all safe. Also I insist that you have a guard on the machine; it's full of secrets. No one may come within twenty yards of it. If you don't do this I'll have you cashiered." The bluff worked, the rifles were lowered, and the two tired airmen were helped out of the machine and marched under a strong guard to the castle to be interviewed by the General. Their escort refused to give any information of their whereabouts, but their buttons and badges were those of a Territorial battalion of a famous Highland regiment. When the prisoners, individually and together, protested their British nationality and stuck to their story, of which an inadequate account has been given above, the General, at the Major's suggestion, telephoned to the Air Ministry and to the Glasgow aerodrome. Much to his surprise and to the relief of the captives, the identity of the aeroplane and its occupants was satisfactorily settled, and the prisoners became at once the General's guests, and received great kindness and hospitality from him and the officers of the garrison, instead of the suspicious hostility to which they had become almost accustomed.

“Well, you fellows seem pretty tired. What about a wash and a meal? My A.D.C. will look after you. Then come back and have a yarn. I'm only a 'dug-out' in charge of the garrison here at Stirling, and shall like to see your machine and hear all about

it." After an excellent meal, which was helped by some genuine "wine of the country,” the General told them that three hostile aircraft had been located by sound over the district, and one had been seen by the anti-aircraft defence of Gretna Green, apparently about to attempt a bombing attack on the immense shell-filling factory that had made the place even more famous than before, but had been driven off. Consequently they were expected. Two machines had been reported at different times off the west coast, having apparently come from the general direction of Ireland, and one had been seen for a moment flying low over a moor by an officer on leave, who had promptly telephoned from the lodge half a mile away. Piecing things together, Jack and Ferguson discovered that they were the originals of this Hun bombing force, and had apparently made a series of spiral turns some miles across. "You had a precious close shave, then, from chucking your nice new hushhush toy in the Irish Sea," said the General; "why was that?" "Yes, sir,” replied Jack; "it looks like it, but I haven't the slightest idea how we got there or why we went on such a Cook's tour!”

At this moment the A.D.C. came in and said, “There's a R.A.F. N.C.O. mechanic outside who would like to speak to the Major." On being marched in, the sergeant ex

and hearing the engine went out to see what the trouble was. He learned from the guard on the machine the Major's supposed name, and that he was a prisoner. Having been at one time in his squadron he went up to identify him, but before doing so had a look over the machine to see everything was all right. He had He had always been a tidy and careful man. The Major nodded approval. "Well, sir," the sergeant mechanic said, "I found nothing wrong except possibly this," producing a very small parcel. "I noticed the compass was pointing east, and I knew the machine was heading south-west, so I looked carefully, and found this parcel had fallen behind the compass. On taking it out the compass slowly swung to the south-west."

Hurriedly Ferguson opened the parcel, and found that it contained four tiny magnets coloured red and blue, each the size of a small darningneedle.

They were the standard type used for correcting compass errors, and if placed in the wrong place would naturally cause them.

How did they get there? The compass was correct when they left the aerodrome; they were sure of that. The telephone to Glasgow solved the problem. It appeared that a cautious storeman, knowing that each compass was provided with six of these correct

two were actually required at the moment, thought the other four "might be useful later," and put them "in a safe place just before the machine left. It so happened by a fluke that in the actual place he put them, the effect was nil, but as the flight progressed the vibration gradually shook them down, so that they did affect the compass needle, and the compass error gradually increased. The result was that the actual course the aeroplane took over the earth, though straight by compass, was really a complicated series of spirals. The pilot, not being able to check the compass by sun or earth, knew nothing of this. Where ignorance is bliss...!

Much relieved, the airmen thought of the morrow, and asked for petrol. This was not SO easy, until an enthusiastic helper discovered that the local fire-engine, alone of all other engines in the neighbourhood, fed off aviation fuel. Some twenty gallons were then commandeered, and the sergeant put it into the tanks.

After a satisfying dinner of sprats and dead mutton, and a comfortable but not quite dreamless night in beds with real sheets, Jack and Ferguson breakfasted with the General. "How did you sleep?" he asked. "Fine, sir, thank you; but I wish they had arrested those sheep who swam about with loaded rifles wobbling towards us in that fog.”

The morning was a fine one ;

the machine was reported O.K. by the kind-hearted sergeant, who was thoroughly enjoying his busman's holiday, and the air of importance consequent thereon. Ferguson had tested the compass, and found it to be on its best behaviour. The Major was busy trying to cope with, or, better still, avoid the shower of telegrams from authority, who had evidently spotted their whereabouts, so bidding a hasty good-bye to their kind hosts, they started up the big engine and left for the south'ard, the last glance downward revealing their old enemy, the fat quartermaster-sergeant, running after his cap, which had been blown off his head by the propeller blast in a rush of dust and filth. "Good job, too," thought Ferguson, who still remembered

the itching trigger finger and wobbly rifle of the evening before.

Undisturbed by further troubles and full of confidence in the new aeroplane, they arrived at their aerodrome almost to the calculated minute, made their reports, and got on with the war.

The conclusion of the whole matter is that till well after the Armistice, Jack had share in the heated correspondence between the Fire Brigade, the War Office, the Air Ministry and himself as to who should pay for the petrol. The war was over, and the need for the hush-hush machine with it, but the paper war on petrol still flourished, and perhaps exists to-day. Who knows?

EMROD lives on the southern coast of Dominica overlooking the Martinique Channel, and it is from this Channel that he derives the chief part of his living, for Emrod is a fisherman. Emrod stands five feet eight inches on his bare feet, and is dark brown in colour, wide in the shoulder, deep-chested, and very long in the arms; he is narrow in the hip, and his legs and the lower portion of his body are less well developed than the rest of him. He has a somewhat sad look in his face, but knows how to smile, is modest in manner, and of a retiring nature. I have never known him idle; if the sea is too rough he mends his baskets or works in his vegetable garden. He has a small house in the village, a wife who is a bit of a virago, I am told, and several offspring. He is a decent hard-working man, typical of the better class of fisherman on the southern and windward coast of this island.

His stock-in-trade consists of a few fish-pots, which he makes himself out of split bamboo, and which are sunk in likely places in the sea near the shore in from ten to twenty fathoms. One end of a rope made from stout woody vines knotted together is fastened to the 'basket," and the other end is tied to a length of bamboo,

which floats on the surface and marks the position.

These fish-pots are oblong in shape, and range in size from small affairs to large contraptions eight feet long by four feet wide and two feet deep; trumpet-shaped inlets which take up three-quarters of the large sides slope curving inwards, and decrease in size to comparatively small mouths which face the small ends of the basket.

Large fish are caught in these baskets. I have seen Emrod bring ashore an eightfoot shark which had followed its pilot into one of them, and why in such cases the great fish do not smash their way out of their frail prison is always a puzzle to me. It is possible they cannot use their great strength in the narrow cage with advantage; anyway, the fact remains that large fish do not seem to make any attempt to escape when caught in these cunningly devised traps. Whenever large dangerous fish are in the basket when it is hauled up to the surface, the small end towards the fish's tail is removed, and the fish foulhooked; it is then set adrift, and 'played" till it is exhausted, when it is drawn alongside the canoe and killed in the water.

Strong sea-lines, some large

hooks, and a few lengths of stout wire, preferably copper, to prevent the line being bitten through by the many sharptoothed fish which it is Emrod's business in life to catch, complete his equipment.

The canoe is about sixteen feet long, and has a beam of some three feet. The lower portion is hollowed out of a log of the gommier-tree, which has been first shaped with axe and adze. This part of the work is done in the forest at a considerable distance from the sea. The "dug-out" is then hauled through the bush, often over seemingly impossible places, to the coast, its journey being hastened or impeded (I cannot say which) by much singing of old familiar chanties, such as "Sally Brown" or "Blow the man down," and a more than liberal supply of the local "Mountain Dew." Arrived at the coast, the bow and stern of the "shell," as it is called, are blocked up off the ground, and it is filled with stones and left in the sun and rain. This process causes the sides of the shell to spread outwards, and the whole bottom to become slightly curved fore and aft. When it has become sufficiently widened, bow and stern-pieces are fitted and nailed on top of the shell, and a hand-sawn board from the forest is bent round from stem to stern clinker fashion over the dugout on each side. This forms the upper portion of the canoe, and a few ribs, roughly shaped from the bent branches of a

white cedar-tree, are fitted in to strengthen the structure. Wooden blocks drilled to receive wooden pins are nailed at convenient places, and serve as rowlocks. A small spritsail, the mast of which is stepped as far forward as possible and not stayed (for it has often to come down in a hurry), two pairs of oars, a rudder five feet long, a couple of loosely fitting thwarts, and the canoe is ready to go to sea.

These canoes are without any keel, and are, of course, very crank, but skilfully handled as they are by their owners, they prove excellent craft in a seaway and good surf boats. They have, too, a distinct advantage over any "built " boat in being able to resist the terrific banging they receive when landing from a sea which is generally rough on to a beach which is composed of nothing but loose rounded boulders varying in size from a football to a tengallon cask. Emrod's canoe is painted green and white, and further decorated in red with rough pictures of men catching huge fish, and many crosses of various design, for Emrod is a devout Roman Catholic, and, of course, his boat has been duly blessed by the venerable French parish priest.

Considering that they cost, complete with oars and sail, only about four pounds, these graceful little craft would be hard to beat for the work they have to do.

Emrod pays us a visit every Saturday in order to go through