i6 
LAND & WATER 
October ii, 19 17 
tosethcr to-dav in aircraft factories, when through the silent 
'ilvern night ->kv there comes the droning of the bombing 
machines, that music of hell's harps and the devils organs of 
tleath Whether it be possible to construct a silent aeroplane 
is a question un'ikelv to be solved in the immediate future 
But as amatter of fact these marvellous mechanisms interest 
one far less through their present uses than lor the capabilities 
that lie before them, when blood no longer flows. 
The Uncharted Sky 
Tho-e who have wafchod squadrons of say ten or twenty 
planes manoeuvring, must have lieeu struck with the immensit>- 
of space. An aeroplane fl\ing at a hundred miles an houi 
will at 10,000 feet appear almost stationary. It seems to 
drift slowlv out of sight not bv its own volition. The pitfalls 
and eddies that lie a few thousand feet above the ground are 
already ianiiliar to airmen ; when the height rises into hve 
figures it is said that a Sargasso Sea is encountered a region 
of perfect calm. I-5ut these altitudes in temperate climates 
are not without surprises, and when the upper currents of thv 
Tropical Zone and possibly of the Frigid Zone are explored, 
other riddles will have to be read. It is doubtful whether the 
machine is vet built that rising from beside the Ouchteilony 
:\Ionumenton the Calcutta maidan can soar nortTiwards and 
descend upon the highest plateau of Jlount Everest a few 
hours later, but it is absolutely certain, having advanced so 
far. it is only a question of time and c.xperience before this 
flight is acc(implished. E\en now we know more about the 
uncharted sky than the Roman conquerors of this island 
did of the (iiilf Stream. It. is f)nly by glancing backward 
that we can discern how much farther forward it is jiossible 
we may go. Already there are aeroprancs in the air -Dread- 
noughts of the skv as they were called in L.\xd & \\'.\ter a 
few weeks ago--which are capable of carrying a dozen 
passengers from dawn to sunset of an autumn day without 
descending. Turn over the files of London newspapers 
seventy to eighty years old and peruse the fears and doubts 
concerning the new fashion of railroad travelling. It was 
thought a man would he stifled through lack of air if a train 
mo\ed at fifty miles an hour. Such fears do not trouble 
to-dav the most timid in regard to flight. 
On" a perfect autumn day— brilliant sun and windless blue 
sky — the writer stood on a wide stretch of meadowland, 
not far from London, with half a score of aeroplanes soaring at 
all heights above his head. Earlier in the day he had visited 
workshops in which men and women were busy and watched 
liow out of crude lumps of metal and unbarked trunks of 
trees tliete grew into being a wonderful web of the most 
delicate frame-work, light vet so strong that it seemed the very 
poetrv of handicraft. The wood lent itself to the saw, 
and the sawdust, sucked in by the fans, was turned into gas 
so tliat the air the work-folk breathed remained pure, and new 
driving power \vas created through what, in former times, 
liad to Ix' removed at considerable labour and cost. The 
workshops were large, lofty and cheerful, and it was easy for 
those employed in the toil to go out and see the miracle they 
had helix'd to create,. singing through the upper air and 
tuning its \oice here in England to take part in that hymn of 
battle thajt shall presently swell into a loud chorus of victory 
over there in France and Flanders. Throughout these work- 
shops one was conscious of a spirit of comradeship which took 
away from the work the drag of drudgery. It is a joy of 
aircraft-buililing that the least imaginative can almost behold 
the creature forming itself into life, so clearly defined are the 
separate processes. Behind this let there be intelligent 
direction and that single purpose of achievement which is 
the secret of the best regimental spirit, in that it compels 
the individual to set above liimself the honour and credit of 
regiment or workshop, and you have an almost ideal condition 
of industrial life. 
It was now the afternoon. Standing in the grateful shade 
of an avenue that approached an old manor-house, with its 
Tudor walled garden behind one where peaches and pears 
were ripening in the open air, one looked over acres of 
grassland. In the distance new workshops were rising rapidly 
into existence : and the sun glistened on their roofs of glass 
and galvanised iron. Behind them was the spire of the parish 
church, and it was part of the picture. Gangs of men were 
hard at work in deep cuttings, for in another week the canal 
which Cardinal \\'olscy had constructed to carry water to his 
pet project at Hampton Court, is to be turned under- 
ground by the Lord Mayor of London, so that these meadows 
will form one huge unbroken lawn, a jwrfect place for the 
OJrising and landing of planes. " .\ thing of beauty is a joy fur 
ever," and one never tires of watching a well-driven aeroplane 
running along the grass and lifting itself into the'air;or \vhen 
it returns, dropping gently down and lightly -travelling 'the 
jiround before it comes to rest. It is an exultant^ sight, for 
it suggests that man has at last freed himself from the bonds 
of earth, though if he be not ^kil(ul he quickly finds earth 
ren;aias an uncommonly solid fact. 
One could not but wonder whether, were the great English 
Cardinal to re-visit these meadows he knew so well, he wouM 
be surprised. One doubts it. There is not so much altered 
in England as we arc apt to imagine. and it has always been 
contrar\- to the English character to express emotion at mere 
mechanical contrivances, however new and noisy they may be. 
He would be much more Hk.dy to begin with criticism and to 
end by doubting the utility or beneficence of flying, unless 
concrete evidence could be produced. This Mr, James 
Whitehead (for his are the aircraft works and aerodrome here 
described) should not have any difliculty in doing ; and his 
own typical British energy and force of character would 
doubtless appeal to Wolse>-, who ever liked Englishmen who 
were able to get things done and done well. 
The spirit of nil admirari. the slowness to accept a now in- 
\ent:oii or development is a common taunt against the 
British character in regard to the building of air squadrons. 
Whether we could have moved quicker is a question there is 
110 intention of discussing here ; at any rate the reproach 
has passed, and liberal-prixate support, one understands, i; 
forthcoming for aircraft enterprises that have proved them- 
selves worthy of it. But the refusal of the Briton to allow 
his emotions to be e.vcited by new inventions or novel claims 
is a different matter. On the whole one leans to the belief 
that it is not so much England as Germany which has 
suffered from this national trait in so far as the building of 
fl^«ng machines is concerned. During the attacks on I^ndon 
by Gothas, nothing was more noticeable among British 
residents, men, women and children, than their refusal to 
be terrorised. The majority, there is reason to think, never 
really realised the machines that were endeavouring to 
break across the skv through our defences. They seemed 
to regard the bombardment as though a Thor, some godless 
Teuton god, was striving to hurl his thunderbolts on this 
city from Germany, and it was these bolts that our batteries 
were flinging back. • They spoke of it as it might be a new 
sort of ball game— a mean kind of cricket or football on a big 
scale. Cheers were on tap kt the least excuse, chaft was 
plentiful, so was bad language, but not a craven word. 
True to Nature 
By the gate of a certain Ix)ndon house there stands a 
chestnut tree overshadowing the pa\ement. On one of the 
bombardment nights with the guns still linng in the distaiicc, 
the owner came out to reconnoitre in slippered feet. He be- 
came aware he was interrupting a love scene, for in the silence 
of the night a girl's voice rang out cleariy, " Well, I can t 
exactly say I love vou, but I do really like you." Gothas or 
no Gothas, English courting had to be done. That same 
night there was a sequel, a pathetic sequel, to this story. 
An old couple had for years made it a habit on fine nights to 
take a walk on open ground near their home before going tc 
bed. It was glorious moonlight ; and Germans or no Germans 
thev refused to interrupt their practice. They strolled to 
their favourite bench, sat down, and a bomb falling just be- 
hind them, killed both instantly. It was sorrowful, yet one 
cannot help thinking that a cheer must have gone up as their 
souls passed together into the courts of Heaven— true Britons 
to their last breath. / .• i. 
It will be urged that both these couples were foolish. 
It may be so. It was certainly foolish of linglishmen in old 
days to drink bottled beer on the plains of Hindustan, and to 
pay duty calls in top-hat and frock-coat under a Bengal mid- 
day sun. It killed off many of them. These dangerous 
habits were due to the same trait— stubborn conservatism, 
refusal to accept new tangled ideas, determination to be true 
to oneself, though the skies fall. Call it foolishness if you 
will ; it has been wasteful of human life, but it has won Britain 
an Empire. There is no more inexplicable fact in the growth 
of the human family, not even the persistent survival of the 
Bedouin trilx' of Beni-lsrael, than that a small hybrid people 
of the Northern Seas should have developed, alongside 
enormous energy and an insatiable craving for adventure, 
the same slow-moving spirit, the same blind devotion to 
tradition w^hich animate the peoples of the Orient, with their 
more ancient civilisations. 
The subject cannot be pursued here, space forbids it, but 
it is impossible to write about aeroplanes without entering 
a protest against intemi)erate indictments which have been 
uttered against us for not plunging more swiftly on this new 
weapon of war. Had F^^ngland done this she would not have 
' been true to her nature, and. whatever punishment she may 
have . received in consequence of this slowness to move^ is 
light compared wth that which- might have happened liad 
-- she proved false to herself. TM#iS*a point toooften oNcrlooked. 
