The writer of the article in the _Border Telegraph_ goes on to point out that bomb-dropping is a difficult matter: ‘Any one can drop bombs, you say. “Just heave ’em overboard!” Exactly. But it’s no use dropping a sixteen-pounder on a battle-cruiser. It mightn’t like it. Besides, it won’t wait till you drop it. You can take it that long before you get within dropping distance anything from a centimetre to a six-inch shell is up searching for you. The same when you spot a submarine. If you take too long calculating and guessing what curve the dropping bomb will take or how long it should take to reach the objective if the speed increases thirty odd feet per sec., they’ll sling out the six-pounder at you, and mighty smart, too. A young man once dropped a few bombs for practice where he thought was well out in the bay. Alas! he forgot the curve a bomb makes in its flight. Don’t ever forget that curve when you watch a hostile machine dropping bombs. On this occasion the friendly bombs struck the water a couple of hundred yards from a fairly crowded esplanade, and caused something analogous to a panic. You see, those bombs, having had the pins extracted, made water spouts when they burst, not to mention noise. Rumours flew so fast that the District Brigade Major, being informed that the German fleet were shelling the port, called out the military. Why, it is not for me to say, and I’m not quite sure if the special constables were not called out, too, because I was making tracks, like Huckleberry Finn, for the back country shortly—very shortly, indeed—after the occurrence.’ [Illustration: GUARDING OUR COASTS. A Naval Patrol in difficulties in the North Sea. _Reproduced from ‘Flight,’ by special permission._] It is, of course, highly important that the observer should be able to tell the difference between the ships of Britain and her Allies and an enemy ship. Moreover, at 1,000 feet in a fairly good light the observer has to distinguish between a floating mine and a war channel buoy. ‘Then he will never cause his machine to descend to 200 feet for the purpose of informing his pilot that _it’s a buoy_.’ All this time communication has to be maintained with the wireless telegraphy station ashore or afloat. Instructions sent to the ‘plane are taken down and given effect to, or the observer’s report sent, as required. Furthermore, the observer must be a master of aerial gunnery, and he must withal be an air mechanic in the best sense. One can readily imagine what would happen if an aeroplane had to alight fifty or sixty miles out to sea with a stubborn engine, if the pilot had no knowledge of motor mechanism.