June 27, iqi8 
Land & Water 
13 
brass and paint. Every bit of brass and copper shone like 
gold. The painted car gleamed like a grand piano. 
With glue and sandpaper the gunner's mate in charge was 
touching up a slight abrasion in a propeller blade, for while 
revolving at two thousand a minute the slightest roughness 
wiU cause vibration and fracture, if not complete wreckage 
of the motor. An object falling on to a propeller as small 
and soft as a chestnut will pierce a blade like a high-power 
bullet, and break it off through the terrific vibration before 
one can shut off the engine. Accordingly, before each 
flight, each nut, bolt and wire is subjected to microscopic 
examination. 
On the bows a Lewis gun was mounted on a swivel that 
permitted almost perpendicular depression ; and, peeping 
underneath, I saw in racks on each side the four bombs, 
carried for the benefit of U-boats. To-day^ she was carry- 
ing practice bombs 
made of concrete 
which she would 
presently drop on a 
target. The sand- 
bags and mooring 
ropes having been 
cast off, the crew 
marched her out 
and around on a 
wide circle into the 
centre of the flying 
field. "Let her 
rise! " At the Com- 
mander's order 
they let her 
up a few feet. 
"Lower!" They 
pulled her down 
again. 
She floated in 
perfect balance 
with just enough 
buoyancy to carry 
her up to cruising 
height. A pull 
at a lever would 
releas^ water ballast to rise higher in emergency ; but usually 
a dirigible rises and lowers by the power of her engines 
driving the sharp "elevator" planes into the wind. 
"Port engine ! " "Starboard engine ! " They both went 
off with a puff of black smoke, and when satisfied with their 
even purring, the Commander gave the word " Let go ! " 
Simultaneously, the dozen ropes that held her slipped 
through the rings of the permanent stays. Then, slowly, 
but with rapidly increasing speed, the big ship rose and 
moved off on a wide circle that presently brought her heading 
straight down the centre of the field. 
In the meantime we had all moved back away from the 
target, a whitewashed oblong that represented the deck of a 
submarine. At her height, seven hundred feet, it could not 
have looked any larger than a turtle's back. A bomb, too, 
has the initial speed of the ship when released, and describes 
a flat curve in falling ; or may be deflected by a side wind. 
The Commander said, afterward, that he released the bombs 
two hundred feet before he reached the mark. While they fell 
they looked astonishingly large. A dead rifle shot could 
easily hit and explode one in mid-air. The first just tumbled, 
turning over and over, then as the wooden feathers caught 
the wind, it righted and shot down for the centre of the target. 
The ship had passed on, was fully a hundred yards ahead 
before the bomb struck. She- would have been well out of 
range of the concussion blast of a real bomb. Now she 
described another \vide circle, and repeated it three times 
dropping always a bomb. All but the last hit the target. A 
side wind carried it a couple of inches to one side, but in 
real warfare it would still have blown up a submarine. While 
the French had the station, they sank two U-boats with 
well-placed bombs. Since then our lads have added a third ; 
and their brethren, the "Heavier than Airs" have also scored. 
One pilot actually hit a fourth, and had the hard luck to have 
the bomb turn out a "dud." No doubt greatly frightened, 
the U-boat dived to a great depth and remained below till 
darkness permitted escape — than which, one could hardly 
imagine anything harder to bear. That poor pilot has not 
got over it yet. 
Each time she came down the field, the ship's great bulk 
clove the air with a sough like that of a risitig wind, and on 
the last round she was going at a pace that put her in a few 
minutes low down on the horizon. But just before she went 
out of sight, there appeared a second distant speck that en- 
larged as she diminished. 
' It's the Vidette from B- 
A Handley-Page in Pursuit 
Official photo 
The chief officer's face could not have lit up more brightly 
had it been his best girl instead of the second ship of the four 
that were to make up the station's complement. He added 
as she dipped her nose to alight : "If that is little D at 
the wheel you are in luck. He's the boy that can give you 
real stories." 
He could and did — as we sat with him at a later luncheon. 
A small, dark-eyed Frenchman, he spoke English so perfectly 
that his narrative lost nothing of its spirit that would have 
been inevitable in a translation. 
" Ouil " lie confirmed- the officer's assertion. "We sank 
two submarines at tliis station. With another we fought 
an artillery duel. Out! The little Vidette out there fought 
a U-boat with only her little pop gun and put him to flight. 
We had sighted him steaming along the surface, and had 
he kept his course, 
we could easily 
have come down 
the wind and 
bombed him as we 
passed. But he 
was wise, that 
U-boat — wise as a 
woman who is wise 
without knowing 
it. Instead of 
waiting for us, he 
headed up into 
wind which blew 
so strongly that, 
with our engines 
doing their best, 
we could make 
only eight knots. 
That was his 
speed, and while 
we hung astern, 
striving to over- 
take him, he fired 
fifteen shells at 
us. Some burst so 
close that the 
little Vidette still bears their marks. But, luckily, they were 
not incendiary shells. We answered and hit her, too, with our 
three-pound pop gun. But our shells glanced from her back 
Hke peas off a bald man's pate. 
"It would have been suicide to persist, so we struck a 
wide tack across the wind to outsail and come back at him 
down the wind. But when we came about he was gone, that 
cunning U-boat had submerged and fled from our little 
Vidette. But such is 'your Boche — a coward alwa5's unless 
the odds are his." 
I took another look at that little Frenchman. He had 
spoken so quietly, as though hanging on to the tail of a 
.submarine, a mark for its gunners, were a mere incident in 
the day's work. He could not have been five feet tall. He 
weighed probably in the neighbourhood of ten stone. But 
the spirit that lit up his dark Latin eyes was big as Mont 
Blanc. The soul of him could not be set down in tons. 
" Is war ever safe ? We do not always escape. Out there" 
— he flung his thumb over his shoulder indicating the flying 
field — "we watched a great ship fly off on a far mission. 
A ship reported her along the Mediterranean ; a gallant sight, 
too, she must have made between the sunHt sky and deep, 
blue sea. Then" — his shoulders rose to the roots of his 
hair — "she vanished. Perhaps a submarine got her with an 
incendiary shell. A flash of flame, the splash of her charred 
body in the water, it would be over ! Or she may have been 
just brought down. Perhaps her crew will be heard of, some 
day, in an interior German prison." 
Just as he had said, a dirigible offers a large target — ^just 
how large I did not realise until our big ship came sUding 
back out of the sunset's gold. The huge bulk of her, shining 
ethereal, looked as large as the hangar. While she was still 
a fly speck on the horizon, the lone sentry on top of the 
hangar had sounded the bugle blast that brought the men 
like swarming bees into the flying field. As she slowed 
and dipped down with engines cut off, the quarter mile 
of trail rope thudded on the ground. It was seized by a 
hundred hands and quickly bent to a "dead man" anchor. 
The guys were then slipped through the stay rings ; then, on 
a wide circle, she was marched around and into the hangar. 
"What a target! " I thought, but these flying sailors of 
ours showed no mental disturbance over the fact. Daily they 
go forth on the patrols keeping the German mine layers out 
of the French ship channels — and they make the best of a 
rather cheerless e.xistence while doing it. 
