one of our 9.2 naval guns, which was operating on a short railroad built
by the Canadian Pacific Railway. This railroad, I may add, has been
doing mostly all the track laying and railroad operating for the
Canadian forces in Flanders. It was a matter of amazement for the
natives to see how quickly a railroad could be placed and operated, and
even the soldiers who were all more or less familiar with the workings
of this magnificent system in Canada, were astonished at the speed with
which the new machine, especially built by the Company for army
purposes, would throw down the rails, fasten them--presto! a railroad to
order.

[Illustration: Victorious, But Dead Tired]

It was resolved that the first work of the balloon should be devoted to
putting this German naval gun out of action. In this section at this
time the German balloons were thick in the air, and this gave them good
control of the Ypres salient. We dared not attempt the experiment there
for a long time, but it was finally determined to launch this one, and
it was brought up one evening, with its volunteers, inflated during the
night, and launched in the morning. Promptly at 10:00 o'clock, when it
was ready for raising, the German planes hummed busily overhead. Despite
their activities, the balloon got well up and was doing good observation
work on its way over to the naval nuisance; there it reached its
objective, making the necessary notations and records. Then--Kr-kr-kr-p!
Kr-kr-kr-p! And the shells commenced to scatter around it. Then it was a
case of getting the bag down, which was not so easy. These observation
balloons are operated from a large armored truck, to which they are
fastened, and the truck runs along carrying the air-bag with it,
attached with a long cable; it is handled just as a toy balloon would be
carried by a boy,--when the boy runs along, the balloon runs with him.