‘Six hundred kilometres in a single stage! A hundred and twenty kilometres to the hour! The difficult crossing of the Balkans, with their heights of over 2,900 metres (9,000 feet), their pernicious currents, their thousand and one difficulties, effected without encumbrance, without the least accident! What marvellous exploit of ability, of cool blood, of this legendary and magnificent heroism French! What new and beautiful page of glory to inscribe to the credit of the aviation French! Salutes to you, glorious heroes of the air! Salutes to you, well-beloved colours of France, which in these solemn hours come to unite yourselves to the tricolour Roumanian! Roumania has received you open-armed with legitimate pride, and from the plains of the Danube up to the slopes of the Carpathians, and from the banks of the Olt and of the Muresh, and from those of the Black Sea, to those of the Thass, a sole cry sincere, but which sums up all our sentiments, will hail you, “Vive la France! Vive l’armée française!!”’ High praise, very warmly expressed, and richly deserved! ‘The aviators,’ says one who writes with intimate knowledge of their movements, ‘deserved thoroughly the acclamation. All the French pilots remained for a while in Roumania except Louis Noël, who flew back alone on the nineteenth again without landing. Owing to a head wind after reaching the seaward side of the Balkans, he only just scraped home without a drop of essence.’ It should be added that Lieutenant Noël is well known at Hendon, and has been justly termed one of the most decorated and distinguished of Hendon aviators. CHAPTER XXII FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT HAROLD ROSHER, R.N.A.S. All are conscious of the fact that to our Royal Naval Air Service the highest praise is due. The service is rich in heroic pilots. Few, however, are known by name to the wider public. But we must not suppose that our Navy has not in its service a goodly share of skilful and heroic pilots. The letter, for instance, of Flight-Lieutenant Harold Rosher, R.N.A.S., written to his family and published by Chatto and Windus, reveals an aviator of fine character. ‘One wonders,’ a friend writes, ‘whether most to admire the man in him, the gentleman, or the accomplished pilot of the skies who took all risks, keeping his head among them, because that way lay duty and achievement.’ He is well reflected in his quiet, modest manner of writing. Here is a little picture of the difficulties of flying at a great altitude, ‘absolutely lost’ and in search of bearings: ‘I nose-dived, side-slipped, stalled, &c., &c., time after time, my speed varying from practically nothing to over a hundred miles an hour. I kept my head, but was absolutely scared stiff. I didn’t get out of the clouds, which, lower down, turned into a snowstorm and hail, until I was only 1,500 feet up. I came out diving headlong for the earth.’