The painful fact was that while we were going through the air at a terrific speed, that speed was carrying us farther and farther into Germany. The situation was becoming more and more serious. What could we now do? We could not possibly fight the wind below the clouds and make the long distance home, so I told Davis to go into the clouds again; at least, we would not be such an easy target. This time we would try my compass, for while it might be slightly untrue, if we went long enough we surely could not fail reaching France at some point. He started to climb and, well—those were long moments. The climbing greatly decreased our speed, while the machine guns again played upon us most cruelly. But that climbing was a most wonderful piece of work; poor Davis twisted that boat in every conceivable manner, but the best part of it all was that he continued the climb at all costs. There was nothing so dear to me as those clouds—so near and yet so far. Anything to again get out of that constant and swarming bee-hive of fire bullets. Then we penetrated the ceiling. My heart was again almost normal for a few seconds. Here was the supreme moment it seemed—truly to err was to die, or worse, to finally land from shortage of gasoline and be made prisoner. Hugging close to the compass, oblivious to all else, lest we deviate a jot from its true south reading, I slowly and distinctly called the directions. For fully a half an hour we followed this procedure—sometimes above the clouds and most of the time in them, but never below them. At last I was absolutely certain that we were well over dear old France again; at least, somewhere between Paris and Nancy, so, after another three minutes to be sure, I called to Davis again.
“This time we have sure foxed the Hun,” I said; “let’s go down and look over the scenery.”
We had climbed quite a lot farther in the clouds than we thought, and it took longer to come to light, so, in our anxiety to see France again he put it into a steeper dip and soon we emerged in almost a straight dive. Below us to the right was another balloon at its bed. It was our own balloon line, of course. It could be no other for my compass had been undoubtedly true and somehow the ground looked like France. Furthermore, we had not been fired upon.