Evening star., 1919-03-16

laden Invader. the white streets meet
ing and crossing. ray wise. the crippled
air craft.
Puffs of ashy light and flashes Of
yellow FIRE as the screaming shells stab
the sky and savagely rend the air; three
GRIM faced men at the mercy Of chance,
the elements and the Germans, forty
miles beyond their lines: one. almost
helpless at the control; the others, STAR
ing into the gaping void of hostility be-
low. which rushes up to meet them;
dowM-down-d0wn.
So 1t comes that Capt. Harold H.
Booth has a story to tell.
Il *
Harold H. Booth was a young engineer
in Toronto. straddling between the
teens and the twenties. when me an
swered the beckon of war OF the two
siren calls to brave men-the sea and
the air-he compromised by choosing
both and. as lieutenant in the Brit
ish) royal naval air service. entered ac-
tive service. Later. when the Royal
Flying Corps and the r. N. A. 8. were
merged In the royal air service he be-
came, automatically. captain.
A few days ago he related his re-
markable story. an inch at time. drop
ping laconic sentences. answering ques-
tions freely but with a placid intonation
which indicated an entirely detached in
terest.
All the defenses of innate mod
esty with which the service man
invariably protects himself could not
conceal the facts. The simple sem
tences themselves reeked of war and
were framed in remarkable adven-
ture.
Dunkirk was the base for these
sea -fiiers" and. on alternare nights,
Booth. carrying gunner observer
and sixteen 1l2-pound bombs sailed
out over the German lines-one
of hundreds of men along that
serpent shaped line from the sea to
Switzerland. who each performed
methodically those epics of daring
and adventure which are the work of
the fighting airmen.
For months the work went on
every other night; months of care
fully planned flights, spotted in their
memory by harsh explosions and the
flaming leaps Of gas and fire and
home or the German stores. All went
through the same process-receiving
orders. checking out. dropping bombs.
reporting home. a day off, receiving
OrQeTS, CneCklnS Out
Some finished there: report unmade.
except as vagrant rumor brought the
end Of the tale.
So, there came night.
1t happened. as such things do. in
moment of time, in the spat OF
bullet the bombing plane, far over
the German lines on Its mission.
wriggling it's way between the flying
shrapnel and the Kidding fire of, the
anti guns. Then the fatal
wounding OF the huge machine by the
Archie. destroying one Of the two
big motors, the sudden lunge. the
desperate attempt to steady the sway
ing, spinaing death-trap, the sinking
swoop with the aid of the remaining
motor. and the crash Of landing.
Delicate direction OF that desperate
landing alone saved the lives of the
three-Lieut. Booth, Canning. his OBJ
server, and Yeatman, the gunner.
And while the plane lurched toward
the earth it's bombs dropped blindly
to the ground.
One bomb remaining would have.
been sufficient, when the crash came.
to hoist the daring airmen with their
own petard. All found blind mark
in time, and when the plane, after
ItS GdTGLuIIy SuiuSo Aahoih6t N'iNS'
and pitched over the bank into
tangled wreckage, the men pumped
life desperately into bruised limbs
and twisted muscles and forced their
stunned minds TO point way to
safety.
They were, they knew, some few
miles from Ghent about forty miles
from the allied lines. about twenty or
so from the Dutch frontier. The
forty miles back to the lines seemed
hopeless; the way to the frontier Of
fered desperate chance.
AS they dragged themselves from
the wreck they went all over this,
They could not hope to make a
straight line to the frontier; detours
would be necessary, unexpected in
terruptions would halt them. In day
light. probably. they could not walk
n half mile without being discovered.
But with good luck and the spirit of
the Navy, they would make as many
as eight miles night toward the
frontier Of the Netherlands.
They crept along, the three of them,
watching the shadows. nosing their
way forward Gaunt scarecrow sem
tinels they passed. shell-wrecked en-
blems OF war, black and silent in the
night wind. Even here was the smell
Of war. the snuff OF charred timbers
and scared walls, the stubble Of de-
struction wreaked by the bombing
planes on just such flights as this
disastrous one.
In cautious silence they inched
OF fnAd 70 OrA