The sense of duty well done, of dangers faced and conquered, gives an exhilaration which has made the whole night of terror worth the while.
The moments of dread through which we have lived have been so vivid, so intense, that they have left us cool-headed and tranquil, and now we know that we are on the way home, and that we go to rest and forgetfulness.
Minutes pa.s.s, and below us gleams the fading loveliness of a star-sh.e.l.l.
To the left flickers Ypres. On the right at Nieuport one sh.e.l.l bursts out along the coast, beyond which lies the vast expanse of the quiet sea.
Minutes pa.s.s, and below us shines the little T of lights at Coudekerque.
Down drifts our light--up drifts the welcome answer. Softly we sink towards the world, which slowly, slowly grows real from out a map....
Gladly I drop through the little door when we have at last drawn up beside the mighty hangars. Gladly I stretch my cramped legs and walk for a while unfamiliarly upon the gra.s.s. Gladly at last I switch off the light in my bedroom, and curl up in the sheets with my feet upon the hot-water bottle. On the ceiling gleams the fire-light. Voices sound more rarely in the cabins. Suddenly I remember something, and call out--
"Who was it getting h.e.l.l over Ghistelles?"
"Bob!" comes an answer from some near-by cabin.
"I say, Bob! Did you have a bad time?"
"Twenty-five holes in the machine! Jack shoved the bombs right across the aerodrome, though--he"s not a bad observer!"
"Shut up, Bob!"
"Good-night, Jack! Good-night, Bob! Good-night, Bill! Good-night, Shoey!"
"Good-night, Paul!"
"Good-night, Jimmy--it wasn"t so bad, was it?"
"No! Good-night, Paul!"
Soon I drift to sleep and the well-loved world of dreams.
VII.
DAWN TO DAWN.
"When in the East the evening stars burn clear, We know our time of toil is drawing near; For as the evening deepens in the West, It brings an ending to our day-long rest.
One after one we slip into the gloom, And through the dusk like great c.o.c.kchafers boom; High in the stars you hear our mournful cry, As we sail onward through the sapphire sky."
--_The Night Bombers._
I suddenly wake, and sit up in bed with strained ears. I have a dim recollection of a noise. Then I hear three or four dull explosions like distant gunfire, and out wails the piteous appeal of "Mournful Mary" at the Dunkerque docks.
_Zoop-zoop_ ... bo-o-o-o-m!
The last is a tremendous explosion.
I wonder what is happening.
"Did you hear that? Any one awake?" I call out softly.
"That you, Paul--what can it be?" answers a voice in the darkness from some near-by cabin.
"I"ll go and see."
I step out of bed and walk to the door at the end of the hut. In bare feet and thin pyjamas I look straight out to the east, but faintly lighter than the dark skies above in which the stars still shine undimmed. The night is very cold and silent. On the left of Dunkerque a few pale searchlights move slowly across the sky. I see a few flashes and then hear the sharp reports of the guns. It must be an air-raid.
I hurry into bed again and call out: "Can"t see much! must be a raid!"
and then begin to drop off to sleep, when again I hear the wail of the hooter, followed by the dull reverberating crash.
Sleep comes with difficulty. Again and again I become conscious of tumult in the real world beyond my dreams. Again and again I hear the distant thunders. When I next wake it is getting light, so I walk to the door of the hut. Outside I now can see the flat countryside, desolate in the greyness of early morning. To the left are the towers and chimneys of Dunkerque, and on the little road running past the aerodrome are a few rough carts, piled high with bundles and shawled women, leaving the town.
_Zoop-zoop_ wails the syren. Out leaps the sudden roar of an explosion, and suddenly I see towering high above the roofs a tall column of dust and smoke, from which little black fragments are dropping back in a shower.
"Bob! Bob!" I call out.
A sleepy "Hullo!" answers me behind my back.
"They"re sh.e.l.ling Dunkerque! It must be a fifteen-inch gun!"
The pitiful column of refugees, of women taking their children and a few precious bundles of clothes, or articles of furniture, away to some place of safety, rapidly increases.
As far as you can see the road is dotted with the little groups. Some of the poor people are riding; some follow a cart; some push perambulators.
Again the syren wails; again the tall plume of black smoke shoots up near the town; again the shower of wreckage drops from it.
Sleep is impossible. I get up and dress, and go to the mess for breakfast. We now know that the sh.e.l.ls are bursting every seven minutes, and when six minutes have pa.s.sed we talk less, and listen, and wait.
There is the sudden crash, and through the window can be seen the earth shooting up in a field a little to our side of the town. The next sh.e.l.l is only a few fields away. I hurriedly finish the meal, and walk out of the mess to go to a hangar at the other end of the aerodrome, whose erection I am supervising.
I have just left the camp behind me, and am beginning to walk across the great field, when, in the very middle of it, some two hundred and fifty feet away, appears a solid black fountain of smoke and earth, quite seventy feet high. I stand transfixed with amazement and excitement as the roar of sound sweeps by me, and a few seconds later I hear the remote boom of the gun, twenty-eight miles away, near Ostend. The earth drops down again, the smoke clears, and I run panting across the ground to the low heap of earth which I can see in the distance, above the gra.s.s.
When I get there I find there is a huge crater some thirty-five feet across and twelve or fifteen feet deep. At the edge are two pilots, who shout breathlessly--
"We"ve got the base-plug! Look here! Don"t touch it--it is almost red hot!"
There in the yellow loam lies the drum of clean white steel marked with the symbols M 38 and a crown. I touch it with a wettened finger and hear a quick hiss. The metal is unbearably hot still, and it is small wonder when it is realised that it has travelled twenty-eight miles, and risen and dropped thirty-three thousand feet in a little over a minute. Though it is only the base-plug, it is some twelve inches across, and later, when cold, requires removal in a wheelbarrow into which two men can scarcely lift it.
Meanwhile I search eagerly for fragments. I find half-hidden a twisted piece of metal, and am just about to lift it when the syren in the docks gives warning of the approach of the next sh.e.l.l. Taking advice from the axiom that a sh.e.l.l never falls twice in the same place, we slide down into the crater and wait, a little nervously. We hear the dull boom of the explosion, and scrambling to the top, see to the south of the hangars a cloud of smoke rapidly disappearing. The wind is evidently causing the sh.e.l.ls to deviate, as they are falling farther and farther away from the town. The German spotting machines have been driven away by the British scouts, and so the gunlayers at Leugenboom (descriptive name!) are trusting to luck, as their early sh.e.l.ls were so successful.
One of the first, indeed, struck the Casino at Malo clean in the middle, and cut a slice out of it as with a knife. Only the previous night a divisional headquarters staff had moved into it, and thought it a rare billet after weary days behind the lines in the French sectors further south. Dawn brought to many of them a swift and unexpected death.
Carrying my hot lump of steel in my handkerchief I hurry over to the skeleton of the semi-erected hangar. The men, only naturally, seem little inclined to work. For five minutes they stand to their duty, and then, as the hooter blows, I give the order to take cover, and they go down the sides of the ca.n.a.l until the crash of the explosion shows that the menace has pa.s.sed.
The French have very quickly organised the hooter system. Some one says that a look-out at the lines, on seeing the flash of the gun, presses a b.u.t.ton which rings a bell in Dunkerque. The signal is sent on to the man in the light-ship at the docks, and he pulls the string of his syren. The complete operation only takes some ten or twelve seconds, and as the sh.e.l.l is travelling for well over a minute it gave ample warning.
As a matter of fact, such a system, if it does exist, is not necessary, as the sh.e.l.ls are falling at an exact interval of just over seven minutes.
The order is now given by the C.O. for work to be abandoned, and for the men to take cover. With one of the pilots I make a tour of the neighbourhood, examining the sh.e.l.l-holes in the surrounding fields. The columns of earth and smoke shoot up at regular intervals some half a mile away, and we do not trouble much about them.