8 
Land Sc Water 
May 2, 19 1 S 
Of the two released from another breakdown, one flew 
straight home with the news ; but the other fell in, t)n the 
way, with a boy and a gun, for after laying up two days for 
repairs, the faithful little creature finally arrivvd home with 
its tail feathers shot of? and a pellet-wound in the back. 
" But there's our star case." 
The pilot indicated a dog that had just trotted out from 
behind a hangar. He was not much to look at ; belonged, 
in fact, to that yellow-cur variety one may see being hugged 
and cuddled by small urchins on almost any American street. 
His air was cheerful as he nosed for bones or anything 
else eatable the canine gods might vouchsafe. But suddenly 
he paused and shrank in a cjueer, paralytic crouch 
"Shell-shocked during a raid. He will probably recover. 
Meanwhile, he has learned his lesson ; bolts for the dugout 
ahead of the men when 
COLLAR iBIo 
^^^irHr^M- 
ADMIRAL Of the: NAVY 
^H^ir * • 
* • 
VICF. ADMlliAL 
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KtAR ADMIRAL 
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he hears ' Mournful 
Mary's' first j yell. 
'Mary' ? She's a siren 
with a sob in hiir voice. 
You'll probably make 
her acquaintance to- 
night, for a Boche 
plane hovered over 
here yesterday taking 
photographs, and ru- 
mour has it that we are 
to be gassed to-night." 
1 carried tiiat in- 
teresting piece of in- 
formation back vvitli 
me, that evening, to 
the hotel where I was 
lodged on the top 
story with only a few 
slates between me and 
the Boche. Being 
bombed is one thing ; 
gassed — quite another. 
I once helped to pull 
a pair of farmers out 
of an hotel bedroom 
after th?y had blown 
out the gas. They 
looked horrid. When 
awakened by " Mourn- 
ful Mary's" lugubrious 
wail in the middle of 
the night, I felt that I 
was looking hke them. 
Far off, the "Old 
.Man," a second siren 
of the masculine gen- 
der, was cursing the 
Boche in stentorian 
tones. But, louder 
than either — at least, 
so it sounded to me 
— rose the "grumph ! 
grumph ! grumph !" of 
German planes. 
There's no mistaking the sound, and — they were directly 
overliead. I know that I must have presented an accurate 
reproduction of that Baimsfather cartoon wliich shows a 
Tommy, hair on end, stretched out flat on " No Man's Land" 
under the glare of a star-shell. But they were not after me. 
Four hours later "Mary" warned us of their return, fresh 
from the murder of women and children in Paris. 
• * ♦ • • 
The sea patrol, two hydroplanes, and three small lighting 
planes, were perched hke so many dragon-flies and attendant 
wasps on the quay when I came back to the station the 
following afternoon. The pilots and observers were already 
in their places, the former trying out motors and controls, 
the latter fitting and loading the machine-guns in the fore 
and aft pits. The after-observer, by the way, has to be 
cool-headed, or he may cut a few wires and shoot off the tail. 
In their quilted suits and leather helmets, they looked like 
hooded knights ; and surely Arthur's Knights of tlie Round 
Table never sallied forth on more desperate quests, for the 
fabulous winged dragons of their day are real in this age. 
I also was to fly, and after thd patrol had got away, I 
dropped into the forward observer's place in a third great 
bird. This time I had wadded my ears against the deafening 
roar and knew what to expect. A rush down channel, the 
familiar dasli of spray, then we rose, lifting, lifting, lifting 
on the long low flight of a mallard, till we soared over the 
lighthouse at tlie pier end. 
ADMIRAL 
or THr. NAV> 
SHOULDER 
'Ovttcoali *n'l Whirf Sen 
?i'^-^-|f<^ 
JVPMIRAL OF THt NAVY 
VICE ADMIRAL 
REAR ADMIKAC 
» -It'^' 
REAR ADMIRAL 
COMMANDER 
LIEUT CO.MMANDER. 
LICLTENANT 
LtEUTLNA\T 
mm 
CAfT/,!:. 
tOMM ■ ■. ■':■ 
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UEUT. Ci A"/ \-.L'! K 
III 
Insignia of Rank, United States Navy 
A wide circle laid the town chrcctly beneath, its red-roofed 
houses in vivid contrast with the dull winter gleam of the 
surrounding prospect. I did not iialf like it, there, over the 
land. A seaplane is a seaplane, and the ground looked so 
confoundedly hard. Those pretty red pebbles of houses 
would hurt like the dickens in the small of one's back. Though 
I knew we should crash just as effectively if we fell into the 
sea, still the water looked soft. 
As on my other flight, the country lay below like a map 
in relief — hills mere green knobs in a silver lace of water 
channels, the beacli satin-gold, edged by the foaming surf 
of the sea. To-day the visibility was not so good, yet the 
haze that wrapped sea and land as in a golden cloak lent 
them mystery. Anything could come out of that enchanted 
prospect — flying Boche dragons, for instance, belching five 
• hundred bullets a 
minute from the midst 
of fire and smoke. 
But it was all so 
beautiful, the air so 
crystalline, sunlight 
golden clear, sea so 
green and wi de — 
Boche obnoxiousness 
had no place in it. 
I quite forgot him as 
we roared on between 
sea and sky, while toy- 
ships, like coast vil- 
lages, passed in swift 
procession beneath. I 
had almost forgotten 
even that I was flying 
when — t h e motor 
"stalled." 
Then it was that I 
n cognised the tnith 
of an eminent English 
doctor's statement in 
the British House of 
Commons: "Though 
the flyer may have no 
conscious fear, his ner- 
vous system is never- 
theless aifraid," Un- 
consciously my heart 
had synch roijised with 
the motor. They 
stopped ~ and started 
together when, after 
we had fallen a few 
hundred feet, the pilot 
coaxed the motor into 
going again. 
After that how that 
man did climb, climb, 
climb, until a couple 
of miles out from 
the base, we had risen 
fully seven thousand 
feet. And again we 
needed it, for, with a last vicious snarl, the . motor refused 
the propeller another turn. Seven thousand teet in the air, 
and the motor stalled ! A nice place for a peaceful 
correspondent ! 
It was a new sensation, that headlong dive through golden 
space, in silence broken only by the harping of the Wind on 
our wires. I should have enjoyed it— if I had not been 
afraid. I hope and believe the pilot did not notice my fright, 
for I camouflaged it by taking a few snapshots at those 
nasty little pebbles of houses as we fell. Perhaps he was 
afraid himself ? Though I do not think so. No doubt, in 
the pride of his skill, he took great pleasure in those sickening 
careens on the curves that seemed to me the beginnings of 
side-slips. But, be this as it may, for six long minutes we 
fell, fell, fell, and as each loop brought those red, pebbly 
houses up to meet us, I experienced once more that absurd 
preference for the sea. 
The channel in front of the hangars, too, looked about the 
size of a cotton thread, and— there was so much land on- 
each side of it. Even at a thousand feet it looked no wider 
than a length of baby ribbon. I did not believe we could 
possibly hit it ; was rather surprised, on the whole, when 
we took the water with scarcely a splash almost in front of 
our hangar. 
"That was as pretty a spiral dive as ever I saw"; the 
chief pilot extended us congratulations when we came ashore. 
I do not doubt it, but— I should not care to do it again. 
LIEUTENANT (Ju..; 
