a change. The balloons remained obstinately on their cables, and the sweep money was as a rule unclaimed. Campania towed them at will, and observed for battle practice, moving at full speed. It was no more than a beginning; but with the latent possibilities in view, even a beginning was something. Admiral de Robeck was now with the Grand Fleet, and at his request certain officers were sent up: men endowed with experience, not only of balloons but of human nature as well—men of standing in civil life, keen, patient, and of imperturbable good humour; junior in rank, perhaps, but capable of reasoning with a captain on his own quarterdeck without causing offence. From this material he established a special staff in his flagship, the King George V., and a similar organisation with the battle cruisers at Rosyth. His instructions to the balloon officers were simple: "Prove what you can do," he said, " and I'll back you to the limit.' And this he did, always with a twinkle in his eye. If people were rude to balloons it seemed to amuse him; if they came with a tale of disaster, he only laughed. In the same spirit his officers set to work. Where younger men would have been discouraged, they smiled cheerfully, and one by one the hesitating ships agreed to take a balloon and give it a trial. The balloonatics," as they came to be called, had simple wants. Give them, they said, but a

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drifter and a few hands; let them direct the ship's company for a few minutes, and they would guarantee to have the balloon riding from the deck with an observer one or two thousand feet up on the end of a reliable telephone.

On the whole, the operations were surprisingly simple. The balloons were brought from their parent ship flying on a two-legged cable at about three hundred feet, and using one leg of this cable, simply strode across to the battleship, where they were hauled down on a bollard, and attached to their own special winch. Once in the air again they gave no trouble, following every movement of the ships without in any way affecting the navigation, and providing observation points that were almost ideal. Their effect on the shooting gave a definite proof of their utility, the efficiency in spotting being increased by 25 per cent when trained observers were used. The sailor will always accept facts, and whereas, when cables snapped and balloons vanished, many captains felt-and said they did not want balloons, now, with results before them, they for the most part changed their minds. Such a question could not be settled in a single day, and each set-back as well as each success reacted on the demand, which for a time grew and shrank like an excited concertina, causing those at the Admiralty who were responsible for supply an anxious

time. Balloons do not grow on trees, nor are winches produced in a single day. On the one hand hung the probability of urgent demands from the Services-for both naval and army balloons were produced from a common source and on the other loomed the Treasury, frowning darkly. Steel cables tugged against red tape, and though it was the latter that usually parted, there were some awkward moments. More than one head became permanently whitened that the Fleet might have balloons, notably that of an officer who had taken courageous, though unofficial, action to meet a specially urgent demand, and as a reminder not to throw spanners into the Government machine,

plies that properly belonged to other people, and raising no protest when urged to furnish two more balloons for every one blown away. But when by degrees the true authorship of the messages dawned on them, they adopted a less conciliatory tone, and quite a promising combat might have developed had not an over-conscientious signalman one day delivered a telegram exactly as addressed, and astonished Admiral Beatty by presenting him with the following curt command:

Vice-Admiral,

Battle Cruiser Fleet.

You are to render forthwith a return of all balloons on

no less a sum than £90,000, "for balloons ordered without Their Lordships' sanction."

With all their technical troubles, the balloon officers with the Fleet were in a strong position in the matter of extracting supplies, having ViceAdmirals to back them. Being, for the most part, unscrupulous persons, they did not fail to make use of the fact in dealing with their colleagues at the Admiralty, and bombarded the latter with peremptory signals, purporting to come from high authority, but, in fact, emanating from a no more eminent pen than that of Flight Commander A- or Lieutenant B. For a time the harassed gentlemen at Whitehall replied meekly, forwarding sup

Sub-Lieut. J, Room 231, Admiralty.

The Admiral's reply is lost in the mists of time, but it is known that he had the signal framed and hung in his cabin.

Through the medium of the Admiralty, and later, the Air Ministry, the Royal Naval Air Service supplied not only the balloons, but also the personnel required to man them and to operate the balloon ships and depots on shore. It must have been a strange experience for a civilian, snatched from his private calling, to find himself, a few weeks later, being dragged through the sky above the North Sea. As the demand increased, the difficulty of finding the necessary complement

intensified. The utmost the training school could do was to teach the new officers to operate a balloon; their knowledge of the sea had to be acquired when they reached the Fleet. Consequently the officers at the balloon bases would scan the lists of expected arrivals with some anxiety.

Sometimes it was the most unlikely persons who provided the surprise. One windy mornOne windy morning, for instance, there arrived at North Queensferry a gentleman who, in reply to the C.O.'s inquiry, gave his profession as that of shirt-maker. The C.O., with an inward groan, immediately directed him to proceed on board a destroyer and take a balloon to the coast of Norway. It seemed an arduous duty for a man who had not been in the station half an hour, but the newly organised destroyer patrol was demanding balloons, and as no other officer was available, the shirtmaker had to go. He seemed less perturbed than his superior, and was looking quite cheerful when he went on board. But the Commanding Officer was not sanguine. Every day it blew big guns, and knowing something of destroyer patrols, he had practically abandoned all hope of seeing either the balloon or the shirt-maker again -when the patrol returned. Almost doubting his senses, he noted that the balloon was still there, and hurried off to meet the destroyer's skipper and hear the news. He found the skipper beaming.

Sailmaker, you mean," said the skipper; "he's a proper bit of salt horse."

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"I said shirt-maker," returned the O.C. Balloons. A man who makes shirts."

The skipper said something which meant that he found it rather difficult to believe this, and it was not till the shirtmaker himself had confirmed it, that he was at all convinced. The O.C. Balloons was perfectly correct. The newly arrived officer did make shirts, and had so reported his profession on recruitment. What he had omitted to mention was that before making shirts he had served ten years before the mast in a wind-jammer. This explained why the skipper had found him so useful. The destroyer was taking it all ways on the Norway patrol, and he had been almost the only man who was firmly planted on his legs; but for his help it would have been difficult to run the ship. The skipper swore he would never buy shirts from any one else.

Many ticklish duties fell to the lot of the senior balloon officers, not the least of them being to superintend the installation of the special winches on board the warships. These winches were beautiful pieces of machinery, built with the accuracy of clocks, and driven by water, steam, or

electricity, according to the power available. There was a diplomatic as well as a technical side to the operation of fitting them. However much the ships' officers might admire the winches themselves, it seemed strange to them that they should be delivered and fixed by the Air Service, which, presumably, knew little of matters marine. Moreover, they had their own ideas as to the most suitable positions for installing them, and as this was a matter of the first importance for the working of the balloon, clashes of opinion were by no means infrequent. One commander in particular proved difficult to please, and with poetic injustice was the victim of a regrettable incident.

He

had insisted, not without discussion, that the very best place for the winch was at a point near his cabin; and when all was complete, a balloon was brought from shore, and for trial purposes flown from the winch at a height of a thousand feet. Everything worked well, and when night set in the commander retired to his bunk, feeling, perhaps, not illdisposed towards his new piece of equipment. But during the hours of darkness it came on to blow. The balloon rode aloft, invisible in the blackness, send ing down eerie sounds as the wind howled through its rigging. Presently from the deck came the noise of a gentle bumping. The commander was asleep in his cabin, but after a while the bumping, which gradually in

creased in volume, disturbed his dreams. He sat up, listened, and detecting something irregular, prepared to sally out and inspect. The bumping was, as a matter of fact, caused by the cable, which, pulling ever more strongly as the wind increased, proved too much for the holding-down bolts of the winch, and bobbed the latter up and down on its insulated feet, in the fashion of a rude but noisy dance. As time went on, the dance became more vehement, and a sudden sforzando produced by the fracture of one of the feet, brought the halfclad commander flying from his cabin. It was nothing but sheer bad luck that the hydraulic pipe should choose that very moment to break. Only those who have tried conclusions with a fire-hose can really appreciate the commander's feelings. The pressure in a ship's hydraulic "ring" is very great, and the jet met him full in the face as he came skidding round the bulkhead. Though a fair-minded man, he was never really enthusiastic about kite balloons afterwards, but in speaking of them always gave the impression of holding something back.

However, incidents such as this, though regrettable in themselves, no longer had a serious effect on the development of balloons. By now they had proved their ability to tow from the fastest ships, to keep the air for days at a time, and also to work from small and confined deck spaces.

Every type of ship was fitted to carry them, even down to a submarine. This last combination was distinctly novel; so novel, in fact, that a drifter, seeing an apparently unattended balloon going round the bay, pursued it vigorously under the impression that it had broken adrift. It would not be discreet to particularise the possibilities, but there were not wanting officers who saw and wished to exploit them, which they might have been allowed to do if the war had continued another year. As it was, attention was concentrated rather on spotting and scouting for the Fleet, and on anti-submarine measures. Stations were established at many important bases, both at home and in the Mediterranean; and ships of the American Navy operating in our waters were also supplied and fitted with winches and taught to manipulate balloons.

The

parent ships were concentrated at Scapa Flow, where, with the assistance of hangars on shore, no fewer than thirty-two balloons could be kept in the air simultaneously. Normally the balloons were flown from the battleships, and sent in for overhaul and refit after a certain number of days, so that when the Fleet was ordered to sea, there was no delay over getting them on board.

This is not to say that all difficulties were at an end. With the terrific pressure of towing into a head wind, there were still times when the cables

parted, and the balloons were whirled away into the mist. In this way occurred the only casualty that was sustained throughout the whole period, the pilot of a balloon losing his life by drowning, though the naval officer with him in the basket was picked up.

The senior balloon officers were at some pains to demonstrate that a free run in a kite balloon is not necessarily fraught with danger, and with this object in view, obtained a few days' leave, and organised an intentional "breakaway from a suitable point inland. Owing to its excess of "lift " a kite balloon will rise to a great height after breaking free. The aeronauts were prepared for this, and were mildly enjoying themselves at their thin cold altitude when one of their number, who had been busy with a pencil and a piece of paper in a corner of the basket, suddenly claimed their attention by observing

"I can't make it out at all."

Caught by the concern in his tone, they demanded what he meant. He read through his figures again, and asked what was the height. They told him : ten thousand feet.

He sucked his pencil, frowning. "I thought so," he said ominously; "there's something wrong."

"Wrong?" The others looked anxiously round the rigging. It is unpleasant to be told there is something wrong at ten thousand feet. "What d'you mean, wrong?"