AN AIR COLLISION.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1918, Page 4

AN AIR COLLISION.

(By Mill Eyron.)

“ Shouldn’t be surprised. Look at the sky. 1 * Meteor isn’t often far out, either!”

O.C. “B.” Flight jerked himself up the iron ladder and pushed his head under the canvas flap into the interior of the office-lorry, holding on with both hands to the wooden door in the side.

“ Flight Sergeant,” I head him say. “I want the control-lever switch looked at on 4028. You might overhaul it yourself, will you ? I shall be taking her up in ten minutes. Hand me that stuff off that shelf. Thanks. Yes, I’ll take him as well. That’s all right, the charger is in the armoury.”

He jumped down beside me with his arms full of map-cases, goggles, leather cap, pony skin gauntlets, and automatic pistol. Let’s take the gun ?” I offered as we moved away towards the armouryhut at the end of the sheds. **«*•*

Have you lain in a cabin when the sea is smooth and listened to the steady pulse of the engines and felt their vibration running right through you? If so, you know pretty well what flying is like in calm weather. (In rough weather the sea and the air cannot be compared, being totally different. But this is beside flic mark.) Just, the shiver of the racing giant as wo surge across the still sky, deafened by liis ceaseless drone. The air pressed home against our faces. The chill of a glacier creeping relentlessly into every joint and muscle, and the sinking sun playing on shiny fabric and varnished woodwork. Glancing ont along the plane I watch the wing-tip whipping like a whalebone.

The conditions, with the exception of the temperature, do not change as we climb.

The exception grows colder and colder, Ice forms on mv mouth and m} r fir.gors lose, their feeling. My knees become leaden and hurt when I touch them, if only with the cn(T of my gauntlets. “ How nasty to fall now 7 ,” l think, and turn away and search the distance with my eyes. We sight three Boche biplanes five minutes later approaching the lines from the east about a thousand feet beneath our level, and, having the sunklead behind us, turn and fly dowrnliill towards them.

The enemy are (dose together, evidently on prowl for stray machines. I have a few seconds to spare and consecrate them to my machine gun. Everything seems all right. I turn round and nod to 0.0. “ JJ.” Flight, who smiles back at me through his goggles as lie pushes our nose still further down.

Our quarry is now 7 less than 250 yards away. I don’t think they have seen us yet, and squint along the sights at the nearest machine. Not much allowance necessary, 1 say to myself. . . Half a second.

One hundred yards at the most. I sit tight with m3 7 knees pressed together and my feet apart. Elbows 011 the side of the nacelle, and I squeeze the trigger. Twenty-five rounds. A spurt ot soot-coloured smoke from my target tells its tale, and the machine slips away on one w 7 ing. I seek the other two, but cannot liud them. I struggle to m3 7 knees and strain over the side. For a moment all I see is a patchwork of green and yellow fields. Suddenly, right below, 1 see a sight that sickens. Five hundred feet or more beneath us, rapidly falling, are two white aeroplanes locked together. Squares of white fabric flap over and over in their wake. Like a leaf-laden twig from a tree, the two biplanes spin round. At the sound of our machine-gun the two pilots had swerved and collided. We turn round into the sun arid I unload.