"OUR ZEPPELIN."

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1915, Page 12 (Supplement)

"OUR ZEPPELIN."

The following is an impression oi what it feels like.to. see a Zeppelin, written by someone "somewhere iii Eiigland":—lt is one thing to talk and read about Zeppelins, it is another unforgettable thing to see one over your nei"h bor's roofs. The papers aay 'the Zeppelins are coming, there is deeper darkness than usual, people are watching out or forming Zeppelin parties and elimbin" the nearest hill. As for you, you go to bed. What happens is this. '■ A "huge rumbling and crackling noise comes from beyond the ridge that divides vcu from the Germans' objective. You jump out of bed, and, looking out of the window, at first see nothing but statuesque trees' against the starry sky Then a broad bright searchlight swings arcoss th*> sk\ and fixes itself on a little cloud. Again*' this cloud, comparatively low in the skv is a small yellow object. It begins to move across to the left, pointing slight upwards as if making for another higher cloud. All this time a series of sharp explosions is going on, and you see little spurts of red flame, sparkling like Guv Fawke's Day rockets, in the neighborhood of the Zeppelin. Reaching the cloud the Zeppelin is for a moment caught in the brilliant glare of the searchlight, so that you can see the ribs of its anatomy. It hovers for a minute and then, as you watch, the nose tilts upwards until the thing seems nearly upright, and then—this is the great mo"-ment-it is so plain that you ean make out, like .stains upon its golden bodv the two black cages, anrl it come* home to you with an extraor.f-.irv thrill that they are full of. Germans. The Zeppelin moves slowly upwards, the gun» growling at it all the time, and the firework display becomes more lively and then it slides out of sight. The' 'cloud closes over it, the searchlight dies out, and when you bring your eyes down to the horizon again you see a oig fan. shaped glow of dusky red appearing above the ridge-the glow of distant tire. \ou go back to sleep, and you hear next morning that a bomb wrecked an empty villa half a mile from your bed. It has all been a aort of incredible peepshow, in which there was one stabbing moment of reality—the moment when you saw the black cages full of Germans slinking up into tilt iky «fttt their murderous work,