Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1915-08-05
%AE0R0P[ANES CAUSE
Of MANY THRILLS
Archibald, the Anti Aircraft Gun
Watches as a Cat Does a
Mouse.

oiitioA AACdoQudl lclS, fIdLES, aus
IA crack and a whish through the
air. No sound is more familiar a.
the front where the artillery is never
silent-the sound of a shell breakir:;
rom a gun muzzle and it's shril,
hight toward the enemy's line to pay
tle Germans back for some shell
they have sent.
Only this whish did not pass over
the landscape in a long parabola or
toward the German lines. 1t went
light up into the heavens at about
the angle Of a skyrocket-for it was
Archibald who was on the job.
Six Or seven feet over the British
trenches there was something as big
rs your hand against the light blue
of the summer sky. This was the
target-German aeroplane. By the
cut of it's wings you knew it was a
faube just as you know a meadow
lark from = swallow.
Almost Stationary.
So high vas it that it seemed al
most stationary. But it was going
somewhere between fifty and ninety
niles an lour. 1t seemed to have all
the heavens to itself; and to the
British it was a sinister prying eve.
It wanted to see if they were build
ING any new trenches, if they were
moving bodies OF troops or of trans
port in ONE new direction and
where their batteries were hiding.
The aviator three miles above the
earth had many waiting guns at his
command. A few signals from his
wireless and they would let loose on
the target he indicated.
Other features of life at the f:cnt
many grow commonplace but never
the work of the planes-these wing:
If the enemies intelligence. In the
hid and seek digging and lodging
md countering Of siege warfare the
sislt of a plane under shell never
,oses it's thrill. .E
Size Of Pinhead.
If the planes might fly as low as
they pleased they might know all
that was going or w the lines.
They must keep up so high that
through the aviator's glasses a man
on the road is the size of a p%in-head.
To descend low is as certain death
as to put your, head over a parapet
of a trench when the enemy's trench
is only a hundred yards away. There
are dead lines in the air no less tilan
on the earth.
Archibald, the anti-air craft gun,
sets the dead line. He watches over
it as a cat watches a mouse. The
trick of sneaking up upon the cover
of a MONDAY cloud and all the other
man-bird tricks he knows.
A couple of seconds after that
crack a tiny puff Of smoke breaks
about a hundred yards behind the
Taube. A soft thistle blow against
the blue it seems at that altitude;
but it wouldn't if it were about your
ears. Then it would sound like a BIT
of dynamite on an anvil struck by a
hammer and you would hear the
whizz of scores Of bullets and frag-
ments about your ears.
The smoking brass shell is out Of
Archibald's steel throat and another
shell case VITA its charge slipped in
its place and started on it's way be-
fore the first puff breaks. The avi-
ator knows what is coming. He
knows that n mean many once he
is in range.
Cannot Hit sck.
Archibald rushes the fighting; it
is the business of the Taube to side
step. The aviator cannot hit back
except thorugh its allies, the Ger
man batteries, on the earth. They
would takes care Of Archibald If they
knew where he was. But all that
the aviator can see is mottled land
scape. From his side Archibald flies
no goal flags. He is one of ten
thousand tiny objects under the ayi-
ator's eye.
Archibald's propensities are entire.
ly peripetic. He is the vagabond Of
the army lines. Locate him-and he
is gone. His his home is where night
finds him and the days duties take
him. He is the only gun which keeps
regular hours like a Christian gentle
men. All the others-great and
small raucos voiced and shrill voic-
ed-fire at any hour night or day.
Aeroplanes do not go up at night;
and when no ae%roplanes are up Ar.
chibald has NO interest in the war.