“Is your compass pointing south?” I asked feverishly, for it was a question of life and death.
I knew one of the two was considerably off, but it might be mine as well as his, so I decided to try his. A constant mist of rifle fire and archies followed us in our ascent into the clouds, which fortunately was not long—thanks to the climbing power of the Salmson airplane. We were in and above the clouds for fully twenty-five minutes, and believe me, those twenty-five minutes were prayers that Davis’s compass was unerring.
Finally, considering the wind velocity, our probable distance from the lines, and the speed of the motor, I was convinced that if the compass were true we should be well over the French lines, so, hoping to encourage Davis, I called, “Well, Davis, if that old pointer of yours is right we are in La Belle France again. Let’s go down and see.”
He put the boat into a dive and we came out of the clouds in a long, straight glide. In a jiffy I quite well knew we were not in France. A German balloon with the Iron Cross was directly beneath us firmly moored to its bed on the ground. Here we were at less than a thousand feet. The excitement around that balloon bed could easily be imagined when out of a cloud, in such terrible weather, a huge and awkward two-place enemy plane unexpectedly dropped. I have been on the ground at our balloon beds when they were attacked and know something of the awful fire the attacking plane goes through in attempting to burn the balloon even at the ordinary height, but it is many times worse when it is moored to its bed, for the lower the plane must come the greater the hazard. It is for this reason that most armies consider it a greater feat for an aviator to destroy a balloon than an airplane. There we were like a great ghost suddenly manifesting itself, and take it from me, if the machine gunners were asleep on their work at our unannounced arrival, they mighty suddenly showed signs of speed for almost instantly, from every angle came the put-put-put, while we helplessly tried every conceivable maneuver to dodge the many guns which were firing upon us at full force. It is not strange that the airman does not worry much over the regular steel ammunition of the machine gun, for like other similar dangers, while they are the most fatal, they cannot be seen, so, he is oblivious to their presence; but when the guns are using tracer and incendiary bullets, the stream of fire is not unlike a miniature fire rocket and behind each of the pretty fire rockets comes two silent, fatal ball cartridges, for, indeed, the very object of “tracer” ammunition is to show the path the bullets are taking. If there is anything that gets a flyer’s wind up, it is tracer bullets from the ground. Our wind was up and had been up for some time. But, Davis did the right thing and again headed with the wind, while “tracers” saw us, met us and almost conquered us. It certainly is terrifying to watch them come up at you for the helpless part of it is that they come so fast you cannot even try to dodge them. They were all around us; our right wing was perfectly perforated with several accurate bursts and in the diving and slipping I had been thrown around in the cockpit like the dice in a dicebox. My seat had slipped from beneath me about three times, but the condition of my mind was such that I was positive that it had been shot from beneath me. The sharp turning with the wind left a wake of disheartening tracers in our trail. It resembled a billion small rockets for the flaming trajectories were easily followed. The Fourth of July was not in it. I thought at the time that it was a sight well worth seeing, but dangerously unhealthful. Soon though as we shot along we were again greeted by the high explosive bursts of the artillery which was some relief for they were considerably behind us and we were at least away from the machine guns at the balloon bed.