CHAPTER LXXXI
IN AN APPLE ORCHARD
We remained on the Amiens front nearly three weeks, and we were lucky enough not to have much rain, for we were in trenches where there were no dugouts.
The transport mess was in an apple orchard, one of the great old orchards of Picardy where in days before the war, happy peasants picked the apples to make the golden cider.
There were many troops quartered in this orchard, as the trees offered shade and screened us fairly well from the ever baleful eye of enemy airplanes. Yet almost every evening we were bombed. We would hear the signal of his approach long before the whir of his motor became audible. We would be sitting in groups, sometimes around little fires of wood or charcoal, talking in low voices, when suddenly there would come three shrill blows of a whistle, the kind used by referees of football matches. Instantly water would be poured on fires, or a few shovelfuls of earth would be thrown over the bright embers, and then a hurrying and scurrying to trenches; the sounds of laughter and pleasant talk would die away with the hissing of the expiring fires. Then profound silence, save for the champing of horses tethered at one end of the orchard under the trees. Presently from far up in the sky, coming nearer and nearer, would sound that peculiar err-rum, err-rum, err-rum, which left no uncertainty in our minds as to whose airplanes were approaching.
Sometimes they would go far beyond us and we would hear the terrific crash and explosion as their bombs dropped in our back areas; sometimes they would drop near our own lines and we would lie there waiting.
From a certain point in the orchard we had a very good view of many of our observation balloons, far in our rear. I remember one day, while a group of us were sitting talking, suddenly hearing from high in the air near one of our balloons the quick rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire. Immediately all eyes were raised in time to see a German airplane swoop down from a bank of clouds perilously near our observation balloon. The enemy was firing from his machine-gun, for every three or four seconds we could see the flash of phosphorous as the tracer bullet sped through the sky. If one of those touched the great silk bag of gas—it did, and almost simultaneously there was a burst of dark-red flame, fringed with black, waving out from the balloon. There was a cry of consternation from many voices in the orchard as two figures were seen to jump from the aerial car of the balloon. We held our breath. Then with a spring, one after the other, the white parachutes opened, and we breathed a sigh of great relief as they came gracefully to the earth.
Our observation balloons must have been doing excellent work, for after this Fritz was very busy bringing them down. One afternoon the same airplane actually brought down, one after the other, five balloons. Then, as it started on its return flight, it seemed to be flying very low. Immediately every machine-gun in the area began firing on him. There must have been thousands of bullets soaring towards the speeding ’plane; but it is very difficult to judge, from the ground, distances in the air.
Suddenly the machine stopped in its course and came spiralling slowly downwards. A great cheer burst from hundreds of throats and simultaneously the machine-guns ceased to fire. There was complete silence in the camp as we watched the falling airplane. But we had reckoned without our host; for suddenly it ceased to fall, then like a lark shot gracefully up, up, till it reached a safe distance. Then with admirable audacity it looped the loop, and finally winged its way towards home.
What did we do, gentle reader? For a few seconds, overcome with amazement, we stood there gazing skywards, then from all over the area there were sounds of clapping hands as we good-humoredly applauded “Old Fritz.”