"
That is how I met Colonel M----, who is England's greatest airship man
and who is in charge of the naval air station.
"If you had come a little sooner," he said, "you could have gone out
with us."
I was grateful but unenthusiastic. I had seen the officers watching
the sky for German planes. I had a keen idea that a German aviator
overhead, armed with a Belgian block or a bomb or a dart, could have
ripped that yellow envelope open from stem to stern, and robbed
American literature of one of its shining lights. Besides, even in
times of peace I am afraid to look out of a third-story window.
We made a tour of the station, which had been a great factory before
the war began, beginning with the hangar in which the balloon was now
safely housed.
Entrance to the station is by means of a bridge over a canal. The
bridge is guarded by sentries and the password of the day is necessary
to gain admission. East and west along the canal are canal boats that
have been painted grey and have guns mounted on them. Side by side
with these gunboats are the ordinary canal boats of the region,
serving as homes for that part of the populace which remains, with
women knitting on the decks or hanging out lines of washing overhead.
The endless traffic of a main highroad behind the lines passes the
station day and night.
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