ou accomplish much to-day?" I inquired.

"Not as much as usual. There is a ground haze," replied Colonel M----,
who had been the observer in that day's flight. "Down here it is not
so noticeable, but from above it obscures everything."

He explained the difficulties of the airship builder, the expense and
tendency to "pinholes" of gold-beaters' skin, the curious fact that
chemists had so far failed to discover a gasproof varnish.

"But of course," he said, "those things will come. The airship is the
machine of the future. Its stability, its power to carry great
weights, point to that. The difference between an airship and an
aeroplane is the difference between a battleship and a submarine. Each
has its own field of usefulness."

All round lay great cylinders of pure hydrogen, used for inflating the
balloon. Smoking in the hangar was forbidden. The incessant wind
rattled the great canvas curtains and whistled round the rusting
crane. From the shop next door came the hammering of machines, for the
French Government has put the mill to work again.

We left the hangar and walked past the machine shop. Halfway along one
of its sides a tall lieutenant pointed to a small hole in the land,
leading under the building.

"The French government has sent here," he said, "the men who are unfit
for service in the army. Day by day, as German aeroplanes are seen
overhead, the alarm is raised in the shop. The men are panic-stricken.
If there are a dozen alarms they do the same thing. They rush out like
frightened rabbits, throw themselves flat on the sand, and wriggle
through that hole into a cave that they have dug underneath. It is
hysterically funny; they all try to get in at the same time."

I had hoped to see the thing happen myself. But when, late that
afternoon, a German aeroplane actually flew over the station, the
works had closed down for the day and the men were gone. It was
disappointing.

Between the machine shop and the administration building is a tall
water tower. On top of this are two observers who watch the sky day
and night. An anti-aircraft gun is mounted there and may be swung to
command any portion of the sky. This precaution is necessary, for the
station has been the object of frequent attacks. The airship itself
has furnished a tempting mark to numerous German airmen. Its best
speed is forty miles an hour, so they are able to circle about it and
attack it from various directions. As it has only two ballo