Clear of the earth, at about 1000 feet, there are, here and there, faint patches of light of dark gray and the subdued reddish glow of the distant metropolis; the locomotive of a passing passenger train, bright as a searchlight for a brief moment, then passing away into the outer darkness. Higher and yet higher; and the sensation! The mind of a Jules Verne or of an H. G. Wells could not imagine a feeling more eerie, more strange than this. Noise and darkness, the incessant deafening purr of the engine, the pitch blackness on all sides, relieved by the one tiny light inside the fuselage, as welcome and cheery to the airman as a distant lighthouse to a sailor in a storm.
Then the searchlights begin to blaze, creeping up across the sky in ribbons of shining brightness. One plays for a moment on the machine, the pilot is almost blinded before it passes on its strange search across the heavens. But a stringent search reveals--nothing! For an encounter with the raiding airship is not at all probable at an altitude of below 6000 ft., and from that height up to 15,000 ft.; the only likely encounter is with the observation car of a Zepp. This car is usually suspended hundreds of feet beneath the mother-craft by means of a stout aluminum cable or cables, is about 7 ft. by 5 ft., composed entirely of aluminum, and contains sufficient space for one observer, who is in telephonic communication with the commander.
At last the pilot of the aeroplane has an instinctive feeling that a Zeppelin is somewhere near him. He cannot hear because of the noise of his own engine, and he cannot see because of the intensity of the darkness all around him.
The combat between the aeroplane and the Zeppelin might be compared to that between the British destroyers and the German Dreadnoughts in the recent Jutland battle. Dashing in with great rapidity and skill, the tiny one-gunned aeroplane fires its broadside, then makes off as fast as possible to get out of range of the comparatively heavy-armed airship. From thence onwards it develops into a fight for the upper position, for once above the Zeppelin the aeroplane pilot can use his bombs, which are considerably more effective than a machine-gun, and the broad back of the gasbag offers a target which can hardly be missed.