ts right bank and
covered Saarbruck.

According to the sketch-map the Zeppelin sheds were near the railway
station. So I flew low into the mist to get their correct position. The
noise of my engine brought a shot from an aerial gun, but the fog saved
me. A bunch of lights brought the station into view with the
unmistakable long hangar of the Zeppelin adjacent to it.

I turned to get the sheds beneath me, and three foot-treads sent as many
bombs chasing each other earthwards.

The first hit the ground near the shed, exploding without doing any
damage. The second crashed through the roof of the hangar, its explosion
being almost coincident with a fearful crash; the resulting air-rush
almost overturning my 'plane. The third bomb fell into the back end of
the shed, but I guessed it was not required.

My job was done, so I rose high above the fog line to get a straight run
for home. Three Taubes were patrolling high, evidently on the look out.

I saw they would have the drop on me, so I sank back into the fog and
under its cover swooped across the river for home. I was over the
enemy's country where I guessed I was being searched for, so taking
advantage of the fog I maintained a 1000 feet level and made a bee-line
for Epernay.

[Illustration: THE ZEPPELIN SHED, AT SAARBRUCK.

Chapter VIII.]

My job was done, and I remember I was particularly elated.

I got a surprise near the Argonne Forest, striking a breeze that
suddenly came up from the south, lifting the fog curtain and showing me
dangerously close to the earth.

I swiftly jerked the elevator for a swoop up as a rifle cracked. I was
spotted!

A volley of shots followed and--I was winged.

I remember, like a hideous dream, a long, evil-smelling shed in which I
lay, a stiffly stretched and bandaged figure on a straw-strewn floor.

I was afterwards told it was Mezieres Railway Station, and that I was
one of many hundred wounded being taken from the field hospitals to the
base.

I need not detail my experiences for the next six months. I was taken
from the hospital at Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne to be attached to a gang
of prisoners for street cleaning.

I remember our daily march across the Great Rhine Bridge with its
wonderful arches at its entrance, and the great bronze horses on its
flanks. I had occasion to remember that bridge, for there, some time
later, the sunshine was to come into my life.

For six months I had not heard much of the war. My hos