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Curtain and interval of ten days, at the end of which I was offered a place as passenger in a machine destined for my own squadron. The bus was to be taken to an aircraft depôt in France from Rafborough Aerodrome. Rafborough is a small town galvanised into importance by its association with flying.
In England the roads twist and twirl through each other like the threads of a spider's web, and failing rail or river or prominent landmarks, one usually steers by compass rather than trust to roads. At Calais we turned to the right and followed a network of canals south-westward to Saint Gregoire, where was an aircraft depôt similar to the one at Rafborough.
Probably Rafborough has harboured a larger variety of aircraft and aircraft experts than any other place in the world. My friend the ferry-pilot having announced that the carriage waited, I strapped our baggage, some new gramophone records, and myself into the observer's office.
On the whole, however, the period of waiting was dull, so that we welcomed comic relief provided by the affair of the Jabberwocks. The first three machines delivered from the Rafborough depôt disappointed us in one particular. The movable mounting for the observer's gun in the rear cockpit was a weird contraption like a giant catapult.
Years ago, in the far-away days when aviation itself was matter for wonder, the pioneers who concerned themselves with the possibilities of war flying made their headquarters at Rafborough. An experimental factory, rich in theory, was established, and near it was laid out an aerodrome for the more practical work.
Thousands of machines have since been tested on the rough-grassed aerodrome, while the neighbouring Royal Aircraft Factory has continued to produce designs, ideas, aeroplanes, engines, and aircraft accessories. Formerly most types of new machines were put through their official paces at Rafborough, and most types, including some captures from the Huns, were to be seen in its sheds.
The ferry-pilot who had brought me left for Rafborough almost immediately on a much-flown "quirk." The machine he had delivered at Saint Gregoire was handed over to a pilot from Umpty Squadron when the latter reported, and we took to the air soon after lunch. The puppy travelled by road over the last lap of his long journey, in the company of a lorry driver.
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