A Miraculous Recovery
“I was within fifteen feet of the ground, absolutely sick at heart with the uselessness of it all, my thoughts having turned to home and the worry they would all feel when I was reported in the list of the missing, when without warning one of my nine cylinders gave a kick. Then a second one miraculously came to life, and in another moment the old engine—the best old engine in all the world—had picked up with a roar on all the nine cylinders. Once again the whole world changed for me. In less time than it takes to tell it I was tearing away for home at a hundred miles an hour. My greatest safety from attack now lay in keeping close to the ground, and this I did. The ‘Archies’ cannot fire when you are so close to earth, and few pilots would have risked a dive at me at the altitude which I maintained. The machine guns on the ground rattled rather spitefully several times, but worried me not at all. I had had my narrow squeak for this day and nothing could stop me now.
“I even had time to glance back over my shoulder, and there, to my great joy, I saw a cloud of smoke and flames rising from my erstwhile bête noir—the sausage. We afterward learned it was completely destroyed.
“It was a strange thing to be skimming along just above the ground in enemy territory. From time to time I would come on groups of Huns who would attempt to fire on me with rifles and pistols, but I would dart at them and they would immediately scatter and run for cover. I flew so low that when I would come to a clump of trees I would have to pull my nose straight up toward the sky and ‘zoom’ over them. Most of the Germans were so startled to see me right in their midst, as it were, they either forgot to fire or fired so badly as to insure my absolute safety. Crossing the three lines of German trenches was not so comfortable, but by zigzagging and quick dodging I negotiated them safely and climbed away to our aerodrome. There I found that no bullets had passed very close to me, although my wingtips were fairly perforated.
“That evening I was delighted to get congratulations not only from my Colonel, but my Brigadier as well, supplemented later by a wire from the General commanding the Flying Corps. This I proudly sent home the same evening in a letter.”