\"I was there\"
TO OUR MOTHERS Ours the Great Adventure, Yours the pain to bear, Ours the golden service stripes, Yours the marks of care. If all the Great Adventure The old Earth ever knew, Was ours and in this little book 'Twould still belong to you! PREFACE These Sketches were made during a year's service as a camion driver with the French amry in the Chemin-des-Dames sector and a year's service with the A.E.F. as an infantry private on special duty with "The Stars and
craft there was a platform or deck running its full length, where men
were working away like sailors on a man-of-war, and from portholes and
turrets protruded great black things which looked like the muzzles of
guns.
All at once, as if acting under an order from within, these were
trained on the spectators and simultaneously discharged, belching out
great rings of smoke. There was a stifled scream from the gallery at
this, but immediately the room grew quiet again, and the audience sat
as if spellbound awaiting further developments. A small door in the
starboard side now opened, and the figure of a man came running down a
gangway to a platform suspended under the ship, where, silhouetted
against the sky, he occupied himself in signalling to some one on the
ground. He was joined from time to time by others of the crew as the
vessel settled slowly toward the earth.
When it was about one hundred and fifty feet above the cradle,
Edestone was seen to walk out with a megaphone in his hand, and
through it communicate instructions to the man on the bridge, in
evident obedience to which the airship settled still lower, until it
was not more than twenty feet above the top of the cradle.
A ladder having then been lowered to Edestone, he climbed up it,
ascended the gangway, and disappeared into the interior of the great
cigar-shaped object, it all the time remaining absolutely stationary.
But he was not long lost to view. In a few minutes he re-appeared on
TO OUR MOTHERS Ours the Great Adventure, Yours the pain to bear, Ours the golden service stripes, Yours the marks of care. If all the Great Adventure The old Earth ever knew, Was ours and in this little book 'Twould still belong to you! PREFACE These Sketches were made during a year's service as a camion driver with the French amry in the Chemin-des-Dames sector and a year's service with the A.E.F. as an infantry private on special duty with "The Stars and