THE YPRES TIMES 243 By Captain W. J. Voss, M.C., Author of The Light of the Mind." THE farm lay at the end of a secluded lane, far from the main road. Away to the East was the British front line, whence came the rumble of a heavy bombardment. It was the opening bar of the first battle of the Somme. From the drowsy, peaceful aspect of that Picardy farm, bathed in the hot, dog-day sun, you would not have thought that only a few miles away the great nations of Europe were wallowing in a ghastlyblood-bath. Low buildings looked down on the farm-yard from three sides. In the middle some hens were scrabbling and pecking in a heap of manure. A sow, with swollen teats, lay among some straw. An Australian soldier, hands in pockets, lounged against a wall. Outside the farm ran a line of trenches and several rows of rusty barbed wire. They had never been used, and now nature was reclaiming them with weeds and thistles. A goat was standing on its hind-legs nibbling off the lower leaves of an apple tree. A mangy dog scratched for fleas, another lay asleep in its kennel. Some hens sat on the shafts of a cart, waiting to lay. In a low wooden building near-by was the officers' mess. Pictures of nude ladies,- taken from the pages of La Vie Parisienne were pasted on the walls. A telephone stood on an upturned case in the corner, and down the centre of the room was a trestled table. There was a bottle of whisky and soda-water syphon on a shelf which was strewn with magazines, books and trench-maps. Through a tiny window at the side one looked across a field of waving corn. The reflector of the lamp which hung from the ceiling was dotted with flieslike us, they were waiting for death. It was war. There were three long blasts on a whistle. The captive balloon was about to go up. Men wearing clean, double-breasted uniforms, unlike the mud-stained soldiers of the front line, began to emerge from all sorts of habitations, even from boxes covered with tarpaulins, or holes in the ground, and to walk slowly across the field. The war would be a long one. There was plenty of time. Some had forgotten their gas-masks and turned back to fetch them. They fell in, numbered off (there were about 60 of them), formed fours and marched away across a flat field. I followed them. One was carrying something which resembled a Russian icon. This was the map- rest. Presently we came to the balloon, screened from the enemy by a line of tall poplar trees. Like a long naked caterpillar, it squatted over its little bags of ballast as if hatching its eggs. The men formed a line on both sides of the huge beast, and each one took hold of the ropes which hung from its belly. The fat worm staggered like a drunken elephant, whilst some khaki-clad figures pushed a basket under itperhaps the jovial monster was going to lay The two principal actors, the observers, now came strolling over from the officers' mess. One of them, Basil Hallam, had made a hit just before the war with his song, Gilbert the Filbert." The motor on the winding-lorry began to splutter and bark, and orders, unintelligible to my gunner mind, were shouted by the sergeant-major. With the aid of orderlies the two observers laced themselves into complicated corsets, which they connected later to their parachutes by means of a cord. One of them put on a helmet with earphones and mouthpiece attached. Attired in this strange garb, and resembling revived mummies from the British Museum, they climbed into the nacelle." The order, Let go," rang Out. The balloon took the air. She rose slowly, gracefully, the rumble of the windlass bidding her farewell. She was at home now, immobile afc- the end of her wire. Suspended high up in the blue sky, she looked like a sleeping salmon in a-pool of still water. You expected her to wake suddenly out of her reverie, give a, flick of her fins and-shoot away into space. There were many other balloons in the,

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1935 | | pagina 21