A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE AIR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2776, 20 May 1916, Page 5

A KNIGHT ERRANT OF THE AIR

■THE STORY OF A DUEL ■' i. -! ' ——- ■

The/f> flowing is from a letter received fronV/a n Oxford undergraduate who ia serving in the Koyal Engineers, and pub- ■ lisiiey. :'lii the London "Times"-.— . Th''is'jinorning -the air was full of GeruiauVi uunes.- I saw one flying overhead "•j' f- JS reat height. -. Gun atter gun picked, it -jtop, followed it a6ross the sky with the: (jeadly puff-ball's, and then gave it up 1.0 I' the tender mercies of the next battery 1 !as it passed out of range". The Bom flew on quite undisturbed, making for i :;he town about.three miles back from herre;i : . ' . ien-I saw that one of our big fighting ".''planes had risen, and, flying low ovei . the trees, was hurrying in my direc .tioh as if trying to get as far away fe mi the German as possible. So. it lined-I'or the moment, and then 1 saw Aic- j' was; getting well behind the oneniy', ai id would, rise to his height to attack 111: .in on. the return_ journey. For some li ttle time I watche'd the two machines— t! io one' circling slowly ovar the town in I'-tio" distance; the other now well away L towards the firing line and rising rapidly, /•'finally disappearing out of sight into a Icloud-bank. The Boche 'plane stayed /ij sonio little while unchallenged, then turnled in a leisuroly sort of way and started for home.

1 ; Thi's'morning was ideal for flying, the air calm'arid very'.'clear'," with hero and thfere'a.heavy. cloud floating'slowly across, 'but not.-threatening rain; and everything seemed to point for a safe return for the invader. :He . came. towards me down, wind at a'great pace, making an almost impossible target for our "Archies" (as toe an'mircratt jiuii mo ulways '.■•ailed).. They seemed to realise this, and hardly a shot followed him as ie sped across the sky. He passed over, my'head and made away for home, skirtiDg along, the edge of a largo dark cloud that stretched away ; towards the horizon. An old fellow in long waders was standing kneedeep in. the ditch at tho wdo oi' tho road, slowly and thoughtfully lifting the mud up oil to tho banks on either side—"ditching,". 'I believe, you call it. He saw mo looking -up at'the now distant 'plane, and laughed. "Looks as if 'e owned the place," no said; "but, Gawd! if they did bring him'down!". A Sudden Swerve. ' I glanced up again, and as I looked the 'plane made a sudden swerve away from the cloud-bank, and a larger and darker form seemed to spring out of the shadow, just as'y'ou have often seen, a hunting spider dart,out of its hiding place and 6i'ize some wretched insect. " It was the fighting "'piano I hnd seen, rising some time before. • ■ Almost ,l»fore. one could realise what, was' happening the machine-guns were firing', and the German was planing mad. ly'downwards for his life. At . first J .thought it wan moroly i ruse to help him to shako off his big opponent, but the. vol-plane was turned into a spiral, mid I knew; that something was wrong. For'a few seoonds he came down, steadily, and then seemed to ■ lose all control.' Tho radius of the spirals got less arid less, and the descent more steep till the 'plane was 'pitching headlong downwards, whirling round and round as it fell, like a dancing Dervish dropping through space! In amongst the wonderfully varied mixture of the' noises of , the "Front," .which at first seem so strange, but which one quickly comes- to disregard, there came a- new sound, a crash which might possibly have meant the falling of a shell some distance away, but to me it brought back memories of a still, fine morning on the Port Meadow at Oxford Do you remember? It was the first time that I saw Death. I looked up again at the spot where the short duel had-taken place, but the sky seemed empty, absolutely innocent of 'planes!, My "spider of the air" had slipped back to "his-hiding-place again. M'siour lias got back in his "voituro" from , where he has spent the day He says that six civilians were killed this morning by a bomb dropped from a German aeroplane. I am beginning to realise that mjr "spidor of Ihn air" was really a true Knight Errant, after all.