DEFYING SHELLS IN WAR BALLOON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1915, Page 7

DEFYING SHELLS IN WAR BALLOON.

AIRMAN'S STORY OF HOUSE WITH COLORED BLINDS. FEARLESS GIRL "COMRADE." "The shells came round our balloon like a 'Brock's Benefit,' but it's haystacks those Germans want to practise at for a bit. We did laugh to see all their stuff going to waste." One of the members of the Royal Xaval Flying, Wing, who has just returned from the front, gave this little picture of an everyday incident of bis life while in the war zone.

j "1 only wish we could have stayed [ in Belgium a little longer," he went ! on. "But we'd clone our job and the Germans aren't thanking us for it either. We ,got to Croxyde all right, and soon got our balloon to work from the beach. "It was hot work up in the air. As soon as our old 'ship' was seen in the sky shells of all descriptions came pounding along, but they were all wide of the mark. We just laughed at them. "We had such a grand view of the fighting, and our signals were doing such good work, that wo forgot all about our own dangers. "You ought to have seen the competition of our men to have a trip—you see, we never stayed up too long, just long enough to get the Germans sighted, and'then down for a rest. "While we were at this place wo stopped at a big hotel like a lot. of ship's commanders, and those who , could not get into the hotel found ' a couple of fine mansions and slept j there.

"Before we left we washed all the bedclothes, cleaned up the crockery and left everything spick and span as we found it. HOUSE OF COLORED BLINDS. "Talk about spies, you never saw such tricks as they get up to! There was a house some way up the coast which our commander suspected, so one night we set out to reconnoitre. We found all the six windows of the house ablaze with powerful lights and blinds of different colors. "The whole front of the house was nothing more than a signalling board. "Going up to it we knocked politely at the door with the butt of our rifles.

"As the occupants were too busy to receive visitors we burst the door open, and, with our captain leading the way with cocked revolver, . we rushed upstairs into the front room. There we caught the whole lot Jby surprise.

I "Sitting in the centre of the room was a German with a telephone to his ear and a bunch of spoaking to each window of the house, at each of which sat o girl with a lamp switch in her hands! GIRL WHO DARED SHELLS. "We met plenty of refugees on the roads, and it made us wild to see their distress, but in one case—sad as it was—we could not help laughing. "An old man was pushing a wheelbarrow in which his wife sat grumbling at him like one o'clock for not getting on quicker. "Well, we saw that they had our breakfast, and put them, barrow and all, into our oar, and got them to a place of safety. "There's one refugee that most of our boys would like to find again. She was a girl of about eighteen, and had been left behind in the rush at Croxyde. We saw to it that she was properly treated, 'and woe betide the man that would have dared to insult her.

"She was always doing something for us; she'd eome right out to the balloon on the beach with coffee and biscuits, amid all the shell fire, and run all sorts of errads for us."