British Army had established a naval air-station, where
one of its dirigible airships was kept. In good weather the airship
went out on reconnoissance. It was not a large airship, as such things
go, and was formerly a training ship. Now it was housed in an
extemporised hangar that was once a carwheel works, and made its
ascent from a plain surrounded by barbed wire.

The airship men were extremely hospitable, and I made several visits
to the station. On the day of which I am about to write I was taken
for an exhaustive tour of the premises, beginning with the hangar and
ending with tea. Not that it really ended with tea. Tea was rather a
beginning, leading to all sorts of unexpected and surprising things.

The airship was out when I arrived, and a group of young officers was
watching it, a dot on the horizon near the front. They gave me the
glasses, and I saw it plainly--a long, yellowish, slowly moving object
that turned as I looked and headed back for the station.

The group watched the sky carefully. A German aeroplane could wreck
the airship easily. But although there were planes in sight none was
of the familiar German lines.

It came on. Now one could see the car below. A little closer and three
dots were the men in it. On the sandy plain which is the landing field
were waiting the men whose work it is to warp the great balloon into
its hangar. The wind had come up and made landing difficult. It was
necessary to make two complete revolutions over the field before
coming down. Then the blunt yellow nose dipped abruptly. The men below
caught the ropes, the engine was cut off, and His Majesty's airship,
in shape and colour not unlike a great pig, was safely at home again
and being led to the stable.

"Do you want to know the bravest man in all the world?" one of the
young officers said. "Because here he is. The funny thing about it is
he doesn't know he is brave."

That is how I met Colonel M----, who is England's greatest airship man
and who is in charge of the naval air station.

"If you had come a little sooner," he said, "you could have gone out
with us."

I was grateful but unenthusiastic. I had seen the officers watching
the sky for German planes. I had a keen idea that a German aviator
overhead, armed with a Belgian block or a bomb or a dart, could have
ripped that yellow envelope open from stem to stern, and robbed
American literature of one of its shining lights. Besides, even in
times of peace I