As soon as you emerge on the eastern side of Arras you see the line from the rising ground. The captive balloons mark it well; they are so frequent--huge hovering inflations with the tiny observer's basket dangling, and the streaming pennon half-way down the cable to avert collision with the patrolling aircraft. For they must be patrolled well. The Hun has lately the trick of pouncing on them from aloft, shooting the tracer bullet as he dives. The tracer will put the thing in flames in the twinkling of an eye. The observer does not wait if he sees a Hun coming for him. He leaps for it. His parachute harness is always about his shoulders, and his parachute tucked beneath the balloon. But even with the Hun making for him, this leap into space is a fearsome thing. He falls sheer for some seconds before the parachute is wrenched from its place. Then there is that second of horrible uncertainty as to whether she will open. And if there is a hitch, his dive to earth becomes a flash and his breathless body thuds into pulp below. So ended the man who "made" the song "Gilbert the Filbert." So end others, failed by their parachute.... Sometimes combustion is so rapid that the parachute is burnt with the balloon; then he leaps from the death by fire to death of another sort. Nor does a well-released parachute always let you down lightly. If the wind is strong and contrary, you may drift five miles and land 'midst Huns. If the wind is strong and favourable, your pendulic swing beneath the parachute may land you roughly with wounds and bruises. You may be smashed against chimneys, torn by trees, dragged through canals, and haled bleeding up the bank. But if the Lord is with you, you will swing slowly down in the still air and be landed tenderly in a field of clover. Sometimes balloons get set afire by lightning. If then the parachute is saved, the observer is fortunate indeed. Lightning gives rather less warning to leap than does the flying Hun. All the country from Arras to the line bears the scars of recent fighting. A great deal of it bears the marks of German occupation; you see this in German _Verboten_ signs and in German canteen notices.