Day by day it was
uncertain who would come back.
But they were very cheerful. Officers with an hour to spare came up
from the gunboats in the canal to smoke a pipe by the fire. Once in so
often a woman came, stopping halfway her frozen journey to a soup
kitchen or a railroad station, where she looked after wounded
soldiers, to sit in the long room and thaw out; visiting officers from
other parts of the front dropped in for a meal, sure of a welcome and
a warm fire. As compared with the trenches, or even with the gunboats
on the canal, the station represented cheer, warmth; even, after the
working daylight hours, society.
There were several buildings. Outside near the bridge was the wireless
building, where an operator sat all the time with his receivers over
his ears. Not far from the main group was the great hangar of the
airship, and to that we went first. The hangar had been a machine shop
with a travelling crane. It had been partially cleared but the crane
still towered at one end. High above it, reached by a ladder, was a
door.
The young captain of the airship pointed up to it.
"My apartments!" he said.
"Do you mean to say that you sleep here?" I asked. For the building
was bitterly cold; one end had been knocked out to admit the airship,
and the wall had been replaced by great curtains of sailcloth to keep
out the wind.
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