The Benson signal., 1916-09-16

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undoubted mastery of observation,
which the enemy no longer holds. The
Prussian gunners now have to shoot,
mostly, by the map, and although they
are very wise in science, it is not the
same thing as being able to direct their
fire by direct observation of results.
Our airmen have been of vast service
in the daily battle of guns, and it Is
largely due to their flights that our
artillery has been able to destroy many
of the enemy's batteries.
"One day seven batteries reported
active by one machine were all silenced
in ten minutes and direct hits were
made on five or more batteries.
con July % one of our air squadrons
controlled nine direct hits on the enc
my's batteries.
'"Those things tell. The knocking
out of an opposing battery means less
loss of life to our infantry and great
er certainty of progress. 1t is the hard
est blow that can be given, for this Is
a battle of guns, and every battery de-
strOyed is better than the taking of a
trench, or at least the easiest way to
take it.
"a machine of ours ranged hOwitZers
on a battery of two SO howitzers,
which were destroyed, and another ma
chine directed guns on another battery,
destroying one emplacement and caus-
ing explosions which lasted an hour.
$50 the record runs from day to day,
and the enemy is getting frightened
for his guns and withdrawing some Of
them at least to safer places.
"The fearlessness Of our men is not a
virtue with them. 1t is a natural in
stinct They attack unequal odds with
the gusto of schoolboys who fling them
selves into football scrimmage.
Literally, the enemy is put to flight
by these modern men of ours, as when
the other day one of our pilots dived
at five hostile machines attacking one
of our scouts and drove them off; and
as when, day or two ago, two others
attacked four Fokkers-'the deadly
Fokker,' as it used to be called-and
drove them down into their own lines.
"They are a new type of men, these
pilots and observers Of the Royal Fly
ing corps. 1t is difficult to place them
or to account for them. They seem to
have been born to fly. For the most
part they are very young men-boys of
nineteen or twenty-thOugh older men,
twice their age and more, are found
here and there, having come out of
professions like the law and the civil
service and taken to the air like ducks
to water, but surprised with them
selves. The younger men are clean
cut, fine and delicately made fellows,
as far as I know them, rather highly
strung and nervous in temperament.
"FIight the Music of Life"
"It is quite curious that many of
them are men of great musical talent.
In one squadron | know there are near
ly 20 men who are all very full of
musical talent. One of them, q strip
ling, came out of the trenches to volun-
teer as an airman, with long screeds of
music which he had written down out
of his head as children say, without
hearing a note of it played until he
came back. At night, when dusk creeps
through the sky, and one by one the
hOming birds fly down (there is al
ways an anxious question about the
squadron commander, who is the best
belOved), the flying men settle round
the piano in the aerodrome, and one
of them brings out his violin and plays
it with master touch, and another
sings in bass voice that may be heard
one day at Covent Garden, and through
the evening the men take turns at the
piano, to play what comes into their
heads and out Of their hearts.
''This link between music and flight
may be a coincidence in the case of
one squadron (though I have heard
of it elsewhere), but it may be that
flight is the new music of life, and
that the Imagination of the younger
generation is soaring upon real wings,
inspired by flight to the deep chords
of emotion that in earlier days went
into sound and color. The pity is that
Just now they are instruments of
| death.
"They have amazing adventures up
there in the sky and learn strange
things. They learn the look of the
great country below. so that every
| landmark is familiar to them, and any
strange flash or shape is detected at
once, and those things they must learn
in three different scales of light, morn
ing, afternoon and evening, because at
each of those times the landscape and