc hoi.on.nl. And st.ll iney rose \ er- 
wood's heart grew large ;md lieavy, for he could discern 
in the Zeppelin a new movement. It fled no more and 
now was rising. He had only one thought : Can we 
rise enouc^h ? ^' But this concerned the pilot. Slowly 
the Zeppl^lin tried to turn, but a wind blew in 
the upper air and found its broad side. It rose, and round 
it in broad spirals rose its little enemy. The scene was 
all peace, and Ver\vood's body had almost an automatic 
quality as the pilot alternatelv pulled down the right 
and tlien the left aileron. He raged, so marooned with 
only a carbine and bombs. A machine-gun ! For that 
he could hcive praved. \o use; higher and still higher 
there lav success.' He blinked, his eyes were strained 
as they watched the barometer, 8,000 feet, then by 
curling stages, 9.C00. Still too slow; the thing above, 
firing desultorily, half-turned as if contemptuous and 
determined to keep upon its course. Verwood saw the 
swaying to starboard of the vertical rudders. He swore. 
And a bunch of bullets made just under his feet a horrid 
crackling. He heard the linen rip, and something go 
and grow loose, and dangle and clack in the wind. 
Dumbly he turned to look at the pilot, biting his 
mouth ;' then wrote upon the block, " A longeron gone, 
I expect? " 
The pilot nodded and iiis mouth formed the word 
" strut." 
VerAvood understood. A strut or more had gone; 
the fuselage might give. His strained eyes filled with 
tears as he watched the little black needle of the baro- 
meter creep up, touch, overtake the 10,000 mark. 
They were climbing swiftly now in the light air. 
An exhilaration was on Verwood as. he breathed more 
swiftly under the low pressure. And there was a hesita- 
tion in the enemy's course as if he knew he could not 
climb much higher. Something fell, mistier than the 
cloud below. They were throwing water-ballast, and at 
this sign of despair an exultation like blood rage filled 
the brain of the Flight-Lieutenant. The pilot wrote : 
" Can't get much higher. There's another strut 
giving somewhere." 
Verwood wanted to entreat him, cursing the noise 
the motor made. If he only could talk ! So, as if to 
taunt his brother-officer, he wrote : 
" Oelrich got up to 25,000 at Leipzig." 
Then for a moment all was excitement. The 
Zeppelin, ceasing to rise, slowly yawed to port, as if 
despairing, determined to charge, perhaps to wreck it- 
self if it could not escape. The response was automatic. 
Forward went the control-lever, clanking into place. 
Verwood felt rather than heard the elevator-flaps sink, 
and fell, hurting his breast, against the rail as, nose 
first, the biplane dived. 
They passed just under. The airship blotted out 
the sky. It looked all detail as Verwood emptied his 
carbine toward the petrol tanks. This was earth, not 
air, so heavy and hot all round, with men massed in the 
two cars, shouting. He saw a face in the mist that was 
red and sweating, with anxious eyes. He heard him- 
self shouting he did not know what ; he was urgent and 
thought only of one w'ord : " Up ! " 
They were rising. As if the nerves of his body ran 
into the machine he could hear the struts groan, the 
fuselage going, the clatter of the broken longeron. He 
could feel every wire straining as if at his own stomach. 
And now as they rose the air that streamed in through 
the hole in the linen \vas causing the biplane to heel over 
to the left. He thought : 
" A little more . . . she'll sideslip and . . . 
down, down. . . ." He shouted : "Lookout!" 
The control-lever came down to the right, raising 
the left aileron — and there was a long shiver of hesita- 
tion while a strained wire suddenly relaxed, singing its 
little note. It seemed to last for many minutes, until 
at last, very slowly, the biplane responded, righting it- 
self and hesitating a little upon the air like a tight-rope 
dancer that has no assurance. Then again it rose on 
its broad spiral way, and VervvOod was filled with a 
delight soft and vohmtuoiis as 2 raress. 
Thev were above. As a grey island the airship lay 
in the pale sky, rising still but slowly, as if uncertain, 
its cars invisible, suddenly desert, devoid of life save 
for the four whirring zones of its propellers. It lay so 
quiet upon the air. the L 84 painted upon its stern 
hardly a name. The biplane's spiral way broke into a 
line, and Verwood's fingers upon the releasing catch 
of the first bomb burnt with heat as a moment before 
they had been numb with cold. The biplane was 
swooping, with intolerable slowness it seemed, upon the 
broad thing below. A mad impatience possessed 
Flight-Lieutenant Verwood, an impulse to tlirow his 
pilot out of his seat and himself drive his machine, 
to hurl it straight at the grey flank, tearing it and bury- 
ing himself in it, with it falling towards the in- 
visible earth. But he was cool amid his savagery. 
Closer and closer they came. He saw the shine 
of the sun upon the grey flank. He touched the 
catch, and suffered a pang of physical pain 
as for a second a bomb gleamed past, missing the 
quarry. He felt abased. He could not then have 
looked at the pilot behind. But the pilot under- 
stood ; he swened to the right so suddenly that 
the rushing air tore yet further into the gaping 
linen of the fuselage. They were just above. As if 
the airship knew, it began to sink and Ver^vood had 
a vision of it growing less and then less, receding into 
safety. But, anticipating his dream, he released the 
second bomb. . . . 
He had heard the victorious voice of the bomb as 
it struck the central ballonets, a strange new sound 
among the roar of the propellers, like an interruption 
in a speech. He lay against the rail, clasping it with 
both hands, for everything about him was in revolution, 
and yet of that he could not think : he could only gaze 
below where rose a tall pillar of flatming hydrogen. He 
shivered as if his taut nerves had snapped. He saw 
smoke, hints of flame. Then for a moment the whole 
of the world in which he lived was seized by some 
mighty hand and overturned. From the stricken thing 
that fell rose the air, solid as a bar of glass. He could 
feel it strike the tail of the biplane. Like a body without 
mind he fell, small and bruised, in his seat, as the nose 
jerked up and the propeller, as if distraught, uttered a 
plaintive shriek. All his body seemed to dissolve, his 
entrails to slide towards his spine, and there cling. He 
was conscious of something behind him that fought for 
life, of the pilot with both hands pressing the control- 
lever forward. He thought : " Down." Then, as he 
saw only their own motor: " Too much." He saw a 
cloud, small and round like a thick tobacco pufi". The 
air still streamed about him, sought to snatch him from 
his seat to knead him as with fingers. The pilot pulled 
the lever back, and Verwood, falling towards him, 
felt the back of his seat bruise his side. He was in 
tumult. This thing below which he had seen flaming — 
it was his; he had hit it, he had slain it. It was victory. 
And yet all about him the rushing air from the stricken 
thing that fell — it was killing him, too. He could feel all 
the fabric wriggling behind him. It might buckle. 
Verwood saw himself, a black lump, v.hirling down 
with spread limbs, like a shot pheasant. He laughed 
hysterically. He thought of Hendon and that day when 
the tail skid had caught in something and they had 
nearly turned over while landing. 
The biplane canted to the right, then to the left. 
With ears automatic Verwood heard the control-bar 
groan as the pilot pulled it to the left, then to the right. 
He felt sick, was thrown from side to side. Then, 
magically, the movement grew less as if somehow by 
the band of fate the biplane were righted after all. Yes, 
it was ... it was ! It swayed less. The propeller 
again beat regularly. Verwood once more wiped his 
goggles. The biplane was planing down, but far below 
dropped something that did not now seem so large, some- 
thing like a great caterpillar, no longer rigid, but 
crumpling .- nd twisting into a crescent; something that 
fell more swiftly than a swallow dives, that fell in a lazy 
pall of black smoke, shrouding in its midst an angry 
red eye of streaming flame. 
14 
