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diff --git a/24570.txt b/24570.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec9962e --- /dev/null +++ b/24570.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5249 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of High Adventure, by James Norman Hall + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: High Adventure + A Narrative of Air Fighting in France + +Author: James Norman Hall + +Release Date: February 11, 2008 [EBook #24570] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGH ADVENTURE *** + + + + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + The Riverside Library + + High Adventure + + A Narrative of Air Fighting in France + + By + + JAMES NORMAN HALL + + + [Illustration] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + + COPYRIGHT, 1917 AND 1918, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + _Published June, 1918_ + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + TO + SERGENT-PILOTE DOUGLAS MACMONAGLE + KILLED IN COMBAT NEAR VERDUN + SEPTEMBER 25, 1917 + + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR] + + + + + Contents + + + I. THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS 1 + + II. PENGUINS 24 + + III. BY THE ROUTE OF THE AIR 47 + + IV. AT G. D. E. 79 + + V. OUR FIRST PATROL 107 + + VI. A BALLOON ATTACK 144 + + VII. BROUGHT DOWN 167 + +VIII. ONE HUNDRED HOURS 182 + + IX. "LONELY AS A CLOUD" 200 + + X. "MAIS OUI, MON VIEUX!" 209 + + XI. THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS 216 + + XII. CAFARD 226 + +LETTER FROM A GERMAN PRISON CAMP 233 + + + + + HIGH ADVENTURE + + + + + I + + THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS + + +It was on a cool, starlit evening, early in September, 1916, that I +first met Drew of Massachusetts, and actually began my adventures as a +prospective member of the Escadrille Americaine. We had sailed from +New York by the same boat, had made our applications for enlistment in +the Foreign Legion on the same day, without being aware of each +other's existence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, we had +gone, every evening, for dinner, to the same large and gloomy-looking +restaurant in the neighborhood of the Seine. + +As for the restaurant, we frequented it, not assuredly because of the +quality of the food. We might have dined better and more cheaply +elsewhere. But there was an air of vanished splendor, of faded +magnificence, about the place which, in the capital of a warring +nation, appealed to both of us. Every evening the tables were laid +with spotless linen and shining silver. The wineglasses caught the +light from the tarnished chandeliers in little points of color. At the +dinner-hour, a half-dozen ancient serving-men silently took their +places about the room. There was not a sound to be heard except the +occasional far-off honk of a motor or the subdued clatter of dishes +from the kitchens. The serving-men, even the tables and the empty +chairs, seemed to be listening, to be waiting for the guests who never +came. Rarely were there more than a dozen diners-out during the course +of an evening. There was something mysterious in these elaborate +preparations, and something rather fine about them as well; but one +thought, not without a touch of sadness, of the old days when there +had been laughter and lights and music, sparkling wines and brilliant +talk, and how those merrymakers had gone, many of them, long ago to +the wars. + +As it happened on this evening, Drew and I were sitting at adjoining +tables. Our common citizenship was our introduction, and after five +minutes of talk, we learned of our common purpose in coming to +France. I suppose that we must have eaten after making this latter +discovery. I vaguely remember seeing our old waiter hobbling down a +long vista of empty tables on his way to and from the kitchens. But if +we thought of our food at all, it must have been in a purely +mechanical way. + +Drew can talk--by Jove, how the man can talk!--and he has the faculty +of throwing the glamour of romance over the most commonplace +adventures. Indeed, the difficulty which I am going to have in writing +this narrative is largely due to this romantic influence of his. I +might have succeeded in writing a plain tale, for I have kept my diary +faithfully, from day to day, and can set down our adventures, such as +they are, pretty much as they occurred. But Drew has bewitched me. He +does not realize it, but he is a weaver of spells, and I am so +enmeshed in his moonshine that I doubt if I shall be able to write of +our experiences as they must appear to those of our comrades in the +Franco-American Corps who remember them only through the medium of the +revealing light of day. + +Not one of these men, I am sure, would confess to so strange an +immediate cause for joining the aviation service, as that related to +me by Drew, as we sat over our coffee and cigarettes, on the evening +of our first meeting. He had come to France, he said, with the +intention of joining the _Legion Etrangere_ as an infantryman. But he +changed his mind, a few days after his arrival in Paris, upon meeting +Jackson of the American Aviation Squadron, who was on leave after a +service of six months at the front. It was all because of the manner +in which Jackson looked at a Turkish rug. He told him of his +adventures in the most matter-of-fact way. No heroics, nothing of that +sort. He had not a glimmer of imagination, he said. But he had a way +of looking at the floor which was "irresistible," which "fascinated +him with the sense of height." He saw towns, villages, networks of +trenches, columns of toy troops moving up ribbons of road--all in the +patterns of a Turkish rug. And the next day, he was at the +headquarters of the Franco-American Corps, in the Champs Elysees, +making application for membership. + +It is strange that we should both have come to France with so little +of accurate knowledge of the corps, of the possibilities for +enlistment, and of the nature of the requirements for the service. Our +knowledge of it, up to the time of sailing, had been confined to a few +brief references in the press. It was perhaps necessary that its +existence should not be officially recognized in America, or its +furtherance encouraged. But it seemed to us at that time, that there +must have been actual discouragement on the part of the Government at +Washington. However that may be, we wondered if others had followed +clues so vague or a call so dimly heard. + +This led to a discussion of our individual aptitudes for the service, +and we made many comforting discoveries about each other. It is +permissible to reveal them now, for the particular encouragement of +others who, like ourselves at that time, may be conscious of +deficiencies, and who may think that they have none of the qualities +essential to the successful aviator. Drew had never been farther from +the ground than the top of the Woolworth building. I had once taken a +trip in a captive balloon. Drew knew nothing of motors, and had no +more knowledge of mechanics than would enable him to wind a watch +without breaking the mainspring. My ignorance in this respect was a +fair match for his. + +We were further handicapped for the French service by our lack of the +language. Indeed, this seemed to be the most serious obstacle in the +way to success. With a good general knowledge of the language it +seemed probable that we might be able to overcome our other +deficiencies. Without it, we could see no way to mastering the +mechanical knowledge which we supposed must be required as a +foundation for the training of a military pilot. In this connection, +it may be well to say that we have both been handicapped from the +beginning. We have had to learn, through actual experience in the air, +and at risk to life and limb, what many of our comrades, both French +and American, knew before they had ever climbed into an aeroplane. But +it is equally true that scores of men become very excellent pilots +with little or no knowledge of the mechanics of the business. + +In so far as Drew and I were concerned, these were matters for the +future. It was enough for us at the moment that our applications had +been approved, our papers signed, and that to-morrow we were leaving +for the _Ecole d'Aviation Militaire_ to begin our training. And so, +after a long evening of pleasant talk and pleasanter anticipation of +coming events, we left our restaurant and walked together through the +silent streets to the Place de la Concorde. The great windy square was +almost deserted. The monuments to the lost provinces bulked large in +the dim lamplight. Two disabled soldiers hobbled across the bridge and +disappeared in the deep shade of the avenue. Their service had been +rendered, their sacrifices made, months ago. They could look about +them now with a peculiar sense of isolation, and with, perhaps, a +feeling of the futility of the effort they had made. Our adventures +were all before us. Our hearts were light and our hopes high. As we +stood by the obelisk, talking over plans for the morrow, we heard, +high overhead, the faint hum of motors, and saw two lights, one green, +one red, moving rapidly across the sky. A moment later the long, +slender finger of a searchlight probed among little heaps of cloud, +then, sweeping in a wide arc, revealed in striking outline the shape +of a huge biplane circling over the sleeping city. It was one of the +night guard of Paris. + +On the following morning, we were at the Gare des Invalides with our +luggage, a long half-hour before train-time. The luggage was absurdly +bulky. Drew had two enormous suitcases and a bag, and I a steamer +trunk and a family-size portmanteau. We looked so much the typical +American tourists that we felt ashamed of ourselves, not because of +our nationality, but because we revealed so plainly, to all the world +military, our non-military antecedents. We bore the hallmark of fifty +years of neutral aloofness, of fifty years of indifference to the +business of national defense. What makes the situation amusing as a +retrospect is the fact that we were traveling on third-class military +passes, as befitted our rank as _eleve-pilotes_ and soldiers of the +_deuxieme classe_. + +To our great discomfiture, a couple of _poilus_ volunteered their +services in putting our belongings aboard the train. Then we crowded +into a third-class carriage filled with soldiers--_permissionnaires_, +_blesses_, _reformes_, men from all corners of France and her +colonies. Their uniforms were faded and weather-stained with long +service. The stocks of their rifles were worn smooth and bright with +constant usage, and their packs fairly stowed themselves upon their +backs. + +Drew and I felt uncomfortable in our smart civilian clothing. We +looked too soft, too clean, too spick-and-span. We did not feel that +we belonged there. But in a whispered conversation we comforted +ourselves with the assurance that if ever America took her rightful +stand with the Allies, in six months after the event, hundreds of +thousands of American boys would be lugging packs and rifles with the +same familiarity of use as these French _poilus_. They would become +equally good soldiers, and soon would have the same community of +experience, of dangers and hardships shared in common, which make men +comrades and brothers in fact as well as in theory. + +By the time we had reached our destination we had persuaded ourselves +into a much more comfortable frame of mind. There we piled into a +cab, and soon we were rattling over the cobblestones, down a long, +sunlit avenue in the direction of B----. It was late of a mild +afternoon when we reached the summit of a high plateau and saw before +us the barracks and hangars of the _Ecole d'Aviation_. There was not a +breath of air stirring. The sun was just sinking behind a bank of +crimson cloud. The earth was already in shadow, but high overhead the +light was caught and reflected from the wings of scores of _avions_ +which shone like polished bronze and silver. We saw the long lines of +Bleriot monoplanes, like huge dragon-flies, and as pretty a sight in +the air as heart could wish. Farther to the left, we recognized Farman +biplanes, floating battleships in comparison with the Bleriots, and +twin-motor Caudrons, much more graceful and alert of movement. + +But, most wonderful of all to us then, we saw a strange, new +_avion_,--a biplane, small, trim, with a body like a fish. To see it +in flight was to be convinced for all time that man has mastered the +air, and has outdone the birds in their own element. Never was swallow +more consciously joyous in swift flight, never eagle so bold to take +the heights or so quick to reach them. Drew and I gazed in silent +wonder, our bodies jammed tightly into the cab-window, and our heads +craned upward. We did not come back to earth until our ancient, +earth-creeping conveyance brought up with a jerk, and we found +ourselves in front of a gate marked "Ecole d'Aviation Militaire de +B----." + +After we had paid the cabman, we stood in the road, with our mountain +of luggage heaped about us, waiting for something to happen. A moment +later a window in the administration building was thrown open and we +were greeted with a loud and not over-musical chorus of + + "Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light--" + +It all came from one throat, belonging to a chap in leathers, who came +down the drive to give us welcome. + +"Spotted you _toute suite_" he said. "You can tell Americans at six +hundred yards by their hats. How's things in the States? Do you think +we're coming in?" + +We gave him the latest budget of home news, whereupon he offered to +take us over to the barracks. When he saw our luggage he grinned. + +"Some equipment, believe me! _Attendez un peu_ while I commandeer a +battalion of Annamites to help us carry it, and we'll be on our way." + +The Annamites, from Indo-China, who are quartered at the camp for +guard and fatigue duty, came back with him about twenty strong, and we +started in a long procession to the barracks. Later, we took a +vindictive pleasure in witnessing the beluggaged arrival of other +Americans, for in nine cases out of ten they came as absurdly +over-equipped as did we. + +Our barracks, one of many built on the same pattern, was a long, low +wooden building, weather-stained without and whitewashed within. It +had accommodation for about forty beds. One end of the room was very +manifestly American. There was a phonograph on the table, baseball +equipment piled in one corner, and the walls were covered with +cartoons and pictures clipped from American periodicals. The other end +was as evidently French, in the frugality and the neatness of its +furnishings. The American end of the room looked more homelike, but +the French end more military. Near the center, where the two nations +joined, there was a very harmonious blending of these characteristics. + +Drew and I were delighted with all this. We were glad that we were not +to live in an exclusively American barracks, for we wanted to learn +French; but more than this, we wanted to live with Frenchmen on terms +of barrack-room familiarity. + +By the time we had given in our papers at the captain's office and had +passed the hasty preliminary examination of the medical officer, it +was quite dark. Flying for the day was over, and lights gleamed +cheerily from the barrack-room windows. As we came down the principal +street of the camp, we heard the strains of "Waiting for the Robert E. +Lee," to a gramophone accompaniment, issuing from the _chambre des +Americains_. + + "See them shuffle along, + Oh, ma honey babe, + Hear that music and song." + +It gave us the home feeling at once. Frenchmen and Americans were +singing together, the Frenchmen in very quaint English, but hitting +off the syncopated time as though they had been born and brought up to +it as we Americans have. + +Over in one corner, a very informal class in French-English +pronunciation was at work. Apparently, this was tongue-twisters' +night. "_Heureux_" was the challenge from the French side, and +"_Hooroo_" the nearest approach to a pronunciation on the part of the +Americans, with many more or less remote variations on this theme. An +American, realizing how difficult it is for a Frenchman to get his +tongue between his teeth, counter-challenged with "Father, you are +withered with age." The result, as might have been expected, was a +series of hissing sounds of _z_, whereupon there was an answering howl +of derision from all the Americans. Up and down the length of the room +there were little groups of two and three, chatting together in +combinations of Franco-American which must have caused all deceased +professors of modern languages to spin like midges in their graves. +And throughout all this before-supper merriment, one could catch the +feeling of good-comradeship which, so far as my experience goes, is +always prevalent whenever Frenchmen and Americans are gathered +together. + +At the _ordinaire_, at supper-time, we saw all of the _eleve-pilotes_ +of the school, with the exception of the non-commissioned officers, +who have their own mess. To Drew and me, but newly come from remote +America, it was a most interesting gathering. There were about one +hundred and twenty-five in all, including eighteen Americans. The +large majority of the Frenchmen had already been at the front in other +branches of army service. There were artillerymen, infantrymen, +marines,--in training for the naval air-service,--cavalrymen, all +wearing the uniforms of the arm to which they originally belonged. No +one was dressed in a uniform which distinguished him as an aviator; +and upon making inquiry, I found that there is no official dress for +this branch of the service. During his period of training in aviation, +and even after receiving his military brevet, a pilot continues to +wear the dress of his former service, plus the wings on the collar, +and the star-and-wings insignia on his right breast. This custom does +not make for the fine uniform appearance of the men of the British +Royal Flying Corps, but it gives a picturesqueness of effect which is, +perhaps, ample recompense. As for the Americans, they follow +individual tastes, as we learned later. Some of them, with an eye to +color, salute the sun in the red trousers and black tunic of the +artilleryman. Others choose more sober shades, various French blues, +with the thin orange aviation stripe running down the seams of the +trousers. All this in reference to the dress uniform. At the camp most +of the men wear leathers, or a combination of leathers and the +gray-blue uniform of the French _poilu_, which is issued to all +Americans at the time of their enlistment. + +We had a very excellent supper of soup, followed by a savory roast of +meat, with mashed potatoes and lentils. Afterward, cheese and beer. I +was slightly discomfited physically on learning that the beef was +horse-meat, but Drew convinced me that it was absurd to let old +scruples militate against a healthy appetite. In 1870 the citizens of +France ate _ragout de chat_ with relish. Furthermore, the roast was of +so delicious a flavor and so closely resembled the finest cuts of +beef, that it was easy to persuade one's self that it was beef, after +all. + +After the meal, to our great surprise, every one cleaned his dishes +with huge pieces of bread. Such waste seemed criminal in a country +beleaguered by submarines, in its third year of war, and largely +dependent for its food-supply on the farm labor of women and children. +We should not have been surprised if it had been only the Americans +who indulged in this wasteful dish-cleansing process; but the +Frenchmen did it, too. When I remarked upon this to one of my American +comrades, a Frenchman, sitting opposite, said:-- + +"Pardon, monsieur, but I must tell you what we Frenchmen are. We are +very economical when it is for ourselves, for our own families and +purses, that we are saving. But when it is the Government which pays +the bill, we do not care. We do not have to pay directly and so we +waste, we throw away. We are so careful at home, all of our lives, +that this is a little pleasure for us." + +I have had this same observation made to me by so many Frenchmen since +that time, that I believe there must be a good deal of truth in it. + +After supper, all of the Americans adjourned for coffee to Ciret's, a +little cafe in the village which nestles among the hills not far from +the camp. The cafe itself was like any one of thousands of French +provincial restaurants. There was a great dingy common room, with a +sanded brick floor, and faded streamers of tricolor paper festooned in +curious patterns from the smoky ceiling. The kitchen was clean, and +filled with the appetizing odor of good cooking. Beyond it was +another, inner room, "_toujours reservee a mes Americains_," as M. +Ciret, the fat, genial _patron_ continually asserted. Here we gathered +around a large circular table, pipes and cigarettes were lighted, and, +while the others talked, Drew and I listened and gathered impressions. + +For a time the conversation did not become general, and we gathered up +odds and ends of it from all sides. Then it turned to the reasons +which had prompted various members of the group to come to France, the +topic, above all others, which Drew and I most wanted to hear +discussed. It seemed to me, as I listened, that we Americans closely +resemble the British in our sensitive fear of any display of fine +personal feeling. We will never learn to examine our emotions with +anything but suspicion. If we are prompted to a course of action by +generous impulses, we are anxious that others shall not be let into +the secret. And so it was that of all the reasons given for offering +their services to France, the first and most important was the last to +be acknowledged, and even then it was admitted by some with a +reluctance nearly akin to shame. There was no man there who was not +ready and willing to give his life, if necessary, for the Allied +cause, because he believed in it; but the admission could hardly have +been dragged from him by wild horses. + +But the adventure of the life, the peculiar fascination of it--that +was a thing which might be discussed without reserve, and the men +talked of it with a willingness which was most gratifying to Drew and +me, curious as we were about the life we were entering. They were all +in the flush of their first enthusiasms. They were daily enlarging +their conceptions of distance and height and speed. They talked a new +language and were developing a new cast of mind. They were like +children who had grown up over night, whose horizons had been +immeasurably broadened in the twinkling of an eye. They were still +keenly conscious of the change which was upon them, for they were but +fledgling aviators. They were just finding their wings. But as I +listened, I thought of the time which must come soon, when the air, as +the sea, will be filled with stately ships, and how the air-service +will develop its own peculiar type of men, and build up about them its +own laws and its own traditions. + +As we walked back through the straggling village street to the camp, I +tried to convey to Drew something of the new vision which had come to +me during the evening. I was aglow with enthusiasm and hoped to strike +an answering spark from him. But all that I was thinking and feeling +then he had thought and felt long before. I am sure that he had +already experienced, in imagination, every thrill, every keen joy, and +every sudden sickening fear which the life might have in store for +him. For this reason I forgave him for his rather bored manner of +answering to my mood, and the more willingly because he was full of +talk about a strange illusion which he had had at the restaurant. +During a moment of silence, he had heard a clatter of hoof-beats in +the village street. (I had heard them too. Some one rode by +furiously.) Well, Drew said that he almost jumped from his seat, +expecting M. Ciret to throw open the door and shout, "The British are +coming!" He actually believed for a second or two that it was the year +1775, and that he was sitting in one of the old roadside inns of +Massachusetts. The illusion was perfect, he said. + +Now, why--etc., etc. At another time I should have been much +interested; but in the presence of new and splendid realities I could +not summon any enthusiasm for illusions. Nevertheless, I should have +had to listen to him indefinitely, had it not been for an event which +cut short all conversation and ended our first day at the _Ecole +d'Aviation_ in a truly spectacular manner. + +Suddenly we heard the roar of motors just over the barracks, and, at +the same time, the siren sounded the alarm in a series of prolonged, +wailing shrieks. Some belated pilot was still in the air. We rushed +out to the field just as the flares were being lighted and placed on +the ground in the shape of an immense T, with the cross-bar facing in +the direction from which the wind was coming. By this time the hum of +motors was heard at a great distance, but gradually it increased in +volume and soon the light of the flares revealed the machine circling +rapidly over the _piste_. I was so much absorbed in watching it +manoeuvre for a landing that I did not see the crowd scattering to +safe distances. I heard many voices shouting frantic warnings, and so +ran for it, but, in my excitement, directly within the line of descent +of the machine. I heard the wind screaming through the wires, a +terrifying sound to the novice, and glancing hurriedly over my +shoulder, I saw what appeared to be a monster of gigantic proportions, +almost upon me. It passed within three metres of my head and landed +just beyond. + +When at last I got to sleep, after a day filled with interesting +incidents, Paul Revere pursued me relentlessly through the mazes of a +weird and horrible dream. I was on foot, and shod with lead-soled +boots. He was in a huge, twin-motor Caudron and flying at a terrific +pace, only a few metres from the ground. I can see him now, as he +leaned far out over the hood of his machine, an aviator's helmet set +atilt over his powdered wig, and his eyes glowing like coals through +his goggles. He was waving two lighted torches and shouting, "The +British are coming! The British are coming!" in a voice strangely like +Drew's. + + + + + II + + PENGUINS + + +Having simple civilian notions as to the amount of time necessary for +dressing, Drew and I rose with the sound of the bugle on the following +morning. We had promised each other that we would begin our new life +in true soldier style, and so we reluctantly hurried to the +wash-house, where we shaved in cold water, washed after a fashion, and +then hurried back to the unheated barrack-room. We felt refreshed, +morally and physically, but our heroic example seemed to make no +impression upon our fellow aviators, whether French or American. +Indeed, not one of them stirred until ten minutes before time for the +morning _appel_, when, there was a sudden upheaval of blankets down +the entire length of the room. It was as though the patients in a hospital +ward had been inoculated with some wonderful, instantaneous-health-giving +virus. Men were jumping into boots and trousers at the same time, and +running to and from the wash-house, buttoning their shirts and drying +their faces as they ran. It must have taken months of experiment to +perfect the system whereby every one remained in bed until the last +possible moment. They professed to be very proud of it, but it was +clear that they felt more at ease when Drew and I, after a week of +heroic, early-morning resolves, abandoned our daily test of courage. +We are all Doctor Johnsons at heart. + +It was a crisp, calm morning--an excellent day for flying. Already the +mechanicians were bringing out the machines and lining them up in +front of the hangars, in preparation for the morning work, which began +immediately after _appel_. Drew and I had received notice that we were +to begin our training at once. Solicitous fellow countrymen had warned +us to take with us all our flying clothes. We were by no means to +forget our goggles, and the fur-lined boots which are worn over +ordinary boots as a protection against the cold. Innocently, we obeyed +all instructions to the letter. The absurdity of our appearance will +be appreciated only by air-men. Novices begin their training, at a +Bleriot monoplane school, in Penguins--low-powered machines with +clipped wings, which are not capable of leaving the ground. We were +dressed as we would have no occasion to be dressed until we should be +making sustained flights at high altitudes. Every one, Frenchmen and +Americans alike, had a good laugh at our expense, but it was one in +which we joined right willingly; and one kind-hearted _adjudant-moniteur_, +in order to remove what discomfiture we may have felt, told us, +through an interpreter, that he was sure we would become good air-men. +The _tres bon pilote_ could be distinguished, in embryo, by the way he +wore his goggles. + +The beginners' class did not start work with the others, owing to the +fact that the Penguins, driven by unaccustomed hands, covered a vast +amount of ground in their rolling sorties back and forth across the +field. Therefore Drew and I had leisure to watch the others, and to +see in operation the entire scheme by means of which France trains her +combat pilots for the front. Exclusive of the Penguin, there were +seven classes, graded according to their degree of advancement. These, +in their order, were the rolling class (a second-stage Penguin class, +in which one still kept on the ground, but in machines of higher +speed); the first flying class--short hops across the field at an +altitude of two or three metres; the second flying class, where one +learned to mount to from thirty to fifty metres, and to make landings +without the use of the motor; _tour de piste_ (A)--flights about the +aerodrome in a forty-five horse-power Bleriot; _tour de piste_ +(B)--similar flights in a fifty horse-power machine; the spiral class, +and the brevet class. + +Our reception committee of the day before volunteered his services as +guide, and took us from one class to another, making comments upon the +nature of the work of each in a bewildering combination of English and +Americanized French. I understood but little of his explanation, +although later I was able to appreciate his French translation of some +of our breezy Americanisms. But explanation was, for the most part, +unnecessary. We could see for ourselves how the prospective pilot +advanced from one class to another, becoming accustomed to machines of +higher and higher power, "growing his wings" very gradually, until at +last he reached the spiral class, where he learned to make landings at +a given spot and without the use of his motor, from an altitude of +from eight hundred to one thousand metres, losing height in volplanes +and serpentines. The final tests for the military brevet were two +cross-country flights of from two hundred to three hundred kilometres, +with landings during each flight, at three points, two short voyages +of sixty kilometres each, and an hour flight at a minimum altitude of +two thousand metres. + +With all the activities of the school taking place at once, we were as +excited as two boys seeing their first three-ring circus. We scarcely +knew which way to turn in our anxiety to miss nothing. But my chief +concern, in anticipation, had been this: how were English-speaking +_eleves-pilotes_ to overcome the linguistic handicap? My uneasiness +was set at rest on this first morning, when I saw how neatly most of +the difficulties were overcome. Many of the Americans had no knowledge +of French other than that which they had acquired since entering the +French service, and this, as I have already hinted, had no great +utilitarian value. An interpreter had been provided for them through +the generosity and kindness of the Franco-American Committee in Paris; +but it was impossible for him to be everywhere at once, and much was +left to their own quickness of understanding and to the ingenuity of +the _moniteurs_. The latter, being French, were eloquent with their +gestures. With the additional aid of a few English phrases which they +had acquired from the Americans, and the simplest kind of French, they +had little difficulty in making their instructions clear. Both of us +felt much encouraged as we listened, for we could understand them very +well. + +As for the business of flying, as we watched it from below, it seemed +the safest and simplest thing in the world. The machines left the +ground so easily, and mounted and descended with such sureness of +movement, that I was impatient to begin my training. I believed that I +could fly at once, after a few minutes of preliminary instruction, +without first going through with all the tedious rolling along the +ground in low-powered machines. But before the morning's work was +finished, I revised my opinion. Accidents began to happen, the first +one when one of the "old family cuckoos," as the rolling machines were +disdainfully called, showed a sudden burst of old-time speed and left +the ground in an alarming manner. + +It was evident that the man who was driving it, taken completely by +surprise, had lost his head, and was working the controls erratically. +First he swooped upward, then dived, tipping dangerously on one wing. +In this sudden emergency he had quite forgotten his newly acquired +knowledge. I wondered what I would do in such a strait, when one must +think with the quickness and sureness of instinct. My heart was in my +mouth, for I felt certain that the man would be killed. As for the +others who were watching, no one appeared to be excited. A _moniteur_ +near me said, "Oh, la la! Il est perdu!" in a mild voice. The whole +affair happened so quickly that I was not able to think myself into a +similar situation before the end had come. At the last, the machine +made a quick swoop downward, from a height of about fifty metres, then +careened upward, tipped again, and diving sidewise, struck the ground +with a sickening rending crash, the motor going at full speed. For a +moment it stood, tail in air; then slowly the balance was lost, and it +fell, bottom up, and lay silent. + +An enterprising moving-picture company would have given a great deal +of money to film that accident. It would have provided a splendid +dramatic climax to a war drama of high adventure. Civilian audiences +would have watched in breathless, awe-struck silence; but at a +military school of aviation it was a different matter. "Oh, la la! Il +est perdu!" adequately gauges the degree of emotional interest taken +in the incident. At the time I was surprised at this apparent +callousness, but I understood it better when I had seen scores of such +accidents occur, and had watched the pilots, as in this case, crawl +out from the wreckage, and walk sheepishly, and a little shaken, back +to their classes. Although the machines were usually badly wrecked, +the pilots were rarely severely hurt. The landing chassis of a Bleriot +is so strong that it will break the force of a very heavy fall, and +the motor, being in front, strikes the ground first instead of +pinning the pilot beneath it. + +To anticipate a little, in more than four months of training at the +Bleriot school there was not a single fatality, although as many as +eleven machines were wrecked in the course of one working day, and +rarely less than two or three. There were so many accidents as to +convince me that Bleriot training for novices is a mistake from the +economic point of view. The up-keep expense is vastly greater than in +double-command biplane schools, where the student pilot not only +learns to fly in a much more stable machine, but makes all his early +flights in company with a _moniteur_ who has his own set of controls +and may immediately correct any mistakes in handling. But France is +not guided by questions of expense in her training of _pilotes de +chasse_, and opinion appears to be that single-command monoplane +training is to be preferred for the airman who is to be a combat +pilot. Certain it is that men have greater confidence in themselves +when they learn to fly alone from the beginning; and the Bleriot, +which requires the most delicate and sensitive handling, offers +excellent preliminary schooling for the Nieuport and Spad, the fast +and high-powered biplanes which are the _avions de chasse_ above the +French lines. + +A spice of interest was added to the morning's thrills when an +American, not to be outdone by his French compatriot, wrecked a +machine so completely that it seemed incredible that he could have +escaped without serious injury. But he did, and then we witnessed the +amusing spectacle of an American, who had no French at all, explaining +through the interpreter just how the accident had happened. I saw his +_moniteur_, who knew no English, grin in a relieved kind of way when +the American crawled out from under the wreckage. The reception +committee whispered to me, "This is Pourquoi, the best bawler-out +we've got. 'Pourquoi?' is always his first broadside. Then he wades in +and you can hear him from one end of the field to the other. +_Attendez!_ this is going to be rich!" + +Both of them started talking at once, the _moniteur_ in French and the +American in English. Then they turned to the interpreter, and any one +witnessing the conversation from a distance would have thought that he +was the culprit. The American had left the ground with the wind behind +him, a serious fault in an airman, and he knew it very well. + +"Look here, Pete," he said; "tell him I know it was my fault. Tell him +I took a Steve Brody. I wanted to see if the old cuckoo had any pep in +'er. When I--" + +"Pourquoi? Nom de Dieu! Qu'est-ce que je vous ai dit? Jamais faire +comme ca! Jamais monter avec le vent en arriere! Jamais! Jamais!" + +The others listened in hilarious silence while the interpreter turned +first to one and then to the other. "Tell him I took a Steve Brody." I +wondered if he translated that literally. Steve took a chance, but it +is hardly to be expected that a Frenchman would know of that daring +gentleman's history. In this connection, I remember a little talk on +caution which was given to us, later, by an English-speaking +_moniteur_. It was after rather a serious accident, for which the +spirit of Steve Brody was again responsible. + +"You Americans," he said, "when you go to the front you will get the +Boche; but let me tell you, they will kill many of you. Not one or +two; very many." + +Accidents delayed the work of flying scarcely at all. As soon as a +machine was wrecked, Annamites appeared on the spot to clear away the +debris and take it to the repair-shops, where the usable portions were +quickly sorted out. We followed one of these processions in, and spent +an hour watching the work of this other department of aviation upon +which our own was so entirely dependent. Here machines were being +built as well as repaired. The air vibrated with the hum of machinery, +with the clang of hammers upon anvils and the roar of motors in +process of being tested. + +There was a small army of women doing work of many kinds. They were +quite apt at it, particularly in the department where the fine strong +linen cloth which covers the wings was being sewn together and +stretched over the framework. There were great husky peasant-women +doing the hardest kind of manual labor. In these latter days of the +great world-war, women are doing everything, surely, with the one +exception of fighting. It is not a pleasant thing to see them, however +strong they may be, doing the rough, coarse work of men, bearing great +burdens on their backs as though they were oxen. There must be many +now whose muscles are as hard and whose hands as horny as those of a +stevedore. Several months after this time, when we were transferred to +another school of aviation, one of the largest in Europe, we saw women +employed on a much larger scale. They lived in barracks which were no +better than our own,--not so good, in fact,--and roughed it like +common soldiers. + +Toward evening the wind freshened and flying was brought to a halt. +Then the Penguins were brought from their hangars, and Drew and I, +properly dressed this time, and accompanied by some of the Americans, +went out to the field for our first sortie. As is usual on such +occasions, there was no dearth of advice. Every graduate of the +Penguin class had a method of his own for keeping that unmanageable +bird traveling in a direct line, and every one was only too willing to +give us the benefit of his experience. Finally, out of the welter of +suggestions, one or two points became clear: it was important that +one should give the machine full gas, and get the tail off the ground. +Then, by skillful handling of the rudder, it might be kept traveling +in the same general direction. But if, as usually happened, it showed +willful tendencies, and started to turn within its own length, it was +necessary to cut the contact, to prevent it from whirling so rapidly +as to overturn. + +Never have I seen a stranger sight than that of a swarm of Penguins at +work. They looked like a brood of prehistoric birds of enormous size, +with wings too short for flight. Most unwieldy birds they were, driven +by, or more accurately, driving beginners in the art of flying; but +they ran along the ground at an amazing speed, zigzagged this way and +that, and whirled about as if trying to catch their own tails. As we +stood watching them, an accident occurred which would have been +laughable had we not been too nervous to enjoy it. In a distant part +of the field two machines were rushing wildly about. There were acres +of room in which they might pass, but after a moment of uncertainty, +they rushed headlong for each other as though driven by the hand of +fate, and met head-on, with a great rending of propellers. The +onlookers along the side of the field howled and pounded each other in +an ecstasy of delight, but Drew and I walked apart for a hasty +consultation, for it was our turn next. We kept rehearsing the points +which we were to remember in driving a Penguin: full gas and tail up +at once. Through the interpreter, our _moniteur_ explained very +carefully what we were to do, and mounted the step, to show us, in +turn, the proper handling of the gas _manet_ and of the +_coupe-contact_ button. Then he stepped down and shouted, "Allez! en +route!" with a smile meant to be reassuring. + +I buckled myself in, fastened my helmet, and nodded to my mechanic. + +"Coupe, plein gaz," he said. + +"Coupe, plein gaz," I repeated. + +He gave the propeller a few spins to suck in the mixture. + +"Contact, reduisez." + +"Contact, reduisez." + +Again he spun the propeller, and the motor took. I pulled back my +_manet_, full gas, and off I went at what seemed to me then breakneck +speed. Remembering instructions, I pushed forward on the lever which +governs the elevating planes, and up went my tail so quickly and at +such an angle that almost instinctively I cut off my contact. Down +dropped my tail again, and I whirled round in a circle--my first +_cheval de bois_, as this absurd-looking manoeuvre is called. I had +forgotten that I had a rudder. I was like a man learning to swim, and +could not yet cooerdinate the movements of my hands and feet. My bird +was purring gently, with the propeller turning slowly. It seemed +thoroughly domesticated, but I knew that I had but to pull back on +that _manet_ to transform it into a rampant bird of prey. Before +starting again I looked about me, and there was Drew racing all over +the field. Suddenly he started in my direction as if the whole force +of his will was turned to the business of running me down. Luckily he +shut off his motor, and by the grace of the law of inertia came to a +halt when he was within a dozen paces of me. + +We turned our machines tail to tail and started off in opposite +directions, but in a moment I was following hard after him. Almost it +seemed that those evil birds had wills of their own. Drew's turned as +though it were angry at the indignity of being pursued. We missed each +other, but it was a near thing, and, not being able to think fast +enough, I stalled my motor, and had to await helplessly the assistance +of a mechanic. Far away, at our starting-point, I could see the +Americans waving their arms and embracing each other in huge delight, +and then I realized why they had all been so eager to come with us to +the field. They had been through all this. Now they were having their +innings. I could hear them shouting, although their voices sounded +very thin and faint. "Why don't you come back?" they yelled. "This +way! Here we are! Here's your class!" They were having the time of +their vindictive lives, and knew very well that we would go back if we +could. + +Finally we began to get the hang of it, and we did go back, although +by circuitous routes. But we got there, and the _moniteur_ explained +again what we were to do. We were to anticipate the turn of the +machine with the rudder, just as in sailing a boat. Then we +understood the difficulty. In my next sortie, I fixed my eye upon the +flag at the opposite side of the field, and reached it without a +single _cheval de bois_. I could have kissed the Annamite who was +stationed there to turn the machines which rarely came. I had mastered +the Penguin! I had forced my will upon it, compelled it to do my +bidding! Back across the field I went, keeping a direct course, and +thinking how they were all watching, the _moniteur_, doubtless, making +approving comments. I reduced the gas at the proper time, and taxied +triumphantly up to the starting-point. + +But no one had seen my splendid sortie. Now that I had arrived, no one +paid the least attention to me. All eyes were turned upward, and +following them with my own, I saw an airplane outlined against a +heaped-up pile of snow-white cloud. It was moving at tremendous speed, +when suddenly it darted straight upward, wavered for a second or two, +turned slowly on one wing and fell, nose-down, turning round and round +as it fell, like a scrap of paper. It was the _vrille_, the prettiest +piece of aerial acrobatics that one could wish to see. It was a +wonderful, an incredible sight. Only seven years ago Bleriot crossed +the English Channel, and a year earlier the world was astonished at +the exploits of the Wright brothers, who were making flights, +straight-line flights, of from fifteen to twenty minutes' duration! + +Some one was counting the turns of the _vrille_. Six, seven, eight; +then the airman came out of it on an even keel, and, nosing down to +gather speed, looped twice in quick succession. Afterward he did the +_retournement_, turning completely over in the air and going back in +the opposite direction; then spiraled down and passed over our heads +at about fifty metres, landing at the opposite side of the field so +beautifully that it was impossible to know when the machine touched +the ground. The airman taxied back to the hangars and stopped just in +front of us, while we gathered round to hear the latest news from the +front. + +For he had left the front, this birdman, only an hour before! I was +incredulous at first, for I still thought of distances in the old way. +But I was soon convinced. Mounted on the hood was the competent-looking +Vickers machine gun, with a long belt of cartridges in place, and on +the side of the _fuselage_ were painted the insignia of an escadrille. + +The pilot was recognized as soon as he removed his helmet and goggles. +He had been a _moniteur_ at the school in former days, and was well +known to some of the older Americans. He greeted us all very +cordially, in excellent English, and told us how, on the strength of a +hard morning's work over the lines, he had asked his captain for an +afternoon off that he might visit his old friends at B----. + +As soon as he had climbed down, those of us who had never before seen +this latest type of French _avion de chasse_, crowded round, examining +and admiring with feelings of awe and reverence. It was a marvelous +piece of aero-craftsmanship, the result of more than two years of +accumulating experience in military aviation. It was hard to think of +it as an inanimate thing, once having seen it in the air. It seemed +living, intelligent, almost human. I could readily understand how it +is that airmen become attached to their machines and speak of their +fine points, their little peculiarities of individuality, with a kind +of loving interest, as one might speak of a fine-spirited horse. + +While the mechanicians were grooming this one, and replenishing the +fuel-tanks, Drew and I examined it line by line, talking in low tones +which seemed fitting in so splendid a presence. We climbed the step +and looked down into the compact little car, where the pilot sat in a +luxuriously upholstered seat. There were his compass, his _altimetre_, +his revolution-counter, his map in its roller case, with a course +pricked out on it in a red line. Attached to the machine gun, there +was an ingenious contrivance by means of which he fired it while still +keeping a steady hand on his controls. The gun itself was fired +directly through the propeller by means of a device which timed the +shots. The necessity for accuracy in this timing device is clear, when +one remembers that the propeller turns over at a normal rate of +between fifteen hundred and nineteen hundred revolutions per minute. + +It was with a chastened spirit that I looked from this splendid +fighting 'plane, back to my little three-cylinder Penguin, with its +absurd clipped wings and its impudent tail. A moment ago it had seemed +a thing of speed, and the mastery of it a glorious achievement. I told +Drew what my feeling was as I came racing back to the starting-point, +and how brief my moment of triumph had been. He answered me at first +in grunts and nods, so that I knew he was not listening. Presently he +began to talk about romance again, the "romance of high adventure," as +he called it. "All this"--moving his arm in a wide gesture--was but an +evidence of man's unconquerable craving for romance. War itself was a +manifestation of it, gave it scope, relieved the pent-up longings for +it which could not find sufficient outlet in times of peace. Romance +would always be one of the minor, and sometimes one of the major +causes for war, indirectly of course, but none the less really; for +the craving for it was one reason why millions of men so readily +accepted war at the hands of the little groups of diplomats who ruled +their destinies. + +Half an hour later, as we stood watching the little biplane again +climbing into the evening sky, I understood, in a way, what he was +driving at, and with what keen anticipation he was looking forward to +the time when we too would know all that there was to know of the joy +of flight. Higher and higher it mounted, now and then catching the sun +on its silver wings in a flash of light, growing smaller and smaller, +until it vanished in a golden haze, far to the north. It was then four +o'clock. In an hour's time the pilot would be circling down over his +aerodrome on the Champagne front. + + + + + III + + BY THE ROUTE OF THE AIR + + +The winter of 1916-17 was the most prolonged and bitter that France +has known in many years. It was a trying period to the little group of +Americans assembled at the Ecole Militaire d'Aviation, eager as they +were to complete their training, and to be ready, when spring should +come, to share in the great offensive, which they knew would then take +place on the Western front. Aviation is a waiting game at the best of +seasons. In winter it is a series of seemingly endless delays. Day +after day, the plain on the high plateau overlooking the old city of +V---- was storm-swept, a forlorn and desolate place as we looked at it +from our windows, watching the flocks of crows as they beat up against +the wind, or as they turned, and were swept with it, over our +barracks, crying and calling derisively to us as they passed. + +"Birdmen do you call yourselves?" they seemed to say. "Then come on +up; the weather's fine!" + +Well they knew that we were impostors, fair-weather fliers, who dared +not accept their challenge. + +It is strange how vague and shadowy my remembrance is of those long +weeks of inactivity, when we were dependent for employment and +amusement on our own devices. To me there was a quality of unreality +about our life at B----. Our environment was, no doubt, partly +responsible for this feeling. Although we were not far distant from +Paris,--less than an hour by train,--the country round about our camp +seemed to be quite cut off from the rest of the world. With the +exception of our Sunday afternoons of leave, when we joined the +_boulevardiers_ in town, we lived a life as remote and cloistered as +that of some brotherhood of monks in an inaccessible monastery. That +is how it appeared to me, although here again I am in danger of making +it seem that my own impressions were those of all the others. This of +course was not true. The spirit of the place appealed to us, +individually, in widely different ways, and upon some, perhaps, it had +no effect at all. + +Sometimes we spent our winter afternoons of enforced leisure in long +walks through country roads which lay empty to the eye for miles. They +gave one a sense of loneliness which colored thought, not in any +sentimental way, but in a manner very natural and real. The war was +always in the background of one's musings, and while we were far +removed from actual contact with it, every depopulated country village +brought to mind the sacrifice which France has made for the cause of +all freedom-loving nations. Every roadside cafe, long barren of its +old patronage, was an evidence of the completeness of the sacrifice. +Americans, for the most part, are of an unconquerably healthy cast of +mind; but there were few of us who could frequent these places +light-heartedly. + +Paris was our emotional storehouse, to use Kipling's term, during the +time we were at B----. We spent our Sunday afternoons there, mingling +with the crowds on the boulevards, or, in pleasant weather, sitting +outside the cafes, watching the soldiers of the world go by. The +streets were filled with _permissionnaires_ from all parts of the +Western front, and there were many of those despised of all the rest, +the _embusques_, as they are called, who hold the comfortable billets +in safe places well back of the lines. It was very easy to distinguish +them from the men newly arrived from the trenches, in whose eyes one +saw the look of wonder, almost of unbelief, that there was still a +goodly world to be enjoyed. It was often beyond the pathetic to see +them trying to satisfy their need for all the wholesome things of life +in a brief seven days of leave; to see the family parties at the +modest restaurants on the side streets, making merry in a kind of +forced way, as if every one were thinking of the brevity of the time +for such enjoyment. + +Scarcely a week went by without bringing one or two additional +recruits to the Franco-American Corps. We wondered why they came so +slowly. There must have been thousands of Americans who would have +been, not only willing, but glad to join us; and yet the opportunities +for doing so had been made widely known. For those who did come this +was the legitimate by-product of glorious adventure and a training in +aviation not to be surpassed in Europe. This was to be had by any +healthy young American, almost for the asking; but our numbers +increased very gradually, from fifteen to twenty-five, until by the +spring of 1917 there were fifty of us at the various aviation schools +of France. Territorially we represented at least a dozen states, from +the Atlantic to the Pacific. There were rich men's sons and poor men's +sons among our number; the sons of very old families, and those who +neither knew nor cared what their antecedents were. + +The same was true of our French comrades, for membership in the French +air service is not based upon wealth or family position or political +influence. The policy of the Government is as broad and democratic as +may be. Men are chosen because of an aptitude that promises well, or +as a reward for distinguished service at the front. A few of the +French _eleves-pilotes_ had been officers, but most of them N.C.O.'s +and private soldiers in infantry or artillery regiments. This very +wide latitude in choice at first seemed "laxitude" to some of us +Americans. But evidently, experience in training war pilots, and the +practical results obtained by these men at the front, have been proof +enough to the French authorities of the folly of setting rigid +standards, making hard-and-fast rules to be met by prospective +aviators. As our own experience increased, we saw the wisdom of a +policy which is more concerned with a man's courage, his +self-reliance, and his powers of initiative, than with his ability to +work out theoretical problems in aerodynamics. + +There are many French pilots with excellent records of achievement in +war-flying who have but a sketchy knowledge of motor and aircraft +construction. Some are college-bred men, but many more have only a +common-school education. It is not at all strange that this should be +the case, for one may have had no technical training worth mentioning; +one may have only a casual speaking acquaintance with motors, and a +very imperfect idea of why and how one is able to defy the law of +gravity, and yet prove his worth as a pilot in what is, after all, the +best possible way--by his record at the front. + +A judicious amount of theoretical instruction is, of course, not +wanting in the aviation schools of France; but its importance is not +exaggerated. We Americans, with our imperfect knowledge of the +language, lost the greater part of this. The handicap was not a +serious one, and I think I may truthfully say that we kept pace with +our French comrades. The most important thing was to gain actual +flying experience, and as much of it as possible. Only in this way can +one acquire a sensitive ear for motors, and an accurate sense of +flying speed: the feel of one's machine in the air. These are of the +greatest importance. Once the pilot has developed this airman's sixth +sense, he need not, and never does, worry about the scantiness of his +knowledge of the theory of flight. + +Sometimes the winds would die away and the thick clouds lift, and we +would go joyously to work on a morning of crisp, bright winter +weather. Then we had moments of glorious revenge upon the crows. They +would watch us from afar, holding noisy indignation meetings in a row +of weather-beaten trees at the far side of the field. And when some +inexperienced pilot lost control of his machine and came crashing to +earth, they would take the air in a body, circling over the wreckage, +cawing and jeering with the most evident delight. "The Oriental +Wrecking Company," as the Annamites were called, were on the scene +almost as quickly as our enemies the crows. They were a familiar sight +on every working day, chattering together in their high-pitched +gutturals, as they hauled away the wrecked machines. They appeared to +side with the birds, and must have thought us the most absurd of men, +making wings for ourselves, and always coming to grief when we tried +to use them. + +We made progress regardless of all this skepticism. It was necessarily +slow, for beginners at a single-command monoplane school are permitted +to fly only under the most favorable weather conditions. Even then, +old Mother Earth, who is not kindly disposed toward those of her +children who leave her so jauntily, would clutch us back to her bosom, +whenever we gave her the slightest opportunity, with an embrace that +was anything but tender. We were inclined to think rather highly of +our own courage in defying her; and sometimes our vanity was increased +by our _moniteurs_. After an exciting misadventure they often gave +expression to their relief at finding an amateur pilot still whole, +by praising his "presence of mind" in too generous French fashion. + +We should not have been so proud, I think, of our own little exploits, +had we remembered those of the pioneers in aviation, so many of whom +lost their lives in experiment with the first crude types of the +heavier-than-air machines. They were pioneers in the fine and splendid +meaning of the word--men to be compared in spirit with the old +fifteenth-century navigators. We were but followers, adventuring, in +comparative safety, along a well-defined trail. + +This, at any rate, was Drew's opinion. He would never allow me the +pleasure of indulging in any flights of fancy over these trivial +adventures of ours. He would never let me set them off against "the +heroic background" of Paris. As for Paris, we saw nothing of war +there, he would say, except the lighter side, the homecoming, +leave-enjoying side. We needed to know more of the horror and the +tragedy of it. We needed to keep that close and intimate to us as a +right perspective for our future adventures. He believed it to be our +duty as aviators to anticipate every kind of experience which we might +have to meet at the front. His imagination was abnormally vivid. Once +he discussed the possibility of "falling in flames," which is so often +the end of an airman's career. I shall never again be able to take the +same whole-hearted delight in flying that I did before he was so +horribly eloquent upon the subject. He often speculated upon one's +emotions in falling in a machine damaged beyond the possibility of +control. + +"Now try to imagine it," he would say: "your gasoline tanks have been +punctured and half of your _fuselage_ has been shot away. You believe +that there is not the slightest chance for you to save your life. What +are you going to do--lose your head and give up the game? No, you've +got to attempt the impossible"; and so on, and so forth. + +I would accuse him of being morbid. Furthermore, I saw no reason why +we should plan for terrible emergencies which might never arrive. His +answer was that we were military pilots in training for combat +machines. We had no right to ignore the grimness of the business +ahead of us. If we did, so much the worse for us when we should go to +the front. But beyond this practical interest, he had a great +curiosity about the nature of fear, and a great dread of it, too. He +was afraid that in some last adventure, in which death came slowly +enough for him to recognize it, he might die like a terror-stricken +animal, and not bravely, as a man should. + +We did not often discuss these gruesome possibilities, although this +was not Drew's fault. I would not listen to him; and so he would be +silent about them until convinced that the furtherance of our careers +as airmen demanded additional unpleasant imaginings. There was +something of the Hindoo fanatic in him; or perhaps it was the +outcropping of the stern spirit of his New England forbears. But when +he talked of the pleasant side of the adventures before us, it was +more than compensation for all the rest. Then he would make me +restless and impatient, for I did not have his faculty of enjoyment in +anticipation. The early period of training, when we were flying only a +few metres above the ground, seemed endless. + +At last came the event which really marked the beginning of our +careers as airmen: the first _tour de piste_, the first flight round +the aerodrome. We had talked of this for weeks, but when at last the +day for it came, our enthusiasm had waned. We were eager to try our +wings and yet afraid to make the start. + +This first _tour de piste_ was always the occasion for a gathering of +the Americans, and there was the usual assembly present. The beginners +were there to shiver in anticipation of their own forthcoming trials, +and the more advanced pilots, who had already taken the leap, to offer +gratuitous advice. + +"Now don't try to pull any big league stuff. Not too much rudder on +the turns. Remember how that Frenchman piled up on the Farman hangars +when he tried to bank the corners." + +"You'll find it pretty rotten when you go over the woods. The air +currents there are something scandalous!" + +"Believe me, it's a lot worse over the fort. Rough? Oh, la la!" + +"And that's where you have to cut your motor and dive, if you're going +to make a landing without hanging up in the telephone wires." + +"When you do come down, don't be afraid to stick her nose forward. +Scare the life out of you, that drop will, but you may as well get +used to it in the beginning." + +"But wait till we see them redress! Where's the Oriental Wrecking +Gang?" + +"Don't let that worry you, Drew: pan-caking isn't too bad. Not in a +Bleriot. Just like falling through a shingle roof. Can't hurt yourself +much." + +"If you do spill, make it a good one. There hasn't been a decent +smash-up to-day." + +These were the usual comforting assurances. They did not frighten us +much, although there was just enough truth in the warnings to make us +uneasy. We took our hazing as well as we could inwardly, and of course +with imperturbable calm outwardly; but, to make a confession, I was +somewhat reluctant to hear the businesslike "Allez! en route!" of our +_moniteur_. + +When it came, I taxied across to the other side of the field, turned +into the wind, and came racing back, full motor. It seemed a thing of +tremendous power, that little forty-five-horsepower Anzani. The roar +of it struck awe into my soul, and I gripped the controls in no very +professional manner. Then, when I had gathered full ground speed, I +eased her off gently, and up we went, over the class and the assembled +visitors, above the hangars, the lake, the forest, until, at the +halfway point, my altimetre registered three hundred and fifty metres. +Out of the corner of my eye I saw all the beautiful countryside spread +out beneath me, but I was too busily occupied to take in the prospect. +I was watching my wings, nervously, in order to anticipate and +counteract the slightest pitch of the machine. But nothing happened, +and I soon realized that this first grand tour was not going to be +nearly so bad as we had been led to believe. I began to enjoy it. I +even looked down over the side of the _fuselage_, although it was a +very hasty glance. + +All the time I was thinking of the rapidly approaching moment when I +should have to come down. I knew well enough how the descent was to be +made. It was very simple. I had only to shut off my motor, push +forward with my "broom-stick,"--the control connected with the +elevating planes,--and then wait and redress gradually, beginning at +from six to eight metres from the ground. The descent would be +exciting, a little more rapid than Shooting the Chutes. Only one could +not safely hold on to the sides of the car and await the splash. That +sort of thing had sometimes been done in aeroplanes, by over-excited +pilots. The results were disastrous, without exception. + +The moment for the decision came. I was above the fort, otherwise I +should not have known when to dive. At first the sensation was, I +imagine, exactly that of falling, feet foremost; but after pulling +back slightly on the controls, I felt the machine answer to them, and +the uncomfortable feeling passed. I brought up on the ground in the +usual bumpy manner of the beginner. Nothing gave way, however, so this +did not spoil the fine rapture of a rare moment. It was shared--at +least it was pleasant to think so--by my old Annamite friend of the +Penguin experience, who stood by his flag nodding his head at me. He +said, "Beaucoup bon," showing his polished black teeth in an +approving grin. I forgot for the moment that "beaucoup bon" was his +enigmatical comment upon all occasions, and that he would have grinned +just as broadly had he been dragging me out from a mass of wreckage. + +Drew came in a few moments later, making an almost perfect landing. In +the evening we walked to a neighboring village, where we had a +wonderful dinner to celebrate the end of our apprenticeship. It was a +curious feast. We had little to say to one another, or, better, we +were both afraid to talk. We were under an enchantment which words +would have broken. After a silent meal, we walked all the way home +without speaking. + +We started off together on our triangles. That was in April, just +passed, so that I have now brought this casual diary almost up to +date. We were then at the great school of aviation at A---- in central +France, where, for the first time, we were associated with men in +training for every branch of aviation service, and became familiar +with other types of French machines. But the brevet tests, which every +pilot must pass before he becomes a military aviator, were the same +in every department of the school. The triangles were two +cross-country flights of two hundred kilometres each, three landings +to be made _en route_, and each flight to be completed within +forty-eight hours. In addition, there were two short voyages of sixty +kilometres each--these preceded the triangular tests--and an hour of +flight at a minimum altitude of sixty-five hundred feet. + +The short voyages gave us a delightful foretaste of what was to come. +We did them both one afternoon, and were at the hangars at five +o'clock on the following morning, ready to make an early start. A +fresh wind was blowing from the northeast, but the brevet _moniteur_, +who went up for a short flight to try the air, came back with the +information that it was quite calm at twenty-five hundred feet. We +might start, he said, as soon as we liked. + +Drew, in his joy, embraced the old woman who kept a coffee-stall at +the hangars, while I danced a one-step with a mechanician. Neither of +them was surprised at this procedure. They were accustomed to such +emotional outbursts on the part of aviators who, by the very nature +of their calling, were always in the depths of despair or on the +farthest jutting peak of some mountain of delight. Our departure had +been delayed, day after day, for more than a week, because of the +weather. We were so eager to start that we would willingly have gone +off in a blizzard. + +During the week of waiting we had studied our map until we knew the +location of every important road and railroad, every forest, river, +canal, and creek within a radius of one hundred kilometres. We studied +it at close range, on a table, and then on the floor, with the +compass-points properly orientated, so that we might see all the +important landmarks with the birdman's eye. We knew our course so +well, that there seemed no possibility of our losing direction. + +Our military papers had been given us several days before. Among these +was an official-looking document to be presented to the mayor of any +town or village near which we might be compelled to land. It contained +an extract from the law concerning aviators, and the duty toward them +of the civilian and military authorities. In another was an itemized +list of the amounts which might be exacted by farmers for damage to +growing crops: so much for an _atterrissage_ in a field of +sugar-beets, so much for wheat, etc. Besides these, we had a book of +detailed instructions as to our duty in case of emergencies of every +conceivable kind--among others, the course of action to be followed if +we should be compelled to land in an enemy country. At first sight +this seemed an unnecessary precaution; but we remembered the +experience of one of our French comrades at B----, who started +confidently off on his first cross-country flight. He lost his way and +did not realize how far astray he had gone until he found himself +under fire from German anti-aircraft batteries on the Belgian front. + +The most interesting paper of all was our _Ordre de Service_, the text +of which was as follows: + + It is commanded that the bearer of this Order report himself + at the cities of C---- and R----, by the route of the air, + flying an avion Caudron, and leaving the Ecole Militaire + d'Aviation at A---- on the 21st of April, 1917, without + passenger on board. + + Signed, LE CAPITAINE B---- + Commandant de l'Ecole. + +We read this with feelings which must have been nearly akin to those +of Columbus on a memorable day in 1492 when he received his clearance +papers from Cadiz. "By the route of the air!" How the imagination +lingered over that phrase! We had the better of Columbus there, +although we had to admit that there was more glamour in the hazard of +his adventure and the uncertainty of his destination. + +Drew was ready first. I helped him into his fur-lined combination and +strapped him to his seat. A moment later he was off. I watched him as +he gathered height over the aerodrome. Then, finding that his motor +was running satisfactorily, he struck out in an easterly direction, +his machine growing smaller and smaller until it vanished in the early +morning haze. I followed immediately afterward, and had a busy ten +minutes, being buffeted this way and that, until, as the brevet +_moniteur_ had foretold, I reached quiet air at twenty-five hundred +feet. + +This was my first experience in passing from one air current to +another. It was a unique one, for I was still a little incredulous. I +had not entirely lost my old boyhood belief that the wind went all +the way up. + +I passed over the old cathedral town of B----at fifteen hundred +metres. Many a pleasant afternoon had we spent there, walking through +its narrow, crooked streets, or lounging on the banks of the canal. +The cathedral too was a favorite haunt. I loved the fine spaciousness +of it. Looking down on it now, it seemed no larger than a toy +cathedral in a toy town, such as one sees in the shops of Paris. The +streets were empty, for it was not yet seven o'clock. Strips of shadow +crossed them where taller roofs cut off the sunshine. A toy train, +which I could have put nicely into my fountain-pen case, was pulling +into a station no larger than a wren's house. The Greeks called their +gods "derisive." No doubt they realized how small they looked to them, +and how insignificant this little world of affairs must have appeared +from high Olympus. + +There was a road, a fine straight thoroughfare converging from the +left. It led almost due southwest. This was my route to C----. I +followed it, climbing steadily until I was at two thousand metres. I +had never flown so high before. "Over a mile!" I thought. It seemed a +tremendous altitude. I could see scores of villages and fine old +chateaux, and great stretches of forest, and miles upon miles of open +country in checkered patterns, just beginning to show the first fresh +green of the early spring crops. It looked like a world planned and +laid out by the best of Santa Clauses for the eternal delight of all +good children. And for untold generations only the birds have had the +privilege of seeing and enjoying it from the wing. Small wonder that +they sing. As for non-musical birds--well, they all sing after a +fashion, and there is no doubt that crows, at least, are extremely +jealous of their prerogative of flight. + +My biplane was flying itself. I had nothing to do other than to give +occasional attention to the revolution counter, altimetre, and +speed-dial. The motor was running with perfect regularity. The +propeller was turning over at twelve hundred revolutions per minute +without the slightest fluctuation. Flying is the simplest thing in the +world, I thought. Why doesn't every one travel by route of the air? +If people knew the joy of it, the exhilaration of it, aviation schools +would be overwhelmed with applicants. Biplanes of the Farman and +Voisin type would make excellent family cars, quite safe for women to +drive. Mothers, busy with household affairs, could tell their children +to "run out and fly" a Caudron such as I was driving, and feel not the +slightest anxiety about them. I remembered an imaginative drawing I +had once seen of aerial activity in 1950. Even house pets were granted +the privilege of traveling by the air route. The artist was not far +wrong except in his date. He should have put it at 1925. On a fine +April morning there seemed no limit to the realization of such +interesting possibilities. + +I had no more than started on my southwest course, as it seemed to me, +when I saw the spires and the red-roofed houses of C----, and, a +kilometre or so from the outskirts, the barracks and hangars of the +aviation school where I was to make the first landing. I reduced the +gas, and, with the motor purring gently, began a long, gradual +descent. It was interesting to watch the change in the appearance of +the country beneath me as I lost height. Checkerboard patterns of +brown and green grew larger and larger. Shining threads of silver +became rivers and canals, tiny green shrubs became trees, individual +aspects of houses emerged. Soon I could see people going about the +streets and laundry-maids hanging out the family washing in the back +gardens. I even came low enough to witness a minor household +tragedy--a mother vigorously spanking a small boy. Hearing the whir of +my motor, she stopped in the midst of the process, whereupon the +youngster very naturally took advantage of his opportunity to cut and +run for it. Drew doubted my veracity when I told him about this. He +called me an aerial eavesdropper and said that I ought to be ashamed +to go buzzing over towns at such low altitudes, frightening +housemaids, disorganizing domestic penal institutions, and generally +disturbing the privacy of respectable French citizens. But I was +unrepentant, for I knew that one small boy in France was thinking of +me with joy. To have escaped maternal justice with the assistance of +an aviator would be an event of glorious memory to him. How vastly +more worth while such a method of escape, and how jubilant Tom Sawyer +would have been over such an opportunity when his horrified warning, +"Look behind you, aunt!" had lost efficacy. + +Drew had been waiting a quarter of an hour, and came rushing out to +meet me as I taxied across the field. We shook hands as though we had +not seen each other for years. We could not have been more surprised +and delighted if we had met on another planet after long and hopeless +wanderings in space. + +While I superintended the replenishing of my fuel and oil tanks he +walked excitedly up and down in front of the hangars. He was an +odd-looking sight in his flying clothes, with a pair of Meyrowitz +goggles set back on his head, like another set of eyes, gazing at the +sky with an air of wide astonishment. He paid no attention to my +critical comments, but started thinking aloud as soon as I rejoined +him. + +"It was lonely! Yes, by Jove! that was it. A glorious thing, one's +isolation up there; but it was too profound to be pleasant. A relief +to get down again, to hear people talk, to feel the solid earth under +one's feet. How did it impress you?" + +This was like Drew. I felt ashamed of the lightness of my own +thoughts, but I had to tell him of my speculations upon after-the-war +developments in aviation: nurses flying Voisins, with the cars filled +with babies; old men having after-dinner naps in twenty-three-metre +Nieuports, fitted, for safety, with Sperry gyroscopes; family parties +taking comfortable outings in gigantic biplanes of the R-6 type; +mothers, as of old, gazing apprehensively at speed-dials, cautioning +fathers about "driving too fast," and all of the rest. + +Drew looked at me reprovingly, to be sure, but he felt the need, just +as I did, of an outlet to his feelings, and so he turned to this kind +of comic relief with the most delightful reluctance. He quickly lost +his reserve, and in the imaginative spree which followed we went far +beyond the last outposts of absurdity. We laughed over our own wit +until our faces were tired. However, I will not be explicit about our +folly. It might not be so amusing from a critical point of view. + +After our papers have been viseed at the office of the commandant, we +hurried back to our machines, eager to be away again. We were to make +our second landing at R----. It was about seventy kilometres distant +and almost due north. The mere name of the town was an invitation. +Somewhere, in one of the novels of William J. Locke, may be found this +bit of dialogue:-- + +"But, master," said I, "there is, after all, color in words. Don't you +remember how delighted you were with the name of a little town we +passed through on the way to Orleans? R----? You were haunted by it +and said it was like the purple note of an organ." + +We were haunted by it, too, for we were going to that very town. We +would see it long before our arrival--a cluster of quaint old houses +lying in the midst of pleasant fields, with roads curving toward it +from the north and south, as though they were glad to pass through so +delightful a place. Drew was for taking a leisurely route to the +eastward, so that we might look at some villages which lay some +distance off our course. I wanted to fly by compass in a direct line, +without following my map very closely. We had planned to fly together, +and were the more eager to do this because of an argument we had had +about the relative speed of our machines. He was certain that his was +the faster. I knew that, with mine, I could fly circles around him. As +we were not able to agree on the course, we decided to postpone the +race until we started on the homeward journey. Therefore, after we had +passed over the town, he waved his hand, bent off to the northeast, +and was soon out of sight. + +I kept straight on, climbing steadily, until I was again at five +thousand feet. As before, my motor was running perfectly and I had +plenty of leisure to enjoy the always new sensation of flight and to +watch the wide expanse of magnificent country as it moved slowly past. +I let my mind lie fallow, and every now and then I would find it +hauling out fragments of old memories which I had forgotten that I +possessed. + +I recalled, for the first time in many years, my earliest +interpretations of the meanings of all the phenomena of the heavens. +Two old janitor saints had charge of the floor of the skies. One of +them was a jolly old man who liked boys, and always kept the sky swept +clean and blue. The other took a sour delight in shirking his duties, +so that it might rain and spoil all our fun. Perhaps it was Drew's +sense of loneliness and helplessness so far from earth, which made me +think of winds and clouds in friendly human terms. However that may +be, these reveries, hardly worthy of a military airman, were abruptly +broken into. + +All at once, I realized that, while my biplane was headed due north, I +was drifting north and west. This seemed strange. I puzzled over it +for some time, and then, brilliantly, in the manner of the novice, +deduced the reason: wind. I was being blown off my course, all the +while comfortably certain that I was flying in a direct line toward +R----. Our _moniteurs_ had often cautioned us against being +comfortably certain about anything while in the air. It was our duty +to be uncomfortably alert. Wind! I wonder how many times we had been +told to keep it in mind at all times, whether on the ground or in the +air? And here was I forgetting the existence of wind on the very +first occasion. The speed of my machine and the current of air from +the propeller had deceived me into thinking that I was driving dead +into whatever breeze there was at that altitude. I discovered that it +was blowing out of the east, therefore I headed a quarter into it, to +overcome the drift, and looked for landmarks. + +I had not long to search. Wisps of mist obstructed the view, and +within ten minutes a bank of solid cloud cut it off completely. I had +only a vague notion of my location with reference to my course, but I +could not persuade myself to come down just then. To be flying in the +full splendor of bright April sunshine, knowing that all the earth was +in shadow, gave me a feeling of exhilaration. For there is no +sensation like that of flight, no isolation so complete as that of the +airman who has above him only the blue sky, and below, a level floor +of pure white cloud, stretching in an unbroken expanse toward every +horizon. And so I kept my machine headed northeast, that I might +regain the ground lost before I discovered the drift northwest. I had +made a rough calculation of the time required to cover the seventy +kilometres to R---- at the speed at which I was traveling. The rest I +left to Chance, the godfather of all adventurers. + +He took the initiative, as he so frequently does with aviators who, in +moments of calm weather, are inclined to forget that they are still +children of earth. The floor of dazzling white cloud was broken and +tumbled into heaped-up masses which came drifting by at various +altitudes. They were scattered at first and offered splendid +opportunities for aerial steeplechasing. Then, almost before I was +aware of it, they surrounded me on all sides. For a few minutes I +avoided them by flying in curves and circles in rapidly vanishing +pools of blue sky. I feared to take my first plunge into a cloud, for +I knew, by report, what an alarming experience it is to the new pilot. + +The wind was no longer blowing steadily out of the east. It came in +gusts from all points of the compass. I made a hasty revision of my +opinion as to the calm and tranquil joys of aviation, thinking what +fools men are who willingly leave the good green earth and trust +themselves to all the winds of heaven in a frail box of cloth-covered +sticks. + +The last clear space grew smaller and smaller. I searched for an +outlet, but the clouds closed in and in a moment I was hopelessly lost +in a blanket of cold drenching mist. + +I could hardly see the outlines of my machine and had no idea of my +position with reference to the earth. In the excitement of this new +adventure I forgot the speed-dial, and it was not until I heard the +air screaming through the wires that I remembered it. The indicator +had leaped up fifty kilometres an hour above safety speed, and I +realized that I must be traveling earthward at a terrific pace. The +manner of the descent became clear at the same moment. As I rolled out +of the cloud-bank, I saw the earth jauntily tilted up on one rim, +looking like a gigantic enlargement of a page out of Peter Newell's +"Slant Book." I expected to see dogs and dishpans, baby carriages and +ash-barrels roll out of every house in France, and go clattering off +into space. + + + + + IV + + AT G. D. E. + + +Somewhere to the north of Paris, in the _zone des armees_, there is a +village, known to all aviators in the French service as G. D. E. It is +the village through which pilots who have completed their training at +the aviation schools pass on their way to the front; and it is here +that I again take up this journal of aerial adventure. + +We are in lodgings, Drew and I, at the Hotel de la Bonne Rencontre, +which belies its name in the most villainous fashion. An inn at +Rochester in the days of Henry the Fourth must have been a fair match +for it, and yet there is something to commend it other than its +convenience to the flying field. Since the early days of the +Escadrille Lafayette, many Americans have lodged here while awaiting +their orders for active service. As I write, J. B. is asleep in a bed +which has done service for a long line of them. It is for this reason +that he chose it, in preference to one in a much better state of +repair which he might have had. And he has made plans for its purchase +after the war. Madame Rodel is to keep careful record of all its +American occupants, just as she has done in the past. She is pledged +not to repair it beyond the bare necessity which its uses as a bed may +require, an injunction which it was hardly necessary to lay upon her, +judging by the other furniture in our apartment. Drew is not +sentimental, but he sometimes carries sentiment to extremities which +appear to me absurd. + +When I attempt to define, even to myself, the charm of our adventures +thus far, I find it impossible. How, then, make it real to others? To +tell of aerial adventure one needs a new language, or, at least, a +parcel of new adjectives, sparkling with bright and vivid meaning, as +crisp and fresh as just-minted bank-notes. They should have no taint +of flatness or insipidity. They should show not the faintest trace of +wear. With them, one might hope, now and then, to startle the +imagination, to set it running in channels which are strange and +delightful to it. For there is something new under the sun: aerial +adventure; and the most lively and unjaded fancy may, at first, need +direction toward the realization of this fact. Soon it will have a +literature of its own, of prose and poetry, of fiction, biography, +memoirs, of history which will read like the romance it really is. The +essayists will turn to it with joy. And the poets will discover new +aspects of beauty which have been hidden from them through the ages; +and as men's experience "in the wide fields of air" increases, epic +material which will tax their most splendid powers. + +This brings me sadly back to my own purpose, which is, despite many +wistful longings of a more ambitious nature, to write a plain tale of +the adventures of two members--prospective up to this point--of the +Escadrille Lafayette. To go back to some of those earlier ones, when +we were making our first cross-country flights, I remember them now +with a delight which, at the time, was not unmixed with other +emotions. Indeed, an aviator, and a fledgling aviator in particular, +often runs the whole gamut of human feeling during a single flight. I +did in the course of half an hour, reaching the high C of acute panic +as I came tumbling out of the first cloud of my aerial experience. +Fortunately, in the air the sense of equilibrium usually compels one +to do the right thing, and so, after some desperate handling of my +"broom-stick," as the control is called which governs ailerons and +elevating planes, I soon had the horizons nicely adjusted again. What +a relief it was! I shut down my motor and commenced a more gradual +descent, for I was lost, of course, and it seemed wiser to land and +make inquiries than to go cruising over half of France looking for one +among hundreds of picturesque old towns. There were at least a dozen +within view. Some of them were at least a three hours' walk distant +from each other. But in the air! I was free to go whither I would, and +swiftly. + +After leisurely deliberation I selected one surrounded by wide fields +which appeared to be as level as a floor. But as I descended the +landscape widened, billowing into hills and folding into valleys. By +sheer good luck, nothing more, I made a landing without accident. My +Caudron barely missed colliding with a hedge of fruit trees, rolled +down a long incline, and stopped not ten feet short of a small +stream. The experience taught me the folly of choosing landing-ground +from high altitudes. I needn't have landed, of course, but I was then +so much an amateur that the buffeting of cross-currents of air near +the ground awed me into it, come what might. The village was out of +sight over the crest of the hill. However, thinking that some one must +have seen me, I decided to await developments where I was. + +Very soon I heard a shrill, jubilant shout. A boy of eight or ten +years was running along the ridge as fast as he could go. Outlined +against the sky, he reminded me of silhouettes I had seen in Paris +shops, of children dancing, the very embodiment of joy in movement. He +turned and waved to some one behind, whom I could not see, then came +on again, stopping a short distance away, and looking at me with an +air of awe, which, having been a small boy myself, I was able to +understand and appreciate. I said, "Bonjour, mon petit," as cordially +as I could, but he just stood there and gazed without saying a word. +Then the others began to appear: scores of children, and old men as +well, and women of all ages, some with babies in their arms, and +young girls. The whole village came, I am sure. I was mightily +impressed by the haleness of the old men and women, which one rarely +sees in America. Some of them were evidently well over seventy, and +yet, with one or two exceptions, they had sound limbs, clear eyes, and +healthy complexions. As for the young girls, many of them were +exceptionally pretty; and the children were sturdy youngsters, not the +wan, thin-legged little creatures one sees in Paris. In fact, all of +these people appeared to belong to a different race from that of the +Parisians, to come from finer, more vigorous stock. + +They were very curious, but equally courteous, and stood in a large +circle around my machine, waiting for me to make my wishes known. For +several minutes I pretended to be busy attending to dials and valves +inside the car. While trying to screw my courage up to the point of +making a verbless explanation of my difficulty, some one pushed +through the crowd, and to my great relief began speaking to me. It was +Monsieur the Mayor. As best I could, I explained that I had lost my +way and had found it necessary to come down for the purpose of making +inquiries. I knew that it was awful French, but hoped that it would be +intelligible, in part at least. However, the Mayor understood not a +word, and I knew by the curious expression in his eyes that he must be +wondering from what weird province I hailed. After a moment's thought +he said, "Vous etes Anglais, monsieur?" with a smile of very real +pleasure. I said, "Non, monsieur, Americain." + +That magic word! What potency it has in France, the more so at that +time, perhaps, for America had placed herself definitely upon the side +of the Allies only a short time before. I enjoyed that moment. I might +have had the village for the asking. I willingly accepted the role of +ambassador of the American people. Had it not been for the language +barrier, I think I would have made a speech, for I felt the generous +spirit of Uncle Sam prompting me to give those fathers and mothers, +whose husbands and sons were at the front, the promise of our +unqualified support. I wanted to tell them that we were with them now, +not only in sympathy, but with all our resources in men and guns and +ships and aircraft. I wanted to convince them of our new understanding +of the significance of the war. Alas! this was impossible. Instead I +gave each one of an army of small boys the privilege of sitting in the +pilot's seat, and showed them how to manage the controls. + +The astonishing thing to me was, that while this village was not +twenty kilometres off the much-frequented air route between C---- and +R----, mine was the first aeroplane which most of them had seen. +During long months at various aviation schools pilots grow accustomed +to thinking that aircraft are as familiar a sight to others as to +them. But here was a village, not far distant from several aviation +schools, where an aviator was looked upon with wonder. To have an +American aviator drop down upon them was an event even in the history +of that ancient village. To have been that aviator,--well, it was an +unforgettable experience, coming as it did so opportunely with +America's entry into the war. I shall always have it in the background +of memory, and one day it will be among the pleasantest of many +pleasant tales which I shall have in store for my grandchildren. + +However, it is not their potentialities as memories which endear these +adventures now, but rather it is because they are in such contrast to +any that we had known before. We are always comparing this new life +with the old, so different in every respect as to seem a separate +existence, almost a previous incarnation. + +Having been set right about my course, I pushed my biplane to more +level ground, with the willing help of all the boys, started my motor, +and was away again. Their shrill cheers reached me even above the roar +of the motor. As a lad in a small, Middle-Western town, I have known +the rapture of holding to a balloon guy-rope at a county fair, until +"the world's most famous aeronaut" shouted, "Let 'er go, boys!" and +swung off into space. I kept his memory green until I had passed the +first age of hero worship. I know that every youngster in a small +village in central France will so keep mine. Such fame is the only +kind worth having. + +A flight of fifteen minutes brought me within sight of the large white +circle which marks the landing-field at R----. J. B. had not yet +arrived. This was a great disappointment, for we had planned a race +home. I was anxious about him, too, knowing that the godfather of all +adventurers can be very stern at times, particularly with his aerial +godchildren. I waited for an hour and then decided to go on alone. The +weather having cleared, the opportunity was too favorable to be lost. +The cloud formations were the most remarkable that I had ever seen. I +flew around and over and under them, watching at close hand the play +of light and shade over their great, billowing folds. Sometimes I +skirted them so closely that the current of air from my propeller +raveled out fragments of shining vapor, which streamed into the clear +spaces like wisps of filmy silk. I knew that I ought to be savoring +this experience, but for some reason I couldn't. One usually pays for +a fine mood by a sudden and unaccountable change of feeling which +shades off into a kind of dull, colorless depression. + +I passed a twin-motor Caudron going in the opposite direction. It was +fantastically painted, the wings a bright yellow and the circular +hoods, over the two motors, a fiery red. As it approached, it looked +like some prehistoric bird with great ravenous eyes. The thing +startled me, not so much because of its weird appearance as by the +mere fact of its being there. Strangely enough, for a moment it seemed +impossible that I should meet another _avion_. Despite a long +apprenticeship in aviation, in these days when one's mind has only +begun to grasp the fact that the mastery of the air has been +accomplished, the sudden presentation of a bit of evidence sometimes +shocks it into a moment of amazement bordering upon incredulity. + +As I watched the big biplane pass, I was conscious of a feeling of +loneliness. I remembered what J. B. had said that morning. There _was_ +something unpleasant in the isolation; it made us look longingly down +to earth, wondering whether we shall ever feel really at home in the +air. I, too, longed for the sound of human voices, and all that I +heard was the roar of the motor and the swish of the wind through +wires and struts, sounds which have no human quality in them, and are +no more companionable than the lapping of the waves to a man adrift on +a raft in mid-ocean. Underlying this feeling, and no doubt in part +responsible for it, was the knowledge of the fallibility of that +seemingly perfect mechanism which rode so steadily through the air; of +the quick response that ingenious arrangement of inanimate matter +would make to an eternal and inexorable law if a few frail wires +should part; of the equally quick, but less phlegmatic response of +another fallible mechanism, capable of registering horror, capable--it +is said--of passing its past life in review in the space of a few +seconds, and then--capable of becoming equally inanimate matter. + +Luckily nothing of this sort happened, and the feeling of loneliness +passed the moment I came in sight of the long rows of barracks, the +hangars and machine shops of the aviation school. My joy when I saw +them can only be appreciated in full by fellow aviators who remember +the end of their own first long flight. I had been away for years. I +would not have been surprised to find great changes. If the brevet +monitor had come hobbling out to meet me holding an ear trumpet in his +withered hand, the sight would have been quite in keeping with my own +sense of the lapse of time. However, he approached with his ancient +springy, businesslike step, as I climbed down from my machine. I +swallowed to clear the passage to my ears, and heard him say, "Alors +ca va?" in a most disappointingly perfunctory tone of voice. + +I nodded. + +"Where's your biograph?" + +My biograph! It is the altitude-registering instrument which also +marks, on a cross-lined chart, the time consumed on each lap of an +aerial voyage. My card should have shown four neat outlines in ink, +something like this-- + +[Illustration] + +one for each stage of my journey, including the forced landing when I +had lost my way. But having started the mechanism going upon leaving +A----, I had then forgotten all about it, so that it had gone on +running while my machine was on the ground as well as during the time +it was in the air. The result was a sketch of a magnificent mountain +range which might have been drawn by the futurist son, aged five, of a +futurist artist. Silently I handed over the instrument. The monitor +looked at it, and then at me without comment. But there is an +international language of facial expression, and his said, +unmistakably, "You poor, simple prune! You choice sample of mouldy +American cheese!" + +J. B. didn't return until the following afternoon. After leaving me +over C----, he had blown out two spark-plugs. For a while he limped +along on six cylinders, and then landed in a field three kilometres +from the nearest town. His French, which is worse, if that is +possible, than mine, aroused the suspicions of a patriot farmer, who +collared him as a possible German spy. Under a bodyguard of two +peasants, armed with hoes, he was marched to a neighboring chateau. +And then, I should have thought, he would have had another historical +illusion,--this time with a French Revolutionary setting. He says not, +however. All his faculties were concentrated in enjoying this unusual +adventure; and he was wondering what the outcome of it would be. At +the chateau he met a fine old gentleman who spoke English with that +nicety of utterance which only a cultivated Frenchman can achieve. He +had no difficulty in clearing himself. Then he had dinner in a hall +hung with armor and hunting trophies, was shown to a chamber half as +large as the lounge at the Harvard Club, and slept in a bed which he +got into by means of a ladder of carved oak. This is a mere outline. +Out of regard for J. B.'s opinions about the sanctities of his own +personal adventures, I refrain from giving further details. + +These were the usual experiences which every American pilot has had +while on his brevet flights. As I write I think of scores of others, +for they were of almost daily occurrence. + +Jackson landed--unintentionally, of course--in a town square and was +banqueted by the Mayor, although he had nearly run him down a few +hours earlier, and had ruined forever his reputation as a man of +dignified bearing. But the Mayor was not alone in his forced display +of unseemly haste. Many other townspeople, long past the nimbleness of +youth, rushed for shelter; and pride goeth before a collision with a +wayward aeroplane. Jackson said the sky rained hats, market baskets, +and wooden shoes for five minutes after his Bleriot had come to rest +on the steps of the _bureau de poste_. And no one was hurt. + +Murphy's defective motor provided him with the names and addresses of +every possible and impossible _marraine_ in the town of Y----, near +which he was compelled to land. While waiting for the arrival of his +mechanician with a new supply of spark-plugs, he left his monoplane in +a field close by. A path to the place was worn by the feet of the +young women of the town, whose dearest wish appeared to be to have an +aviator as a _filleul_. They covered the wings of his _avion_ with +messages in pencil. The least pointed of these hints were, "Ecrivez le +plus tot possible"; and, "Je voudrais bien un filleul americain, tres +gentil, comme vous." + +Matthews' biplane crashed through the roof of a camp bakery. If he had +practiced this unusual _atterrissage_ a thousand times he could not +have done it so neatly as at the first attempt. He followed the motor +through to the kitchen and finally hung suspended a few feet from the +ceiling. The army bread-bakers stared up at him with faces as white as +fear and flour could make them. The commandant of the camp rushed in. +He asked, "What have you done with the corpse?" The bread-bakers +pointed to Matthews, who apologized for his bad choice of +landing-ground. He was hardly scratched. + +Mac lost his way in the clouds and landed near a small village for +gasoline and information. The information he had easily, but gasoline +was scarce. After laborious search through several neighboring +villages he found a supply and had it carried to the field where his +machine was waiting. Some farmer lads agreed to hold on to the tail +while Mac started the engine. At the first roar of the rotary motor +they all let loose. The Bleriot pushed Mac contemptuously aside, +lifted its tail and rushed away. He followed it over a level tract of +country miles in extent, and found it at last in a ditch, nose down, +tail in air, like a duck hunting bugs in the mud. This story loses +nine tenths of its interest for want of Mac's pungent method of +telling it. + +One of the _bona-fide_ godchildren of Chance was Millard. The +circumstances leading to his engagement in the French service as a +member of the Franco-American Corps proves this. Millard was a real +human being,--he had no grammar, no polish, no razor, safety or +otherwise, but likewise no pretense, no "swank." He was _persona non +grata_ to a few, but the great majority liked him very much, although +they wondered how in the name of all that is curious he had ever +decided to join the French air service. Once he told us his history at +great length. He had been a scout in the Philippine service of the +American army. He had been a roustabout on cattle boats. He had boiled +his coffee down by the stockyards in every sizable town on every +transcontinental railroad in America. In the spring of 1916 he had +employment with a roofing company which had contracted for a job in +Richmond, Virginia, I think it was. But Richmond went "dry" in the +State elections; the roofing job fell through, owing, so Millard +insisted, to the natural and inevitable depression which follows a dry +election. Having lost his prospective employment as a roofer, what +more natural than that he should turn to this other high calling? + +He was game. He tried hard and at last reached his brevet tests. Three +times he started off on triangles. No one expected to see him return, +but he surprised them every time. He could never find the towns where +he was supposed to land, so he would keep on going till his gas gave +out. Then his machine would come down of itself, and Millard would +crawl out from under the wreckage and come back by train. + +"I don't know," he would say doubtfully, rubbing his eight-days' +growth of beard; "I'm seeing a lot of France, but this coming-down +business ain't what it's cracked up to be. I can swing in on the rods +of a box car with the train going hell bent for election, but I guess +I'm too old to learn to fly." + +The War Office came to this opinion after Millard had smashed three +machines in three tries. Wherever he may be now, I am sure that Chance +is still ruling his destiny, and I hope, with all my heart, +benevolently. + +Our final triangle was completed uneventfully. J. B.'s motor behaved +splendidly; I remembered my biograph at every stage of the journey, +and we were at home again within three hours. We did our altitude +tests and were then no longer _eleves-pilotes_, but _pilotes +aviateurs_. By reason of this distinction we passed from the rank of +soldier of the second class to that of corporal. At the tailor's shop +the wings and star insignia were sewn upon our collars and our +corporal's stripes upon our sleeves. For we were proud, as every +aviator is proud, who reaches the end of his apprenticeship and enters +into the dignity of a brevetted military pilot. + + * * * * * + +Six months have passed since I made the last entry in my journal. J. +B. was asleep in his historic bed, and I was sitting at a rickety +table writing by candle-light, stopping now and then to listen to the +mutter of guns on the Aisne front. It was only at night that we could +hear them, and then not often, the very ghost of sound, as faint as +the beating of the pulses in one's ears. That was a May evening, and +this, one late in November. I arrived at the Gare du Nord only a few +hours ago. Never before have I come to Paris with a finer sense of the +joy of living. I walked down the rue Lafayette, through the rue de +Provence, the rue du Havre, to a little hotel in the vicinity of the +Gare Saint-Lazare. Under ordinary circumstances none of these streets, +nor the people in them, would have appeared particularly interesting. +But on this occasion--it was the finest walk of my life. I saw +everything with the eyes of the _permissionnaire_, and sniffed the +odors of roasting chestnuts, of restaurants, of shops, of people, +never so keenly aware of their numberless variety. + +After dinner I walked out on the boulevards from the Madeleine to the +Place de la Republique, through the maze of narrow streets to the +river, and over the Pont Neuf to Notre Dame. I was surprised that the +spell which Hugo gives it should have lost none of its old potency +for me after coming direct from the realities of modern warfare. If +he were writing this journal, what a story it would be! + +It will be necessary to pass rapidly over the period between the day +when we received our _brevets militaires_ and that upon which we +started for the front. The event which bulked largest to us was, of +course, the departure on active service. Preceding it, and next in +importance, was the last phase of our training and the culmination of +it all, at the School of Acrobacy. Preliminary to our work there, we +had a six weeks' course of instruction, first on the twin-motor +Caudron and then on various types of the Nieuport biplane. We thought +the Caudron a magnificent machine. We liked the steady throb of its +powerful motors, the enormous spread of its wings, the slow, ponderous +way it had of answering to the controls. It was our business to take +officer observers for long trips about the country while they made +photographs, spotted dummy batteries, and perfected themselves in the +wireless code. At that time the Caudron had almost passed its period +of usefulness at the front, and there was a prospect of our being +transferred to the yet larger and more powerful Letord, a +three-passenger biplane carrying two machine gunners besides the +pilot, and from three to five machine guns. This appealed to us +mightily. J. B. was always talking of the time when he would command +not only a machine, but also a "gang of men." However, being +Americans, and recruited for a particular combat corps which flies +only single-seater _avions de chasse_, we eventually followed the +usual course of training for such pilots. We passed in turn to the +Nieuport biplane, which compares in speed and grace with these larger +craft as the flight of a swallow with the movements of a great lazy +buzzard. And now the Nieuport has been surpassed, and almost entirely +supplanted, by the Spad of 140, 180, 200, and 230 horse-power, and we +have transferred our allegiance to each in turn, marveling at the +genius of the French in motor and aircraft construction. + +At last we were ready for acrobacy. I will not give an account of the +trials by means of which one's ability as a combat pilot is most +severely tested. This belongs among the pages of a textbook rather +than in those of a journal of this kind. But to us who were to undergo +the ordeal,--for it is an ordeal for the untried pilot,--our +typewritten notes on acrobacy read like the pages of a fascinating +romance. A year or two ago these aerial maneuvers would have been +thought impossible. Now we were all to do them as a matter of routine +training. + +The worst of it was, that our civilian pursuits offered no criterion +upon which to base forecasts of our ability as acrobats. There was J. +B., for example. He knew a mixed metaphor when he saw one, for he had +had wide experience with them as an English instructor at a New +England "prep" school. But he had never done a barrel turn, or +anything resembling it. How was he to know what his reaction would be +to this bewildering maneuver, a series of rapid, horizontal, corkscrew +turns? And to what use could I put my hazy knowledge of Massachusetts +statutes dealing with neglect and non-support of family, in that +exciting moment when, for the first time, I should be whirling +earthward in a spinning nose-dive? Accidents and fatalities were most +frequent at the school of acrobacy, for the reason that one could not +know, beforehand, whether he would be able to keep his head, with the +earth gone mad, spinning like a top, standing on one rim, turning +upside down. + +In the end we all mastered it after a fashion, for the tests are by no +means so difficult of accomplishment as they appear to be. Up to this +time, November 28, 1917, there has been but one American killed at it +in French schools. We were not all good acrobats. One must have a +knack for it which many of us will never be able to acquire. The +French have it in larger proportion than do we Americans. I can think +of no sight more pleasing than that of a Spad in the air, under the +control of a skillful French pilot. Swallows perch in envious silence +on the chimney pots, and the crows caw in sullen despair from the +hedgerows. + +At G. D. E., while awaiting our call to the front, we perfected +ourselves in these maneuvers, and practiced them in combat and group +flying. There, the restraints of the schools were removed, for we were +supposed to be accomplished pilots. We flew when and in what manner +we liked. Sometimes we went out in large formations, for a long +flight; sometimes, in groups of two or three, we made sham attacks on +villages, or trains, or motor convoys on the roads. It was forbidden +to fly over Paris, and for this reason we took all the more delight in +doing it. J. B. and I saw it in all its moods: in the haze of early +morning, at midday when the air had been washed clean by spring rains, +in the soft light of afternoon,--domes, theaters, temples, spires, +streets, parks, the river, bridges, all of it spread out in +magnificent panorama. We would circle over Montmartre, Neuilly, the +Bois, Saint-Cloud, the Latin Quarter, and then full speed homeward, +listening anxiously to the sound of our motors until we spiraled +safely down over our aerodrome. Our monitor never asked questions. He +is one of many Frenchmen whom we shall always remember with gratitude. + +We learned the songs of all motors, the peculiarities and uses of all +types of French _avions_, pushers and tractors, single motor and +bimotor, monoplace, biplace, and triplace, monoplane and biplane. And +we mingled with the pilots of all these many kinds of aircraft. They +were arriving and departing by every train, for G. D. E. is the depot +for old pilots from the front, transferring from one branch of +aviation to another, as well as for new ones fresh from the schools. +In our talks with them, we became convinced that the air service is +forming its traditions and developing a new type of mind. It even has +an odor, as peculiar to itself as the smell of the sea to a ship. +There are those who say that it is only a compound of burnt castor oil +and gasoline. One might, with no more truth, call the odor of a ship a +mixture of tar and stale cooking. But let it pass. It will be all +things to all men; I can sense it as I write, for it gets into one's +clothing, one's hair, one's very blood. + +We were as happy during those days at G. D. E. as any one has the +right to be. Our whole duty was to fly, and never was the voice of +Duty heard more gladly. It was hard to keep in mind the stern purpose +behind this seeming indulgence. At times I remembered Drew's warning +that we were military pilots and had no right to forget the +seriousness of the work before us. But he himself often forgot it for +days together. War on the earth may be reasonable and natural, but in +the air it seems the most senseless folly. How is an airman, who has +just learned a new meaning for the joy of life, to reconcile himself +to the insane business of killing a fellow aviator who may have just +learned it too? This was a question which we sometimes put to +ourselves in purely Arcadian moments. We answered it, of course. + +I was sitting at our two-legged table, writing up my _carnet de vol_. +Suzanne, the maid of all work at the Bonne Rencontre, was sweeping a +passageway along the center of the room, telling me, as she worked, +about her family. She was ticking off the names of her brothers and +sisters, when Drew put his head through the doorway. + +"Il y a Pierre," said Suzanne. + +"We're posted," said J. B. + +"Et Helene," she continued. + +I shall never know the names of the others. + + + + + V + + OUR FIRST PATROL + + +We got down from the train late in the afternoon at a village which +reminded us, at first glance, of a boom town in the Far West. Crude +shelters of corrugated iron and rough pine boards faced each other +down the length of one long street. They looked sadly out of place in +that landscape. They did not have the cheery, buoyant ugliness of +pioneer homes in an unsettled country, for behind them were the ruins +of the old village, fragments of blackened wall, stone chimneys filled +with accumulations of rubbish, garden-plots choked with weeds, +reminding us that here was no outpost of a new civilization, but the +desolation of an old one, fallen upon evil days. + +A large crowd of _permissionnaires_ had left the train with us. We +were not at ease among these men, many of them well along in middle +life, bent and streaming with perspiration under their heavy packs. We +were much better able than most of them to carry our belongings, to +endure the fatigue of a long night march to billets or trenches; and +we were waiting for the motor in which we should ride comfortably to +our aerodrome. There we should sleep in beds, well housed from the +weather, and far out of the range of shell fire. + +"It isn't fair," said J. B. "It is going to war _de luxe_. These old +poilus ought to be the aviators. But, hang it all! Of course, they +couldn't be. Aviation is a young man's business. It has to be that +way. And you can't have aerodromes along the front-line trenches." + +Nevertheless, it did seem very unfair, and we were uncomfortable among +all those infantrymen. The feeling increased when attention was called +to our branch of the service by the distant booming of anti-aircraft +guns. There were shouts in the street, "A Boche!" We hurried to the +door of the cafe where we had been hiding. Officers were ordering the +crowds off the street. "Hurry along there! Under cover! Oh, I know +that you're brave enough, mon enfant. It isn't that. He's not to see +all these soldiers here. That's the reason. Allez! Vite!" + +Soldiers were going into dugouts and cellars among the ruined houses. +Some of them, seeing us at the door of the cafe, made pointed remarks +as they passed, grumbling loudly at the laxity of the air service. + +"It's up there you ought to be, mon vieux, not here," one of them +said, pointing to the white _eclatements_. + +"You see that?" said another. "He's a Boche, not French, I can tell +you that. Where are your comrades?" + +There was much good-natured chaffing as well, but through it all I +could detect a note of resentment. I sympathized with their point of +view then as I do now, although I know that there is no ground for the +complaint of laxity. Here is a German over French territory. Where are +the French aviators? Soldiers forget that aerial frontiers must be +guarded in two dimensions, and that it is always possible for an +airman to penetrate far into enemy country. They do not see their own +pilots on their long raids into German territory. Furthermore, while +the outward journey is often accomplished easily enough, the return +home is a different matter. Telephones are busy from the moment the +lines are crossed, and a hostile patrol, to say nothing of a lone +_avion_, will be fortunate if it returns safely. + +But infantrymen are to be forgiven readily for their outbursts against +the aviation service. They have far more than their share of danger +and death while in the trenches. To have their brief periods of rest +behind the lines broken into by enemy aircraft--who would blame them +for complaining? And they are often generous enough with their praise. + +On this occasion there was no bombing. The German remained at a great +height and quickly turned northward again. + +Dunham and Miller came to meet us. We had all four been in the schools +together, they preceding us on active service only a couple of months. +Seeing them after this lapse of time, I was conscious of a change. +They were keen about life at the front, but they talked of their +experiences in a way which gave one a feeling of tension, a tautness +of muscles, a kind of ache in the throat. It set me to thinking of a +conversation I had had with an old French pilot, several months +before. It came apropos of nothing. Perhaps he thought that I was +sizing him up, wondering how he could be content with an instructor's +job while the war is in progress. He said: "I've had five hundred +hours over the lines. You don't know what that means, not yet. I'm no +good any more. It's strain. Let me give you some advice. Save your +nervous energy. You will need all you have and more. Above everything +else, don't think at the front. The best pilot is the best machine." + +Dunham was talking about patrols. + +"Two a day of two hours each. Occasionally you will have six hours' +flying, but almost never more than that." + +"What about voluntary patrols?" Drew asked. "I don't suppose there is +any objection, is there?" + +Miller pounded Dunham on the back, singing, "_Hi-doo-dedoo-dum-di_. +What did I tell you! Do I win?" Then he explained. "We asked the same +question when we came out, and every other new pilot before us. This +voluntary patrol business is a kind of standing joke. You think, now, +that four hours a day over the lines is a light programme. For the +first month or so you will go out on your own between times. After +that, no. Of course, when they call for a voluntary patrol for some +necessary piece of work, you will volunteer out of a sense of duty. As +I say, you may do as much flying as you like. But wait. After a month, +or we'll give you six weeks, that will be no more than you have to +do." + +We were not at all convinced. + +"What do you do with the rest of your time?" + +"Sleep," said Dunham. "Read a good deal. Play some poker or bridge. +Walk. But sleep is the chief amusement. Eight hours used to be enough +for me. Now I can do with ten or twelve." + +Drew said: "That's all rot. You fellows are having it too soft. They +ought to put you on the school regime again." + +"Let 'em talk, Dunham. They know. J. B. says it's laziness. Let it go +at that. Well, take it from me, it's contagious. You'll soon be +victims." + +I dropped out of the conversation in order to look around me. Drew +did all of the questioning, and thanks to his interest, I got many +hints about our work which came back opportunely, afterward. + +"Think down to the gunners. That will help a lot. It's a game after +that: your skill against theirs. I couldn't do it at first, and shell +fire seemed absolutely damnable." + +"And you want to remember that a chasse machine is almost never +brought down by anti-aircraft fire. You are too fast for them. You can +fool 'em in a thousand ways." + +"I had been flying for two weeks before I saw a Boche. They are not +scarce on this sector, don't worry. I simply couldn't see them. The +others would have scraps. I spent most of my time trying to keep track +of them." + +"Take my tip, J. B., don't be too anxious to mix it with the first +German you see, because very likely he will be a Frenchman, and if he +isn't, if he is a good Hun pilot, you'll simply be meat for him--at +first, I mean." + +"They say that all the Boche aviators on this front have had several +months' experience in Russia or the Balkans. They train them there +before they send them to the Western Front." + +"Your best chance of being brought down will come in the first two +weeks." + +"That's comforting." + +"No, sans blague. Honestly, you'll be almost helpless. You don't see +anything, and you don't know what it is that you do see. Here's an +example. On one of my first sorties I happened to look over my +shoulder and I saw five or six Germans in the most beautiful +alignment. And they were all slanting up to dive on me. I was scared +out of my life: went down full motor, then cut and fell into a vrille. +Came out of that and had another look. There they were in the same +position, only farther away. I didn't tumble even then, except farther +down. Next time I looked, the five Boches, or six, whichever it was, +had all been raveled out by the wind. Eclats d'obus." + +"You may have heard about Franklin's Boche. He got it during his first +combat. He didn't know that there was a German in the sky, until he +saw the tracer bullets. Then the machine passed him about thirty +metres away. And he kept going down: may have had motor trouble. +Franklin said that he had never had such a shock in his life. He dived +after him, spraying all space with his Vickers, and he got him!" + +"That all depends on the man. In chasse, unless you are sent out on a +definite mission, protecting photographic machines or avions de +bombardement, you are absolutely on your own. Your job is to patrol +the lines. If a man is built that way, he can loaf on the job. He need +never have a fight. At two hundred kilometres an hour, it won't take +him very long to get out of danger. He stays out his two hours and +comes in with some framed-up tale to account for his disappearance: +'Got lost. Went off by himself into Germany. Had motor trouble; gun +jammed, and went back to arm it.' He may even spray a few bullets +toward Germany and call it a combat. Oh, he can find plenty of +excuses, and he can get away with them." + +"That's spreading it, Dunham. What about Huston? is he getting away +with it?" + +"Now, don't let's get personal. Very likely Huston can't help it. +Anyway, it is a matter of temperament mostly." + +"Temperament, hell! There's Van, for example. I happen to know that he +has to take himself by his bootlaces every time he crosses into +Germany. But he sticks it. He has never played a yellow trick. I hand +it to him for pluck above every other man in the squadron." + +"What about Talbott and Barry?" + +"Lord! They haven't any nerves. It's no job for them to do their work +well." + +This conversation continued during the rest of the journey. The life +of a military pilot offers exceptional opportunities for research in +the matter of personal bravery. Dunham and Miller agreed that it is a +varying quality. Sometimes one is really without fear; at others only +a sense of shame prevents one from making a very sad display. + +"Huston is no worse than some of the rest of us, only he hasn't a +sense of shame." + +"Well, he has the courage to be a coward, and that is more than you +have, son, or I either." + +Our fellow pilots of the Lafayette Corps were lounging outside the +barracks on our arrival. They gave us a welcome which did much to +remove our feelings of strangeness; but we knew that they were only +mildly interested in the news from the schools and were glad when they +let us drop into the background of conversation. By a happy chance +mention was made of a recent newspaper article of some of the exploits +of the _Escadrille_, written evidently by a very imaginative +journalist; and from this the talk passed to the reputation of the +Squadron in America, and the almost fabulous deeds credited to it by +some newspaper correspondents. One pilot said that he had kept record +of the number of German machines actually reported as having been +brought down by members of the Corps. I don't remember the number he +gave, but it was an astonishing total. The daily average was so high, +that, granting it to be correct, America might safely have abandoned +her far-reaching aerial programme. Long before her first pursuit +squadron could be ready for service, the last of the imperial German +air-fleet would, to quote from the article, have "crashed in +smouldering ruin on the war-devastated plains of northern France." + +In this connection I can't forbear quoting from another, one of the +brightest pages in the journalistic history of the legendary +Escadrille Lafayette. It is an account of a sortie said to have taken +place on the receipt of news of America's declaration of war. + + "Uncle Sam is with us, boys! Come on! Let's get those + fellows!" These were the stirring words of Captain Georges + Thenault, the valiant leader of the Escadrille Lafayette, + upon the morning when news was received that the United + States of America had declared war upon the rulers of + Potsdam. For the first time in history, the Stars and + Stripes of Old Glory were flung to the breeze over the camp, + in France, of American fighting men. Inspired by the sight, + and spurred to instant action by the ringing call of their + French captain, this band of aviators from the U.S.A. sprang + into their trim little biplanes. There was a deafening roar + of motors, and soon the last airman had disappeared in the + smoky haze which hung over the distant battle-lines. + + We cannot follow them on that journey. We cannot see them as + they mount higher and higher into the morning sky, on their + way to meet their prey. But we may await their return. We + may watch them as they descend to their flying-field, + dropping down to earth, one by one. We may learn, then, of + their adventures on that flight of death: how, far back of + the German lines, they encountered a formidable + battle-squadron of the enemy, vastly superior to their own + in numbers. Heedless of the risk they swooped down upon + their foe. Lieutenant A---- was attacked by four enemy + planes at the same time. One he sent hurtling to the ground + fifteen thousand feet below. He caused a second to retire + disabled. Sergeant B---- accounted for another in a running + fight which lasted for more than a quarter of an hour. + Adjutant C----, although his biplane was riddled with + bullets, succeeded, by a clever ruse, in decoying two + pursuers, bent on his destruction, to the vicinity of a + cloud where several of his comrades were lying in wait for + further victims. A moment later both Germans were seen to + fall earthward, spinning like leaves in that last terrible + dive of death. "These boys are Yankee aviators. They form + the vanguard of America's aerial forces. We need thousands + of others just like them," etc. + +Stories of this kind have, without doubt, a certain imaginative +appeal. J. B. and I had often read them, never wholly credulous, of +course, but with feelings of uneasiness. Discounting them by more than +half, we still had serious doubts of our ability to measure up to the +standard set by our fellow Americans who had preceded us on active +service. We were in part reassured during our first afternoon at the +front. If these men were the demons on wings of the newspapers, they +took great pains to give us a different impression. + + * * * * * + +Many of the questions which had long been accumulating in our minds +got themselves answered during the next few days, while we were +waiting for machines. We knew, in a general way, what the nature of +our work would be. We knew that the Escadrille Lafayette was one of +four pursuit squadrons occupying hangars on the same field, and that, +together, these formed what is called a _groupe de combat_, with a +definite sector of front to cover. We had been told that combat pilots +are "the police of the air," whose duty it is to patrol the lines, +harass the enemy, attacking whenever possible, thus giving protection +to their own _corps-d'armee_ aircraft--which are only incidentally +fighting machines--in their work of reconnaissance, photography, +artillery direction, and the like. But we did not know how this +general theory of combat is given practical application. When I think +of the depths of our ignorance, to be filled in, day by day, with a +little additional experience; of our self-confidence, despite +warnings; of our willingness to leave so much for our "godfather" +Chance to decide, it is with feelings nearly akin to awe. We awaited +our first patrol almost ready to believe that it would be our first +victorious combat. We had no realization of the conditions under which +aerial battles are fought. Given good-will, average ability, and the +opportunity, we believed that the results must be decisive, one way or +the other. + +Much of our enforced leisure was spent at the bureau of the group, +where the pilots gathered after each sortie to make out their reports. +There we heard accounts of exciting combats, of victories and narrow +escapes, which sounded like impossible fictions. A few of them may +have been, but not many. They were told simply, briefly, as a part of +the day's work, by men who no longer thought of their adventures as +being either very remarkable or very interesting. What, I thought, +will seem interesting or remarkable to them after the war, after such +a life as this? Once an American gave me a hint: "I'm going to apply +for a job as attendant in a natural-history museum." + +Only a few minutes before, these men had been taking part in aerial +battles, attacking infantry in trenches, or enemy transport on roads +fifteen or twenty kilometres away. And while they were talking of +these things the drone of motors overhead announced the departure of +other patrols to battle-lines which were only five minutes distant by +the route of the air. For when weather permitted there was an +interlapping series of patrols flying over the sector from daylight +till dark. The number of these, and the number of _avions_ in each +patrol, varied as circumstances demanded. + +On one wall of the bureau hung a large-scale map of the sector, which +we examined square by square with that delight which only the study of +maps can give. Trench-systems, both French and German, were outlined +upon it in minute detail. It contained other features of a very +interesting nature. On another wall there was a yet larger map, made +of aeroplane photographs taken at a uniform altitude and so pieced +together that the whole was a complete picture of our sector of +front. We spent hours over this one. Every trench, every shell hole, +every splintered tree or fragment of farmhouse wall stood out clearly. +We could identify machine-gun posts and battery positions. We could +see at a glance the result of months of fighting; how terribly men had +suffered under a rain of high explosives at this point, how lightly +they had escaped at another; and so we could follow, with a certain +degree of accuracy, what must have been the infantry actions at +various parts of the line. + +The history of these trench campaigns will have a forbidding interest +to the student of the future; for, as he reads of the battles on the +Aisne, the Somme, of Verdun and Flanders, he will have spread out +before him photographs of the battlefields themselves, just as they +were at different phases of the struggle. With a series of these +pictorial records, men will be able to find the trenches from which +their fathers or grandfathers scrambled with their regiments to the +attack, the wire entanglements which held up the advance at one point, +the shell holes where they lay under machine-gun fire. And often they +will see the men themselves as they advanced through the barrage fire, +the sun glinting on their helmets. It will be a fascinating study, in +a ghastly way; and while such records exist, the outward meanings, at +least, of modern warfare will not be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +Tiffin, the messroom steward, was standing by my cot with a lighted +candle in his hand. The furrows in his kindly old face were outlined +in shadow. His bald head gleamed like the bottom of a yellow bowl. He +said, "Beau temps, monsieur," put the candle on my table, and went +out, closing the door softly. I looked at the window square, which was +covered with oiled cloth for want of glass. It was a black patch +showing not a glimmer of light. + +The other pilots were gathering in the messroom, where a fire was +going. Some one started the phonograph. Fritz Kreisler was playing the +"Chansons sans Paroles." This was followed by a song, "Oh, movin' man, +don't take ma baby grand." It was a strange combination, and to hear +them, at that hour of the morning, before going out for a first sortie +over the lines, gave me a "mixed-up" feeling, which it was impossible +to analyze. + +Two patrols were to leave the field at the same time, one to cover the +sector at an altitude of from two thousand to three thousand metres, +the other, thirty-five hundred to five thousand metres. J. B. and I +were on high patrol. Owing to our inexperience, it was to be a purely +defensive one between our observation balloons and the lines. We had +still many questions to ask, but having been so persistently +inquisitive for three days running, we thought it best to wait for +Talbott, who was leading our patrol, to volunteer his instructions. + +He went to the door to look at the weather. There were clouds at about +three thousand metres, but the stars were shining through gaps in +them. On the horizon, in the direction of the lines, there was a broad +belt of blue sky. The wind was blowing into Germany. He came back +yawning. "We'll go up--ho, hum!"--tremendous yawn--"through a hole +before we reach the river. It's going to be clear presently, so the +higher we go the better." + +The others yawned sympathetically. + +"I don't feel very pugnastic this morning." + +"It's a crime to send men out at this time of day--night, rather." + +More yawns of assent, of protest. J. B. and I were the only ones fully +awake. We had finished our chocolate and were watching the clock +uneasily, afraid that we should be late getting started. Ten minutes +before patrol time we went out to the field. The canvas hangars +billowed and flapped, and the wooden supports creaked with the quiet +sound made by ships at sea. And there was almost the peace of the sea +there, intensified, if anything, by the distant rumble of heavy +cannonading. + +Our Spad biplanes were drawn up in two long rows, outside the hangars. +They were in exact alignment, wing to wing. Some of them were clean +and new, others discolored with smoke and oil; among these latter were +the ones which J. B. and I were to fly. Being new pilots we were given +used machines to begin with, and ours had already seen much service. +_Fuselage_ and wings had many patches over the scars of old battles, +but new motors had been installed, the bodies overhauled, and they +were ready for further adventures. + +It mattered little to us that they were old. They were to carry us out +to our first air battles; they were the first _avions_ which we could +call our own, and we loved them in an almost personal way. Each +machine had an Indian head, the symbol of the Lafayette Corps, painted +on the sides of the _fuselage_. In addition, it bore the personal mark +of its pilot,--a triangle, a diamond, a straight band, or an +initial,--painted large so that it could be easily seen and recognized +in the air. + +The mechanicians were getting the motors _en route_, arming the +machine guns, and giving a final polish to the glass of the +wind-shields. In a moment every machine was turning over _ralenti_, +with the purring sound of powerful engines which gives a voice to +one's feeling of excitement just before patrol time. There was no more +yawning, no languid movement. + +Rodman was buttoning himself into a combination suit which appeared to +add another six inches to his six feet two. Barry, who was leading the +low patrol, wore a woolen helmet which left only his eyes uncovered. +I had not before noticed how they blazed and snapped. All his energy +seemed to be concentrated in them. Porter wore a leather face-mask, +with a lozenge-shaped breathing-hole, and slanted openings covered +with yellow glass for eyes. He was the most fiendish-looking demon of +them all. I was glad to turn from him to the Duke, who wore a +_passe-montagne_ of white silk which fitted him like a bonnet. As he +sat in his machine, adjusting his goggles, he might have passed for a +dear old lady preparing to read a chapter from the Book of Daniel. The +fur of Dunham's helmet had frayed out, so that it fitted around the +sides of his face and under the chin like a beard, the kind worn by +old-fashioned sailors. + +The strain of waiting patiently for the start was trying. The sudden +transformation of a group of typical-looking Americans into monsters +and devotional old ladies gave a moment of diversion which helped to +relieve it. + +I heard Talbott shouting his parting instructions and remembered that +I did not know the rendezvous. I was already strapped in my machine +and was about to loosen the fastenings, when he came over and climbed +on the step of the car. + +"Rendezvous two thousand over field!" he yelled. + +I nodded. + +"Know me--Big T--wings--fuselage. I'll--turning right. You and others +left. When--see me start--lines, fall in behind--left. Remember stick +close--patrol. If--get lost, better--home. Compass southwest. Look +carefully--landmarks going out. Got--straight?" + +I nodded again to show that I understood. Machines of both patrols +were rolling across the field, a mechanician running along beside each +one. I joined the long line, and taxied over to the starting-point, +where the captain was superintending the send-off, and turned into the +wind in my turn. As though conscious of his critical eye, my old +veteran Spad lifted its tail and gathered flying speed with all the +vigor of its youth, and we were soon high above the hangars, climbing +to the rendezvous. + +When we had all assembled, Talbott headed northeast, the rest of us +falling into our places behind him. Then I found that, despite the +new motor, my machine was not a rapid climber. Talbott noticed this +and kept me well in the group, he and the others losing height in +_renversements_ and _retournements_, diving under me and climbing up +again. It was fascinating to watch them doing stunts, to observe the +constant changing of positions. Sometimes we seemed, all of us, to be +hanging motionless, then rising and falling like small boats riding a +heavy swell. Another glance would show one of them suspended bottom +up, falling sidewise, tipped vertically on a wing, standing on its +tail, as though being blown about by the wind, out of all control. It +is only in the air, when moving with them, that one can really +appreciate the variety and grace of movement of a flock of +high-powered _avions de chasse_. + +I was close to Talbott as we reached the cloud-bank. I saw him in dim +silhouette as the mist, sunlight-filtered, closed around us. Emerging +into the clear, fine air above it, we might have been looking at early +morning from the casement + + "opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." + +The sun was just rising, and the floor of cloud glowed with delicate +shades of rose and amethyst and gold. I saw the others rising through +it at widely scattered points. It was a glorious sight. + +Then, forming up and turning northward again, just as we passed over +the receding edge of the cloud-bank, I saw the lines. It was still +dusk on the ground and my first view was that of thousands of winking +lights, the flashes of guns and of bursting shells. At that time the +Germans were making trials of the French positions along the Chemin +des Dames, and the artillery fire was unusually heavy. + +The lights soon faded and the long, winding battle-front emerged from +the shadow, a broad strip of desert land through a fair, green +country. We turned westward along the sector, several kilometres +within the French lines, for J. B. and I were to have a general view +of it all before we crossed to the other side. The fort of Malmaison +was a minute square, not as large as a postage-stamp. With thumb and +forefinger I could have spanned the distance between Soissons and +Laon. Clouds of smoke were rising from Allemant to Craonne, and these +were constantly added to by infinitesimal puffs in black and white. I +knew that shells of enormous calibre were wrecking trenches, blasting +out huge craters; and yet not a sound, not the faintest reverberation +of a gun. Here was a sight almost to make one laugh at man's idea of +the importance of his pygmy wars. + +But the Olympian mood is a fleeting one. I think of Paradis rising on +one elbow out of the slime where he and his comrades were lying, +waving his hand toward the wide, unspeakable landscape. + +"What are we, we chaps? And what's all this here? Nothing at all. All +we can see is only a speck. When one speaks of the whole war, it's as +if you said nothing at all--the words are strangled. We're here, and +we look at it like blind men." + +To look down from a height of more than two miles, on an endless +panorama of suffering and horror, is to have the sense of one's +littleness even more painfully quickened. The best that the airman can +do is to repeat, "We're here, and we look at it like blind men." + +We passed on to the point where the line bends northward, then turned +back. I tried to concentrate my attention on the work of identifying +landmarks. It was useless. One might as well attempt to study Latin +grammar at his first visit to the Grand Canon. My thoughts went +wool-gathering. Looking up suddenly, I found that I was alone. + +To the new pilot the sudden appearance or disappearance of other +_avions_ is a weird thing. He turns his head for a moment. When he +looks again, his patrol has vanished. Combats are matters of a few +seconds' duration, rarely of more than two or three minutes. The +opportunity for attack comes almost with the swiftness of thought and +has passed as quickly. Looking behind me, I was in time to see one +machine tip and dive. Then it, too, vanished as though it had melted +into the air. Shutting my motor, I started down, swiftly, I thought; +but I had not yet learned to fall vertically, and the others--I can +say almost with truth--were miles below me. I passed long streamers of +white smoke, crossing and recrossing in the air. I knew the meaning of +these, machine-gun tracer bullets. The delicately penciled lines +had not yet frayed out in the wind. I went on down in a steep spiral, +guiding myself by them, and seeing nothing. At the point where they +ended, I redressed and put on my motor. My altimeter registered two +thousand metres. By a curious chance, while searching the empty sky, I +saw a live shell passing through the air. It was just at the second +when it reached the top of its trajectory and started to fall. "Lord!" +I thought, "I have seen a shell, and yet I can't find my patrol!" + +While coming down I had given no attention to my direction. I had lost +twenty-five hundred metres in height. The trenches were now plainly +visible, and the brown strip of sterile country where they lay was +vastly broader. Several times I felt the concussion of shell +explosions, my machine being lifted and then dropped gently with an +uneasy motion. Constantly searching the air, I gave no thought to my +position with reference to the lines, nor to the possibility of +anti-aircraft fire. Talbott had said: "Never fly in a straight line +for more than fifteen seconds. Keep changing your direction +constantly, but be careful not to fly in a regularly irregular +fashion. The German gunners may let you alone at first, hoping that +you will become careless, or they may be plotting out your style of +flight. Then they make their calculations and they let you have it. If +you have been careless, they'll put 'em so close, there'll be no +question about the kind of a scare you will have." + +There wasn't in my case. I was looking for my patrol to the exclusion +of thought of anything else. The first shell burst so close that I +lost control of my machine for a moment. Three others followed, two in +front, and one behind, which I believed had wrecked my tail. They +burst with a terrific rending sound in clouds of coal-black smoke. A +few days before I had been watching without emotion the bombardment of +a German plane. I had seen it twisting and turning through the +_eclatements_, and had heard the shells popping faintly, with a sound +like the bursting of seed-pods in the sun. + +My feeling was not that of fear, exactly. It was more like despair. +Every airman must have known it at one time or another, a sudden +overwhelming realization of the pitilessness of the forces which men +let loose in war. In that moment one doesn't remember that men have +loosed them. He is alone, and he sees the face of an utterly evil +thing. Miller's advice was, "Think down to the gunners"; but this is +impossible at first. Once a French captain told me that he talked to +the shells. "I say, 'Bonjour, mon vieux! Tiens! Comment ca va, toi! +Ah, non! je suis presse!' or something like that. It amuses one." + +This need of some means of humanizing shell fire is common. Aviators +know little of modern warfare as it touches the infantryman; but in +one respect, at least, they are less fortunate. They miss the human +companionship which helps a little to mask its ugliness. + +However, it is seldom that one is quite alone, without the sight of +friendly planes near at hand, and there is a language of signs which, +in a way, fills this need. One may "waggle his flippers," or "flap his +wings," to use the common expressions, and thus communicate with his +comrades. Unfortunately for my ease of mind, there were no comrades +present with whom I could have conversed in this way. Miller was +within five hundred metres and saw me all the time, although I didn't +know this until later. + +Talbott's instructions were, "If you get lost, go home"--somewhat +ambiguous. I knew that my course to the aerodrome was southwest. At any +rate, by flying in that direction I was certain to land in France. But +with German gunners so keen on the baptism-of-fire business, I had been +turning in every direction, and the floating disk of my compass was +revolving first to the right, then to the left. In order to let it +settle, I should have to fly straight for some fixed point for at +least half a minute. Under the circumstances I was not willing to do +this. A compass which would point north immediately and always would +be a heaven-sent blessing to the inexperienced pilot during his first +few weeks at the front. Mine was saying North--northwest--west-- +southwest--south--southeast--east--and after a moment of hesitation +reading off the points in the reverse order. The wind was blowing +into Germany, and unconsciously, in trying to find a way out of the +_eclatements_, I was getting farther and farther away from home and +coming within range of additional batteries of hostile anti-aircraft +guns. + +I might have landed at Karlsruhe or Cologne, had it not been for +Miller. My love for concentric circles of red, white, and blue dates +from the moment when I saw the French _cocarde_ on his Spad. + +"And if I had been a Hun!" he said, when we landed at the aerodrome. +"Oh, man! you were fruit salad! Fruit salad, I tell you! I could have +speared you with my eyes shut." + +I resented the implication of defenselessness. I said that I was +keeping my eyes open, and if he had been a Hun, the fruit salad might +not have been so palatable as it looked. + +"Tell me this: Did you see me?" + +I thought for a moment, and then said, "Yes." + +"When?" + +"When you passed over my head." + +"And twenty seconds before that you would have been a sieve, if either +of us had been a Boche." + +I yielded the point to save further argument. + +He had come swooping down fairly suddenly. When I saw him making his +way so saucily among the _eclatements_ I felt my confidence returning +in increasing waves. I began to use my head, and found that it was +possible to make the German gunners guess badly. There was no menace +in the sound of shells barking at a distance, and we were soon clear +of all of them. + +J. B. took me aside the moment I landed. He had one of his fur boots +in his hand and was wearing the other. He had also lighted the cork +end of his cigarette. To one acquainted with his magisterial +orderliness of mind and habit, these signs were eloquent. + +"Now, keep this quiet!" he said. "I don't want the others to know it, +but I've just had the adventure of my life. I attacked a German. Great +Scott! what an opportunity! and I bungled it through being too eager!" + +"When was this?" + +"Just after the others dove. You remember--" + +I told him, briefly, of my experience, adding, "And I didn't know +there was a German in sight until I saw the smoke of the tracer +bullets." + +"Neither did I, only I didn't see even the smoke." + +This cheered me immensely. "What! you didn't--" + +"No. I saw nothing but sky where the others had disappeared. I was +looking for them when I saw the German. He was about four hundred +metres below me. He couldn't have seen me, I think, because he kept +straight on. I dove, but didn't open fire until I could have a nearer +view of his black crosses. I wanted to be sure. I had no idea that I +was going so much faster. The first thing I knew I was right on him. +Had to pull back on my stick to keep from crashing into him. Up I went +and fell into a nose-dive. When I came out of it there was no sign of +the German, and I hadn't fired a shot!" + +"Did you come home alone?" + +"No; I had the luck to meet the others just afterward. Now, not a word +of this to any one!" + +But there was no need for secrecy. The near combat had been seen by +both Talbott and Porter. At luncheon we both came in for our share of +ragging. + +"You should have seen them following us down!" said Porter; "like two +old rheumatics going into the subway. We saw them both when we were +taking height again. The scrap was all over hours before, and they +were still a thousand metres away." + +"You want to dive vertically. Needn't worry about your old 'bus. +She'll stand it." + +"Well, the Lord has certainly protected the innocent to-day!" + +"One of them was wandering off into Germany. Bill had to waggle Miller +to page him." + +"And there was Drew, going down on that biplane we were chasing. I've +been trying to think of one wrong thing he might have done which he +didn't do. First he dove with the sun in his face, when he might have +had it at his back. Then he came all the way in full view, instead of +getting under his tail. Good thing the mitrailleur was firing at us. +After that, when he had the chance of a lifetime, he fell into a +vrille and scared the life out of the rest of us. I thought the +gunner had turned on him. And while we were following him down to see +where he was going to splash, the Boche got away." + + * * * * * + +All this happened months ago, but every trifling incident connected +with our first patrol is still fresh in mind. And twenty years from +now, if I chance to hear the "Chansons sans Paroles," or if I hum to +myself a few bars of a ballad, then sure to be long forgotten by the +world at large, "Oh, movin' man, don't take ma baby grand!" I shall +have only to close my eyes, and wait passively. First Tiffin will come +with the lighted candle: "Beau temps, monsieur." I shall hear Talbott +shouting, "Rendezvous two thousand over field. If--get lost--better--home." +J. B. will rush up smoking the cork end of a cigarette. "I've just had +the adventure of my life!" And Miller, sitting on an essence-case, +will have lost none of his old conviction. "Oh, man! you were fruit +salad! Fruit salad, I tell you! I could have speared you with my eyes +shut!" + +And in those days, happily still far off, there will be many another +old gray-beard with such memories; unless they are all to wear out +their days uselessly regretting that they are no longer young, there +must be clubs where they may exchange reminiscences. These need not be +pretentious affairs. Let there be a strong odor of burnt castor oil +and gasoline as you enter the door; a wide view from the verandas of +earth and sky; maps on the walls; and on the roof a canvas +"pantaloon-leg" to catch the wind. Nothing else matters very much. +There they will be as happy as any old airman can expect to be, +arguing about the winds and disputing one another's judgment about the +height of the clouds. + +If you say to one of them, "Tell us something about the Great War," as +likely as not he will tell you a pleasant story enough. And the pity +of it will be that, hearing the tale, a young man will long for +another war. Then you must say to him, "But what about the shell fire? +Tell us something of machines falling in flames." Then, if he is an +honest old airman whose memory is still unimpaired, the young one who +has been listening will have sober second thoughts. + + + + + VI + + A BALLOON ATTACK + + +"I'm looking for two balloonatics," said Talbott, as he came into the +messroom; "and I think I've found them." + +Percy, Talbott's orderly, Tiffin the steward, Drew, and I were the +only occupants of the room. Percy is an old _legionnaire_, crippled +with rheumatism. His active service days are over. Tiffin's working +hours are filled with numberless duties. He makes the beds, and serves +food from three to five times daily to members of the Escadrille +Lafayette. These two being eliminated, the identity of the +balloonatics was plain. + +"The orders have just come," Talbott added, "and I decided that the +first men I met after leaving the bureau would be balloonatics. Virtue +has gone into both of you. Now, if you can make fire come out of a +Boche sausage, you will have done all that is required. Listen. This +is interesting. The orders are in French, but I will translate as I +read:-- + + On the umteenth day of June, the escadrilles of Groupe de + Combat Blank [that's ours] will cooperate in an attack on + the German observation balloons along the sector extending + from X to Y. The patrols to be furnished are: (1) two + patrols of protection, of five _avions_ each, by the + escadrilles Spa. 87 and Spa. 12; (2) four patrols of attack, + of three _avions_ each, by the escadrilles Spa. 124 [that's + us], Spa. 93, Spa. 10, and Spa. 12. + + The attack will be organized as follows: on the day set, + weather permitting, the two patrols of protection will leave + the field at 10.30 A.M. The patrol of Spa. 87 will + rendezvous over the village of N----. The patrol of + protection of Spa. 12 will rendezvous over the village of + C----. At 10.45, precisely, they will start for the lines, + crossing at an altitude of thirty-five hundred metres. The + patrol furnished by Spa. 87 will guard the sector from X to + T, between the town of O----and the two enemy balloons on + that sector. The patrol furnished by Spa. 12 will guard the + sector from T to Y, between the railway line and the two + enemy balloons on that sector. Immediately after the attack + has been made, these formations will return to the + aerodrome. + + At 10.40 A.M. the four patrols of attack will leave the + field, and will rendezvous as follows. [Here followed the + directions.] At 10.55, precisely, they will start for the + lines, crossing at an approximate altitude of sixteen + hundred metres, each patrol making in a direct line for the + balloon assigned to it. Numbers 1 and 2 of each of these + patrols will carry rockets. Number 3 will fly immediately + above them, offering further protection in case of attack by + enemy aircraft. Number 1 of each patrol will first attack + the balloon. If he fails, number 2 will attack. If number 1 + is successful, number 2 will then attack the observers in + their parachutes. If number 1 fails, and number 2 is + successful, number 3 will attack the observers. The patrol + will then proceed to the aerodrome by the shortest route. + + Squadron commanders will make a return before noon to-day, + of the names of pilots designated by them for their + respective patrols. + + In case of unfavorable weather, squadron commanders will be + informed of the date to which the attack has been postponed. + + Pilots designated as numbers 1 and 2 of the patrols of + attack will be relieved from the usual patrol duty from this + date. They will employ their time at rocket shooting. A + target will be in place on the east side of the field from + 1.30 P.M. to-day. + +"Are there any remarks?" said Talbott, as if he had been reading the +minutes at a debating-club meeting. + +"Yes," said J. B. "When is the umteenth of June?" + +"Ah, mon vieux! that's the question. The commandant knows, and he +isn't telling. Any other little thing?" + +I suggested that we would like to know which of us was to be number 1. + +"That's right. Drew, how would you like to be the first rocketeer?" + +"I've no objection," said J. B., grinning as if the frenzy of +balloonaticking had already got into his blood. + +"Right! that's settled. I'll see your mechanicians about fitting your +machines for rockets. You can begin practice this afternoon." + +Percy had been listening with interest to the conversation. + +"You got some nice job, you boys. But if you bring him down, there +will be a lot of chuckling in the trenches. You won't hear it, but +they will all be saying, 'Bravo! Epatant!' I've been there. I've seen +it and I know. Does 'em all good to see a sausage brought down. +'There's another one of their eyes knocked out,' they say." + +"Percy is right," said J. B. as we were walking down the road. +"Destroying a balloon is not a great achievement in itself. Of +course, it's so much equipment gone, so much expense added to the +German war-budget. That is something. But the effect on the +infantrymen is the important thing. Boche soldiers, thousands of them, +will see one of their balloons coming down in flame. They will be +saying, 'Where are our airmen?' like those old poilus we met at the +station when we first came out. It's bound to influence morale. Now +let's see. The balloon, we will say, is at sixteen hundred metres. At +that height it can be seen by men on the ground within a radius of--" +and so forth and so on. + +We figured it out approximately, estimating the numbers of soldiers, +of all branches of service, who would witness the sight. Multiplying +this number by four, our conclusion was that, as a result of the +expedition, the length of the war and its outcome might very possibly +be affected. At any rate, there would be such an ebbing of German +morale, and such a flooding of French, that the way would be opened to +a decisive victory on that front. + +But supposing we should miss our sausage? J. B. grew thoughtful. + +"Have another look at the orders. I don't remember what the +instructions were in case we both fail." + +I read, "If number 1 fails and number 2 is successful, number 3 will +attack the observers. The patrol will then proceed to the aerodrome by +the shortest route." + +This was plain enough. Allowance could be made for one failure, but +two--the possibility had not even been considered. + +"By the shortest route." There was a piece of sly humor for you. It +may have been unconscious, but we preferred to believe that the +commandant had chuckled as he dictated it. A sort of afterthought, as +much as to say to his pilots, "Well, you young bucks, you would-be +airmen: thought it would be all sport, eh? You might have known. It's +your own fault. Now go out and attack those balloons. It's possible +that you may have a scrap or two on your hands while you are at it. +Oh, yes, by the way, coming home, you'll be down pretty low. Every +Boche machine in the air will have you at a disadvantage. Better +return by the shortest route." + +One feature of the programme did not appeal to us greatly, and this +was the attack to be made on the observers when they had jumped with +their parachutes. It seemed as near the border line between legitimate +warfare and cold-blooded murder as anything could well be. + +"You are armed with a machine-gun. He may have an automatic pistol. It +will require from five to ten minutes for him to reach the ground +after he has jumped. You can come down on him like a stone. Well, it's +your job, thank the Lord! not mine," said Drew. + +It was my job, but I insisted that he would be an accomplice. In +destroying the balloon, he would force me to attack the observers. When +I asked Talbott if this feature of the attack could be eliminated he +said:-- + +"Certainly. I have instructions from the commandant touching on this +point. In case any pilot objects to attacking the observers with +machine-gun fire, he is to strew their parachutes with autumn leaves +and such field-flowers as the season affords. Now, listen! What +difference, ethically, is there, between attacking one observation +officer in a parachute, and dropping a ton of bombs on a train-load +of soldiers? And to kill the observers is really more important than +to destroy the balloon. If you are going to be a military pilot, for +the love of Pete and Alf be one!" + +He was right, of course, but that didn't make the prospect any the +more pleasant. + +The large map at the bureau now had greater interest for us than ever. +The German balloons along the sector were marked in pictorially, with +an ink line, representing the cable, running from the basket of each +one down to the exact spot on the map from which they were launched. +Under one of these, "Spa. 124" was printed, neatly, in red ink. It was +the farthest distant from our lines of the four to be attacked, and +about ten kilometres within German-held territory. The cable ran to +the outskirts of a village situated on a railroad and a small stream. +The location of enemy aviation fields was also shown pictorially, each +one represented by a minute sketch, very carefully made, of an +Albatross biplane. We noticed that there were several aerodromes not +far distant from our balloon. + +After a survey of the map, the commandant's afterthought, "by the +shortest route," was not so needless as it appeared at first. The +German positions were in a salient, a large corner, the line turning +almost at right angles. We could cross them from the south, attack our +balloon, and then, if we wished, return to French territory on the +west side of the salient. + +"We may miss some heavy shelling. If we double on our tracks going +home, they will be expecting us, of course; whereas, if we go out on +the west side, we will pass over batteries which didn't see us come +in. If there should happen to be an east wind, there will be another +reason in favor of the plan. The commandant is a shrewd soldier. It +may have been his way of saying that the longest way round is the +shortest way home." + +Our Spads were ready after luncheon. A large square of tin had been +fastened over the fabric of each lower wing, under the rocket +fittings, to prevent danger of fire from sparks. Racks for six +rockets, three on a side, had been fastened to the struts. The rockets +were tipped with sharp steel points to insure their pricking the silk +balloon envelope. The batteries for igniting them were connected with +a button inside the car, within easy reach of the pilot. Lieutenant +Verdane, our French second-in-command, was to supervise our practice +on the field. We were glad of this. If we failed to "spear our +sausage," it would not be through lack of efficient instruction. He +explained to Drew how the thing was to be done. He was to come on the +balloon into the wind, and preferably not more than four hundred +metres above it. He was to let it pass from view under the wing; then, +when he judged that he was directly over it, to reduce his motor and +dive vertically, placing the bag within the line of his two circular +sights, holding it there until the bag just filled the circle. At that +second he would be about 250 metres distant from it, and it was then +that the rockets should be fired. + +The instructions were simple enough, but in practicing on the target +we found that they were not so easy to carry out. It was hard to judge +accurately the moment for diving. Sometimes we overshot the target, +but more often we were short of it. Owing to the angle at which the +rockets were mounted on the struts, it was very important that the +dive should be vertical. + +One morning, the attack could have been made with every chance of +success. Drew and I left the aerodrome a few minutes before sunrise +for a trial flight, that we might give our motors a thorough testing. +We climbed through a heavy mist which lay along the ground like water, +filling every fold and hollow, flowing up the hillsides, submerging +everything but the crests of the highest hills. The tops of the twin +spires of S---- cathedral were all that could be seen of the town. +Beyond, the long chain of heights where the first-line trenches were +rose just clear of the mist, which glowed blood-red as the sun came +up. + +The balloons were already up, hanging above the dense cloud of vapor, +elongated planets drifting in space. The observers were directing the +fire of their batteries to those positions which stood revealed. +Shells were also exploding on lower ground, for we saw the mist billow +upward time after time with the force of mighty concussions, and +slowly settle again. It was an awe-inspiring sight. We might have +been watching the last battle of the last war that could ever be, with +the world still fighting on, bitterly, blindly, gradually sinking from +sight in a sea of blood. I have never seen anything to equal that +spectacle of an artillery battle in the mists. + +Conditions were ideal for the attack. We could have gone to the +objective, fired our rockets, and made our return, without once having +been seen from the ground. It was an opportunity made in heaven, an +Allied heaven. "But the infantry would not have seen it," said J. B.; +which was true. Not that we cared to do the thing in a spectacular +fashion. We were thinking of that decisive effect upon morale. + +Two hours later we were pitching pennies in one of the hangars, when +Talbott came across the field, followed solemnly by Whiskey and Soda, +the lion mascots of the Escadrille Lafayette. + +"What's the date, anybody know?" he asked, very casually. + +J. B. is an agile-minded youth. + +"It isn't the umteenth by any chance?" + +"Right the first time." He looked at his watch. "It is now ten past +ten. You have half an hour. Better get your rockets attached. How are +your motors--all right?" + +This was one way of breaking the news, and the best one, I think. If +we had been told the night before, we should have slept badly. + +The two patrols of protection left the field exactly on schedule time. +At 10.35, Irving, Drew, and I were strapped in our machines, waiting, +with our motors turning _ralenti_, for Talbott's signal to start. + +He was romping with Whiskey. "Atta boy, Whiskey! Eat 'em up! Atta ole +lion!" + +As a squadron leader Talbott has many virtues, but the most important +of them all is his casualness. And he is so sincere and natural in it. +He has no conception of the dramatic possibilities of a +situation--something to be profoundly thankful for in the commander of +an _escadrille de chasse_. Situations are dramatic enough, tense +enough, without one's taking thought of the fact. He might have stood +there, watch in hand, counting off the seconds. He might have said, +"Remember, we're all counting on you. Don't let us down. You've got to +get that balloon!" Instead of that, he glanced at his watch as if he +had just remembered us. + +"All right; run along, you sausage-spearers. We're having lunch at +twelve. That will give you time to wash up after you get back." + +Miller, of course, had to have a parting shot. He had been in hiding +somewhere until the last moment. Then he came rushing up with a +toothbrush and a safety-razor case. He stood waving them as I taxied +around into the wind. His purpose was to remind me of the possibility +of landing with a _panne de moteur_ in Germany, and the need I would +then have of my toilet articles. + +At 10.54, J. B. came slanting down over me, then pulled up in _ligne +de vol_, and went straight for the lines. I fell in behind him at +about one hundred metres distance. Irving was two hundred metres +higher. Before we left the field he said: "You are not to think about +Germans. That's my job. I'll warn you if I see that we are going to be +attacked. Go straight for the balloon. If you don't see me come down +and signal, you will know that there is no danger." + +The French artillery were giving splendid cooperation. I saw clusters +of shell-explosions on the ground. The gunners were carrying out their +part of the programme, which was to register on enemy anti-aircraft +batteries as we passed over them. They must have made good practice. +Anti-aircraft fire was feeble, and, such of it as there was, very +wild. + +We came within view of the railway line which runs from the German +lines to a large town, their most important distributing center on the +sector. Following it along with my eyes to the halfway point, I saw +the red roofs of the village which we had so often looked at from a +distance. Our balloon was in its usual place. It looked like a yellow +plum, and no larger than one; but ripe, ready to be plucked. + +A burst of flame far to the left attracted my attention, and almost at +the same moment, one to the right. Ribbons of fire flapped upward in +clouds of black oily smoke. Drew signaled with his joy-stick, and I +knew what he meant: "Hooray! two down! It's our turn next!" But we +were still three or four minutes away. That was unfortunate, for a +balloon can be drawn down with amazing speed. + +A rocket sailed into the air and burst in a point of greenish white +light, dazzling in its brilliancy, even in the full light of day. +Immediately after this two white objects, so small as to be hardly +visible, floated earthward: the parachutes of the observers. They had +jumped. The balloon disappeared from view behind Drew's machine. It +was being drawn down, of course, as fast as the motor could wind up +the cable. It was an exciting moment for us. We were coming on at two +hundred kilometres an hour, racing against time and very little time +at that. "Sheridan, only five miles away," could not have been more +eager for his journey's end. Our throttles were wide open, the engines +developing their highest capacity for power. + +I swerved out to one side for another glimpse of the target: it was +almost on the ground, and directly under us. Drew made a steep virage +and dived. I started after him in a tight spiral, to look for the +observers; but they had both disappeared. The balloon was swaying +from side to side under the tension of the cable. It was hard to keep +it in view. I lost it under my wing. Tipping up on the other side, I +saw Drew release his rockets. They spurted out in long wavering lines +of smoke. He missed. The balloon lay close to the ground, looking +larger, riper than ever. The sight of its smooth, sleek surface was +the most tantalizing of invitations. Letting it pass under me again, I +waited for a second or two, then shut down the motor, and pushed +forward on the control-stick until I was falling vertically. Standing +upright on the rudder-bar, I felt the tugging of the shoulder-straps. +Getting the bag well within the sights, I held it there until it just +filled the circle. Then I pushed the button. + + * * * * * + +Although it was only eight o'clock, both Drew and I were in bed; for +we were both very tired, it was a chilly evening, and we had no fire. +An oil lamp was on the table between the two cots. Drew was sitting +propped up, his fur coat rolled into a bundle for a back-rest. He had +a sweater, tied by the sleeves, around his shoulders. His hands were +clasped around his blanketed knees, and his breath, rising in a cloud +of luminous steam,-- + + "Like pious incense from a censer old, + Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death." + +And yet, "pious" is hardly the word. J. B. was swearing, drawing from +a choice reserve of picturesque epithets which I did not know that he +possessed. I regret the necessity of omitting some of them. + +"I don't see how I could have missed it! Why, I didn't turn to look +for at least thirty seconds. I was that sure that I had brought it +down. Then I banked and nearly fell out of my seat when I saw it +there. I redressed at four hundred metres. I couldn't have been more +than one hundred metres away when I fired the rockets." + +"What did you do then?" + +"Circled around, waiting for you. I had the balloon in sight all the +while you were diving. It was a great sight to watch from below, +particularly when you let go your rockets. I'll never forget it, +never. But, Lord! Without the climax! Artistically, it was an awful +fizzle." + +There was no denying this. A balloon bonfire was the only possible +conclusion to the adventure, and we both failed at lighting it. I, +too, redressed when very close to the bag, and made a steep bank in +order to escape the burst of flame from the ignited gas. The rockets +leaped out, with a fine, blood-stirring roar. The mere sound ought to +have been enough to make any balloon collapse. But when I turned, +there it was, intact, a super-Brobdingnagian pumpkin, seen at close +view, and still ripe, still ready for plucking. If I live to one +hundred years, I shall never have a greater surprise or a more bitter +disappointment. + +There was no leisure for brooding over it then. My altimeter +registered only two hundred and fifty metres, and the French lines +were far distant. If the motor failed I should have to land in German +territory. Any fate but that. Nevertheless, I felt in the pocket of my +combination, to be sure that my box of matches was safely in place. We +were cautioned always to carry them where they could be quickly got +at in case of a forced landing in enemy country. An airman must +destroy his machine in such an event. But my Spad did not mean to end +its career so ingloriously. The motor ran beautifully, hitting on +every cylinder. We climbed from two hundred and fifty metres to three +hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty, and on steadily upward. In +the vicinity of the balloon, machine-gun fire from the ground had been +fairly heavy; but I was soon out of range, and saw the tracer bullets, +like swarms of blue bubbles, curving downward again at the end of +their trajectory. + +No machines, either French or German, were in sight. Irving had +disappeared some time before we reached the balloon. I had not seen +Drew from the moment when he fired his rockets. He waited until he +made sure that I was following, then started for the west side of the +salient. I did not see him, because of my interest in those clouds of +blue bubbles which were rising with anything but bubble-like +tranquillity. When I was clear of them, I set my course westward and +parallel with the enemy lines to the south. + +I had never flown so low, so far in German territory. The temptation +to forget precaution and to make a leisurely survey of the ground +beneath was hard to resist. It was not wholly resisted, in fact. +Anti-aircraft fire was again feeble and badly ranged. The shells burst +far behind and above, for I was much too low to offer an easy target. +This gave me a dangerous sense of safety, and so I tipped up on one +side, then on the other, examining the roads, searching the ruins of +villages, the trenches, the shell-marked ground. I saw no living +thing; brute or human; nothing but endless, inconceivable desolation. + +The foolishness of that close scrutiny alone, without the protection +of other _avions_, I realize now much better than I did then. Unless +flying at six thousand metres or above,--when he is comparatively safe +from attack,--a pilot may never relax his vigilance for thirty seconds +together. He must look behind him, below, above, constantly. All +aviators learn this eventually, but in the case of many new pilots the +knowledge comes too late to be of service. I thought this was to be my +experience, when, looking up, I saw five combat machines bearing down +upon me. Had they been enemy planes my chances would have been very +small, for they were close at hand before I saw them. The old French +aviator, worn out by his five hundred hours of flight over the +trenches, said, "Save your nervous energy." I exhausted a three-months +reserve in as many seconds. The suspense, luckily, was hardly longer +than that. It passed when the patrol leader, followed by the others, +pulled up in _ligne de vol_, about one hundred metres above me, +showing their French _cocardes_. It was the group of protection of +Spa. 87. At the time I saw Drew, a quarter of a mile away. As he +turned, the sunlight glinted along his rocket-tubes. + +A crowded hour of glorious life it seems now, although I was not of +this opinion at the time. In reality, we were absent barely forty +minutes. Climbing out of my machine at the aerodrome, I looked at my +watch. A quarter to twelve. Laignier, the sergeant mechanician, was +sitting in a sunny corner of the hangar, reading the "Matin," just as +I had left him. + +Lieutenant Talbott's only comment was: "Don't let it worry you. +Better luck next time. The group bagged two out of four, and Irving +knocked down a Boche who was trying to get at you. That isn't bad for +half an hour's work." + +But the decisive effect on morale which was to result from our +wholesale destruction of balloons was diminished by half. We had +forced ours down, but it bobbed up again very soon afterward. The +one-o'clock patrol saw it, higher, Miller said, than it had ever been. +It was Miller, by the way, who looked in on us at nine o'clock the +same evening. The lamp was out. + +"Asleep?" + +Neither of us was, but we didn't answer. He closed the door, then +reopened it. + +"It's laziness, that's what it is. They ought to put you on school +regime again." + +He had one more afterthought. Looking in a third time, he said,-- + +"How about it, you little old human dynamos; are you getting rusty?" + + + + + VII + + BROUGHT DOWN + + +The preceding chapters of this journal have been written to little +purpose if it has not been made clear that Drew and I, like most +pilots during the first weeks of service at the front, were worth +little to the Allied cause. We were warned often enough that the road +to efficiency in military aviation is a long and dangerous one. We +were given much excellent advice by aviators who knew what they were +talking about. Much of this we solicited, in fact, and then proceeded +to disregard it item by item. Eager to get results, we plunged into +our work with the valor of ignorance, the result being that Drew was +shot down in one of his first encounters, escaping with his life by +one of those more than miracles for which there is no explanation. +That I did not fare as badly or worse is due solely to the indulgence +of that godfather of ours, already mentioned, who watched over my +first flights while in a mood beneficently pro-Ally. + +Drew's adventure followed soon after our first patrol, when he had the +near combat with the two-seater. Luckily, on that occasion, both the +German pilot and his machine-gunner were taken completely off their +guard. Not only did he attack with the sun squarely in his face, but +he went down in a long, gradual dive, in full view of the gunner, who +could not have asked for a better target. But the man was asleep, and +this gave J. B. a dangerous contempt for all gunners of enemy +nationality. + +Lieutenant Talbott cautioned him. "You have been lucky, but don't get +it into your head that this sort of thing happens often. Now, I'm +going to give you a standing order. You are not to attack again, +neither of you are to think of attacking, during your first month +here. As likely as not it would be your luck the next time to meet an +old pilot. If you did, I wouldn't give much for your chances. He would +outmaneuver you in a minute. You will go out on patrol with the +others, of course; it's the only way to learn to fight. But if you get +lost, go back to our balloons and stay there until it is time to go +home." + +Neither of us obeyed this order, and, as it happened, Drew was the one +to suffer. A group of American officers visited the squadron one +afternoon. In courtesy to our guests, it was decided to send out all +the pilots for an additional patrol, to show them how the thing was +done. Twelve machines were in readiness for the sortie, which was set +for seven o'clock, the last one of the day. We were to meet at three +thousand metres, and then to divide forces, one patrol to cover the +east half of the sector and one the west. + +We got away beautifully, with the exception of Drew, who had +motor-trouble and was five minutes late in starting. With his +permission I insert here his own account of the adventure--a letter +written while he was in hospital. + + No doubt you are wondering what happened, listening, + meanwhile, to many I-told-you-so explanations from the + others. This will be hard on you, but bear up, son. It might + not be a bad plan to listen, with the understanding as well + as with the ear, to some expert advice on how to bag the + Hun. To quote the prophetic Miller, "I'm telling you this + for your own good." + + I gave my name and the number of the escadrille to the + medical officer at the _poste de secours_. He said he would + 'phone the captain at once, so that you must know before + this, that I have been amazingly lucky. I fell the greater + part of two miles--count 'em, two!--before I actually + regained control, only to lose it again. I fainted while + still several hundred feet from the ground; but more of this + later. Couldn't sleep last night. Had a fever and my brain + went on a spree, taking advantage of my helplessness. I just + lay in bed and watched it function. Besides, there was a + great artillery racket all night long. It appeared to be + coming from our sector, so you must have heard it as well. + This hospital is not very far back and we get the full + orchestral effect of heavy firing. The result is that I am + dead tired to-day. I believe I can sleep for a week. + + They have given me a bed in the officers' ward--me, a + corporal. It is because I am an American, of course. Wish + there was some way of showing one's appreciation for so much + kindness. My neighbor on the left is a _chasseur_ captain. A + hand-grenade exploded in his face. He will go through life + horribly disfigured. An old padre, with two machine-gun + bullets in his hip, is on the other side. He is very + patient, but sometimes the pain is a little too much for + him. To a Frenchman, "Oh, la, la!" is an expression for + every conceivable kind of emotion. In the future it will + mean unbearable physical pain to me. Our orderlies are two + _poilus_, long past military age. They are as gentle and + thoughtful as the nurses themselves. One of them brought me + lemonade all night long. Worth while getting wounded just to + have something taste so good. + + * * * * * + + I meant to finish this letter a week ago, but haven't felt + up to it. Quite perky this morning, so I'll go on with the + tale of my "heroic combat." Only, first, tell me how that + absurd account of it got into the "Herald"? I hope Talbott + knows that I was not foolish enough to attack six Germans + single-handed. If he doesn't, please enlighten him. His + opinion of my common sense must be low enough, as it is. + + We were to meet over S---- at three thousand metres, you + remember, and to cover the sector at five thousand until + dusk. I was late in getting away, and by the time I reached + the rendezvous you had all gone. There wasn't a chasse + machine in sight. I ought to have gone back to the balloons + as Talbott advised, but thought it would be easy to pick you + up later, so went on alone after I had got some height. + Crossed the lines at thirty-five hundred metres, and finally + got up to four thousand, which was the best I could do with + my rebuilt engine. The Huns started shelling, but there were + only a few of them that barked. I went down the lines for a + quarter of an hour, meeting two Sopwiths and a Letord, but + no Spads. You were almost certain to be higher than I, but + my old packet was doing its best at four thousand, and + getting overheated with the exertion. Had to throttle down + and _pique_ several times to cool off. + + Then I saw you--at least I thought it was you--about four + kilometres inside the German lines. I counted six machines, + well grouped, one a good deal higher than the others and one + several hundred metres below them. The pilot on top was + doing beautiful _renversements_ and an occasional + barrel-turn, in Barry's manner. I was so certain it was our + patrol that I started over at once, to join you. It was + getting dusk and I lost sight of the machine lowest down for + a few seconds. Without my knowing it, he was approaching at + exactly my altitude. You know how difficult it is to see a + machine in that position. Suddenly he loomed up in front of + me like an express train, as you have seen them approach + from the depths of a moving-picture screen, only ten times + faster; and he was firing as he came. I realized my awful + mistake, of course. His tracer bullets were going by on the + left side, but he corrected his aim, and my motor seemed to + be eating them up. I banked to the right, and was about to + cut my motor and dive, when I felt a smashing blow in the + left shoulder. A sickening sensation and a very peculiar + one, not at all what I thought it might feel like to be hit + with a bullet. I believed that it came from the German in + front of me. But it couldn't have, for he was still + approaching when I was hit, and I have learned here that the + bullet entered from behind. + + This is the history of less than a minute I'm giving you. It + seemed much longer than that, but I don't suppose it was. I + tried to shut down the motor, but couldn't manage it because + my left arm was gone. I really believed that it had been + blown off into space until I glanced down and saw that it + was still there. But for any service it was to me, I might + just as well have lost it. There was a vacant period of ten + or fifteen seconds which I can't fill in. After that I knew + that I was falling, with my motor going full speed. It was a + helpless realization. My brain refused to act. I could do + nothing. Finally, I did have one clear thought, "Am I on + fire?" This cut right through the fog, brought me up broad + awake. I was falling almost vertically, in a sort of half + _vrille_. No machine but a Spad could have stood the strain. + The Huns were following me and were not far away, judging by + the sound of their guns. I fully expected to feel another + bullet or two boring its way through. One did cut the skin + of my right leg, although I didn't know this until I reached + the hospital. Perhaps it was well that I did fall out of + control, for the firing soon stopped, the Germans thinking, + and with reason, that they had bagged me. Some proud Boche + airman is wearing an iron cross on my account. Perhaps the + whole crew of dare-devils has been decorated. However, no + unseemly sarcasm. We would pounce on a lonely Hun just as + quickly. There is no chivalry in war in these modern days. + + I pulled out of the spin, got the broom-stick between my + knees, reached over, and shut down the motor with my right + hand. The propeller stopped dead. I didn't much care, being + very drowsy and tired. The worst of it was that I couldn't + get my breath. I was gasping as though I had been hit in the + pit of the stomach. Then I lost control again and started + falling. It was awful! I was almost ready to give up. I + believe that I said, out loud, "I'm going to be killed. This + is my last sortie." At any rate, I thought it. Made one last + effort and came out in _ligne de vol_, as nearly as I could + judge, about one hundred and fifty metres from the ground. + It was an ugly-looking place for landing, trenches and + shell-holes everywhere. I was wondering in a vague way + whether they were French or German, when I fell into the + most restful sleep I've ever had in my life. + + I have no recollection of the crash, not the slightest. I + might have fallen as gently as a leaf. That is one thing to + be thankful for among a good many others. When I came to, it + was at once, completely. I knew that I was on a stretcher + and remembered immediately exactly what had happened. My + heart was going pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, and I could hardly + breathe, but I had no sensation of pain except in my chest. + This made me think that I had broken every bone in my body. + I tried moving first one leg, then the other, then my arms, + my head, my body. No trouble at all, except with my left arm + and side. + + I accepted the miracle without attempting to explain it, for + I had something more important to wonder about: who had the + handles of my stretcher? The first thing I did was to open + my eyes, but I was bleeding from a scratch on the forehead + and saw only a red blur. I wiped them dry with my sleeve and + looked again. The broad back in front of me was covered with + mud. Impossible to distinguish the color of the tunic. But + the shrapnel helmet above it was--French! I was in French + hands. If ever I live long enough in one place, so that I + may gather a few possessions and make a home for myself, on + one wall of my living-room I will have a bust-length + portrait, rear view, of a French _brancardier_, mud-covered + back and battered tin hat. + + Do you remember our walk with Menault in the rain, and the + _dejeuner_ at the restaurant where they made such wonderful + omelettes? I am sure that you will recall the occasion, + although you may have forgotten the conversation. I have not + forgotten one remark of Menault's apropos of talk about + risks. If a man were willing, he said, to stake everything + for it, he would accumulate an experience of fifteen or + twenty minutes which would compensate him, a thousand times + over, for all the hazard. "And if you live to be old," he + said quaintly, "you can never be bored with life. You will + have something, always, very pleasant to think about." I + mention this in connection with my discovery that I was not + in German hands. I have had five minutes of perfect + happiness without any background--no thought of yesterday or + to-morrow--to spoil it. + + I said, "Bonjour, messieurs," in a gurgling voice. The man + in front turned his head sidewise and said,-- + + "Tiens! Ca va, monsieur l'aviateur?" + + The other one said, "Ah, mon vieux!" You know the inflection + they give this expression, particularly when it means, "This + is something wonderful!" He added that they had seen the + combat and my fall, and little expected to find the pilot + living, to say nothing of speaking. I hoped that they would + go on talking, but I was being carried along a trench; they + had to lift me shoulder-high at every turn, and needed all + their energy. The Germans were shelling the lines. Several + fell fairly close, and they brought me down a long flight of + wooden steps into a dugout to wait until the worst of it + should be over. While waiting, they told me that I had + fallen just within the first-line trenches, at a spot where + a slight rise in ground hid me from sight of the enemy. + Otherwise, they might have had a bad time rescuing me. My + Spad was completely wrecked. It fell squarely into a trench, + the wings breaking the force of the fall. Before reaching + the ground, I turned, they said, and was making straight for + Germany. Fifty metres higher, and I would have come down in + No Man's Land. + + For a long time we listened in silence to the subdued + _crr-ump_, _crr-ump_, of the shells. Sometimes showers of + earth pattered down the stairway, and we would hear the + high-pitched, droning _V-z-z-z_ of pieces of shell-casing as + they whizzed over the opening. One of them would say, "Not + far, that one"; or, "He's looking for some one, that + fellow," in a voice without a hint of emotion. Then, long + silences and other deep, earth-shaking rumbles. + + They asked me, several times, if I was suffering, and + offered to go on to the _poste de secours_ if I wanted them + to. It was not heavy bombardment, but it would be safer to + wait for a little while. I told them that I was ready to go + on at any time, but not to hurry on my account; I was quite + comfortable. + + The light glimmering down the stairway faded out and we were + in complete darkness. My brain was amazingly clear. It + registered every trifling impression. I wish it might always + be so intensely awake and active. There seemed to be four of + us in the dugout; the two _brancardiers_, and this second + self of mine, as curious as an eavesdropper at a keyhole, + listening intently to everything, and then turning to + whisper to me. The _brancardiers_ repeated the same comments + after every explosion. I thought: "They have been saying + this to each other for over three years. It has become + automatic. They will never be able to stop." I was feverish, + perhaps. If it was fever, it burned away any illusions I may + have had of modern warfare from the infantryman's + viewpoint. I know that there is no glamour in it for them; + that it has long since become a deadly monotony, an endless + repetition of the same kinds of horror and suffering, a + boredom more terrible than death itself, which is repeating + itself in the same ways, day after day and month after + month. It isn't often that an aviator has the chance I've + had. It would be a good thing if they were to send us into + the trenches for twenty-four hours, every few months. It + would make us keener fighters, more eager to do our utmost + to bring the war to an end for the sake of those _poilus_. + + The dressing-station was in a very deep dugout, lighted by + candles. At a table in the center of the room the medical + officer was working over a man with a terribly crushed leg. + Several others were sitting or lying along the wall, + awaiting their turn. They watched every movement he made in + an apprehensive, animal way, and so did I. They put me on + the table next, although it was not my turn. I protested, + but the doctor paid no attention. "Aviateur americain," + again. It's a pity that Frenchmen can't treat us Americans + as though we belong here. + + As soon as the doctor had finished with me, my stretcher was + fastened to a two-wheeled carrier and we started down a + cobbled road to the ambulance station. I was light-headed + and don't remember much of that part of the journey. Had to + take refuge in another dugout when the Huns dropped a shell + on an ammunition-dump in a village through which we were to + pass. There was a deafening banging and booming for a long + time, and when we did go through the town it was on the run. + The whole place was in flames and small-arms ammunition + still exploding. I remember seeing a long column of soldiers + going at the double in the opposite direction, and they were + in full marching order. + + Well, this is the end of the tale; all of it, at any rate, + in which you would be interested. It was one o'clock in the + morning before I got between cool, clean sheets, and I was + wounded about a quarter past eight. I have been tired ever + since. + + There is another aviator here, a Frenchman, who broke his + jaw and both legs in a fall while returning from a night + bombardment. His bed is across the aisle from mine; he has a + formidable-looking apparatus fastened on his head and under + his chin, to hold his jaw firm until the bones knit. He is + forbidden to talk, but breaks the rule whenever the nurse + leaves the ward. He speaks a little English and has told me + a delightful story about the origin of aerial combat. A + French pilot, a friend of his, he says, attached to a + certain army group during August and September, 1914, often + met a German aviator during his reconnaissance patrols. In + those Arcadian days, fighting in the air was a development + for the future, and these two pilots exchanged greetings, + not cordially, perhaps, but courteously: a wave of the hand, + as much as to say, "We are enemies, but we need not forget + the civilities." Then they both went about their work of + spotting batteries, watching for movements of troops, etc. + One morning the German failed to return the salute. The + Frenchman thought little of this, and greeted him in the + customary manner at their next meeting. To his surprise, the + Boche shook his fist at him in the most blustering and + caddish way. There was no mistaking the insult. They had + passed not fifty metres from each other, and the Frenchman + distinctly saw the closed fist. He was saddened by the + incident, for he had hoped that some of the ancient + courtesies of war would survive in the aerial branch of the + service, at least. It angered him too; therefore, on his + next reconnaissance, he ignored the German. Evidently the + Boche air-squadrons were being Prussianized. The enemy pilot + approached very closely and threw a missile at him. He could + not be sure what it was, as the object went wide of the + mark; but he was so incensed that he made a _virage_, and + drawing a small flask from his pocket, hurled it at his + boorish antagonist. The flask contained some excellent port, + he said, but he was repaid for the loss in seeing it crash + on the exhaust-pipe of the enemy machine. + + This marked the end of courtesy and the beginning of active + hostilities in the air. They were soon shooting at each + other with rifles, automatic pistols, and at last with + machine guns. Later developments we know about. The night + bombarder has been telling me this yarn in serial form. When + the nurse is present, he illustrates the last chapter by + means of gestures. I am ready to believe everything but the + incident about the port. That doesn't sound plausible. A + Frenchman would have thrown his watch before making such a + sacrifice! + + + + + VIII + + ONE HUNDRED HOURS + + +A little more than a year after our first meeting in the Paris +restaurant which has so many pleasant memories for us, Drew completed +his first one hundred hours of flight over the lines, an event in the +life of an airman which calls for a celebration of some sort. +Therefore, having been granted leave for the afternoon, the two of us +came into the old French town of Bar-le-Duc, by the toy train which +wanders down from the Verdun sector. We had dinner in one of those +homelike little places where the food is served by the proprietor +himself. On this occasion it was served hurriedly, and the bill +presented promptly at eight o'clock. Our host was very sorry, but "les +sales Boches, vous savez, messieurs?" They had come the night before: +a dozen houses destroyed, women and children killed and maimed. With a +full moon to guide them, they would be sure to return to-night. "Ah, +cette guerre! Quand sera-t-elle finie?" He offered us a refuge until +our train should leave. Usually, he said, he played solitaire while +waiting for the Germans, but with houses tumbling about one's ears, he +much preferred company. "And my wife and I are old people. She is very +deaf, heureusement. She hears nothing." + +J. B. declined the invitation. "A brave way that would be to finish +our evening!" he said as we walked down the silent street. "I wanted +to say, 'Monsieur, I have just finished my first one hundred hours of +flight at the front.' But he wouldn't have known what that means." + +I said, "No, he wouldn't have known." Then we had no further talk for +about two hours. A few soldiers, late arrivals, were prowling about in +the shadow of the houses, searching for food and a warm kitchen where +they might eat it. Some insistent ones pounded on the door of a +restaurant far in the distance. + +"Dites donc, patron! Nous avons faim, nom de Dieu! Est-ce-que tout le +monde est mort ici?" + + "Only a host of phantom listeners, + That dwelt in the lone house then, + Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight + To that voice from the world of men." + +It was that kind of silence, profound, tense, ghostlike. We walked +through street after street, from one end of the town to the other, +and saw only one light, a faint glimmer which came from a slit of a +cellar window almost on the level of the pavement. We were curious, no +doubt. At any rate, we looked in. A woman was sitting on a cot bed +with her arms around two little children. They were snuggled up +against her and both fast asleep; but she was sitting very erect, in a +strained, listening attitude, staring straight before her. Since that +night we have believed, both of us, that if wars can be won only by +haphazard night bombardments of towns where there are women and +children, then they had far better be lost. + +But I am writing a journal of high adventure of a cleaner kind, in +which all the resources in skill and cleverness of one set of men are +pitted against those of another set. We have no bomb-dropping to do, +and there are but few women and children living in the territory over +which we fly. One hundred hours is not a great while as time is +measured on the ground, but in terms of combat patrols, the one +hundredth part of it has held more of an adventure in the true +meaning of the word than we have had during the whole of our lives +previously. + +At first we were far too busy learning the rudiments of combat to keep +an accurate record of flying time. We thought our aeroplane clocks +convenient pieces of equipment rather than necessary ones. I remember +coming down from my first air battle and the breathless account I gave +of it at the bureau, breathless and vague. Lieutenant Talbott listened +quietly, making out the _compte rendu_ as I talked. When I had +finished, he emphasized the haziness of my answers to his questions by +quoting them: "Region: 'You know, that big wood!' Time: 'This morning, +of course!' Rounds fired: 'Oh, a lot!'" etc. + +Not until we had been flying for a month or more did we learn how to +make the right use of our clocks and of our eyes while in the air. We +listened with amazement to after-patrol talk at the mess. We learned +more of what actually happened on our sorties, after they were over +than while they were in progress. All of the older pilots missed +seeing nothing which there was to see. They reported the numbers of +the enemy planes encountered, the types, where seen and when. They +spotted batteries, trains in stations back of the enemy lines, gave +the hour precisely, reported any activity on the roads. In moments of +exasperation Drew would say, "I think they are stringing us! This is +all a put-up job!" Certainly this did appear to be the case at first. +For we were air-blind. We saw little of the activity all around us, +and details on the ground had no significance. How were we to take +thought of time and place and altitude, note the peculiarities of +enemy machines, count their numbers, and store all this information +away in memory at the moment of combat? This was a great problem. + +"What I need," J. B. used to say, "is a traveling private secretary. +I'll do the fighting and he can keep the diary." + +I needed one, too, a man air-wise and battle-wise, who could calmly +take note of my clock, altimeter, temperature and pressure dials, +identify exactly the locality on my map, count the numbers of the +enemy, estimate their approximate altitude,--all this when the air +was criss-crossed with streamers of smoke from machine-gun tracer +bullets, and opposing aircraft were maneuvering for position, diving +and firing at each other, spiraling, nose-spinning, wing-slipping, +climbing, in a confusing intermingling of tricolor cocards and black +crosses. + +We made gradual progress, the result being that our patrols became a +hundred-fold more fascinating, sometimes, in fact, too much so. It was +important that we should be able to read the ground, but more +important still to remember that what was happening there was only of +secondary concern to us. Often we became absorbed in watching what was +taking place below us, to the exclusion of any thought of aerial +activity, our chances for attack or of being attacked. The view, from +the air, of a heavy bombardment, or of an infantry attack under cover +of barrage fires, is a truly terrible spectacle, and in the air one +has a feeling of detachment which is not easily overcome. + +Yet it must be overcome, as I have said, and cannot say too many times +for the benefit of any young airman who may read this journal. During +an offensive the air swarms with planes. They are at all altitudes, +from the lowest artillery _reglage_ machines at a few hundreds of +metres, to the highest _avions de chasse_ at six thousand meters and +above. _Reglage_, photographic, and reconnaissance planes have their +particular work to do. They defend themselves as best they can, but +almost never attack. Combat _avions_, on the other hand; are always +looking for victims. They are the ones chiefly dangerous to the unwary +pursuit pilot. + +Drew's first official victory came as the result of a one-sided battle +with an Albatross single-seater, whose pilot evidently did not know +there was an enemy within miles of him. No more did J. B. for that +matter. "It was pure accident," he told me afterward. He had gone from +Rheims to the Argonne forest without meeting a single German. "And I +didn't want to meet one; for it was Thanksgiving Day. It has +associations for me, you know. I'm a New Englander." It is not +possible to convince him that it has any real significance for men who +were not born on the North Atlantic seaboard. Well, all the way he +had been humming + + "Over the river and through the wood + To grandfather's house we go," + +to himself. It is easy to understand why he didn't want to meet a +German. He must have been in a curiously mixed frame of mind. He +covered the sector again and passed over Rheims, going northeast. Then +he saw the Albatross; "and if you had been standing on one of the +towers of the cathedral you would have seen a very unequal battle." +The German was about two kilometres inside his own lines, and at least +a thousand metres below. Drew had every advantage. + +"He didn't see me until I opened fire, and then, as it happened, it +was too late. My gun didn't jam!" + +The German started falling out of control, Drew following him down +until he lost sight of him in making a _virage_. + +I leaned against the canvas wall of a hangar, registering incredulity. +Three times out of seven, to make a conservative estimate, we fight +inconclusive battles because of faulty machine guns or defective +ammunition. The ammunition, most of it that is bad, comes from +America. + +While Drew was giving me the details, an orderly from the bureau +brought word that an enemy machine had just been reported shot down on +our sector. It was Drew's Albatross, but he nearly lost official +credit for having destroyed it, because he did not know exactly the +hour when the combat occurred. His watch was broken and he had +neglected asking for another before starting. He judged the time of +the attack, approximately, as two-thirty, and the infantry observers, +reporting the result, gave it as twenty minutes to three. The region +in both cases coincided exactly, however, and, fortunately, Drew's was +the only combat which had taken place in that vicinity during the +afternoon. + +For an hour after his return he was very happy. He had won his first +victory, always the hardest to gain, and had been complimented by the +commandant, by Lieutenant Nungesser, the _Roi des Aces_, and by other +French and American pilots. There is no petty jealousy among airmen, +and in our group the _esprit de corps_ is unusually fine. Rivalry is +keen, but each squadron takes almost as much pride in the work of the +other squadrons as it does in its own. + +The details of the result were horrible. The Albatross broke up two +thousand metres from the ground, one wing falling within the French +lines. Drew knew what it meant to be wounded and falling out of +control. But his Spad held together. He had a chance for his life. +Supposing the German to have been merely wounded--An airman's joy in +victory is a short-lived one. + +Nevertheless, a curious change takes place in his attitude toward his +work, as the months pass. I can best describe it in terms of Drew's +experience and my own. We came to the front feeling deeply sorry for +ourselves, and for all airmen of whatever nationality, whose lives +were to be snuffed out in their promising beginnings. I used to play +"The Minstrel Boy to the War Has Gone" on a tin flute, and Drew wrote +poetry. While we were waiting for our first machine, he composed "The +Airman's Rendezvous," written in the manner of Alan Seeger's poem. + + "And I in the wide fields of air + Must keep with him my rendezvous. + It may be I shall meet him there + When clouds, like sheep, move slowly through + The pathless meadows of the sky + And their cool shadows go beneath,-- + I have a rendezvous with Death + Some summer noon of white and blue." + +There is more of it, in the same manner, all of which he read me in a +husky voice. I, too, was ready to weep at our untimely fate. The +strange thing is that his prophecy came so very near being true. He +had the first draft of the poem in his breast-pocket when wounded, and +has kept the gory relic to remind him--not that he needs reminding--of +the airy manner in which he canceled what ought to have been a +_bona-fide_ appointment. + +I do not mean to reflect in any way upon Alan Seeger's beautiful poem. +Who can doubt that it is a sincere, as well as a perfect, expression +of a mood common to all young soldiers? Drew was just as sincere in +writing his verses, and I put all the feeling I could into my +tin-whistle interpretation of "The Minstrel Boy." What I want to make +clear is, that a soldier's moods of self-pity are fleeting ones, and +if he lives, he outgrows them. + +Imagination is an especial curse to an airman, particularly if it +takes a gloomy or morbid turn. We used to write "To whom it may +concern" letters before going out on patrol, in which we left +directions for the notification of our relatives and the disposal of +our personal effects in case of death. Then we would climb into our +machines thinking, "This may be our last sortie. We may be dead in an +hour, in half an hour, in twenty minutes." We planned splendidly +spectacular ways in which we were to be brought down, always omitting +one, however, the most horrible as well as the most common,--in +flames. Thank Fortune, we have outgrown this second and belated period +of adolescence and can now take a healthy interest in our work. + +Now, an inevitable part of the daily routine is to be shelled, +persistently, methodically, and often accurately shelled. Our interest +in this may, I suppose, be called healthy, inasmuch as it would be +decidedly unhealthy to become indifferent to the activities of the +German anti-aircraft gunners. It would be far-fetched to say that any +airman ever looks forward zestfully to the business of being shot at +with one hundred and fives; and seventy-fives, if they are well +placed, are unpleasant enough. After one hundred hours of it, we have +learned to assume that attitude of contemptuous toleration which is +the manner common to all _pilotes de chasse_. We know that the chances +of a direct hit are almost negligible, and that we have all the blue +dome of the heavens in which to maneuver. + +Furthermore, we have learned many little tricks by means of which we +can keep the gunners guessing. By way of illustration, we are +patrolling, let us say, at thirty-five hundred metres, crossing and +recrossing the lines, following the patrol leader, who has his motor +throttled down so that we may keep well in formation. The guns may be +silent for the moment, but we know well enough what the gunners are +doing. We know exactly where some of the batteries are, and the +approximate location of all of them along the sector; and we know, +from earlier experience, when we come within range of each individual +battery. Presently one of them begins firing in bursts of four shells. +If their first estimate of our range has been an accurate one, if they +place them uncomfortably close, so that we can hear, all too well, +above the roar of our motors, the rending _Gr-r-rOW_, _Gr-r-rOW_, of +the shells as they explode, we sail calmly--to all outward +appearances--on, maneuvering very little. The gunners, seeing that we +are not disturbed, will alter their ranges, four times out of five, +which is exactly what we want them to do. + +The next bursts will be hundreds of metres below or above us, +whereupon we show signs of great uneasiness, and the gunners, thinking +they have our altitude, begin to fire like demons. We employ our +well-earned immunity in preparing for the next series of batteries, or +in thinking of the cost to Germany, at one hundred francs a shot, of +all this futile shelling. Drew, in particular, loves this +cost-accounting business, and I must admit that much pleasure may be +had in it, after patrol. They rarely fire less than fifty shells at +us during a two-hour patrol. Making a low general average, the number +is nearer one hundred and fifty. On our present front, where aerial +activity is fairly brisk and the sector is a large one, three or four +hundred shells are wasted upon us often before we have been out an +hour. + +We have memories of all the good batteries from Flanders to the Vosges +Mountains. Battery after battery, we make their acquaintance along the +entire sector, wherever we go. Many of them, of course, are mobile, so +that we never lose the sport of searching for them. Only a few days +ago we located one of this kind which came into action in the open by +the side of a road. First we saw the flashes and then the shell-bursts +in the same cadence. We tipped up and fired at him in bursts of twenty +to thirty rounds, which is the only way airmen have of passing the +time of day with their friends, the enemy anti-aircraft gunners, who +ignore the art of _camouflage_. + +But we can converse with them, after a fashion, even though we do not +know their exact position. It will be long before this chapter of my +journal is in print. Having given no indication of the date of +writing, I may say, without indiscretion, that we are again on the +Champagne front. We have a wholesome respect for one battery here, a +respect it has justly earned by shooting which is really remarkable. +We talk of this battery, which is east of Rheims and not far distant +from Nogent l'Abbesse, and take professional pride in keeping its +gunners in ignorance of their fine marksmanship. We signal them their +bad shots--which are better than the good ones of most of the +batteries on the sector--by doing stunts, a barrel turn, a loop, two +or three turns of a _vrille_. + +As for their good shots, they are often so very good that we are +forced into acrobacy of a wholly individual kind. Our _avions_ have +received many scars from their shells. Between forty-five hundred and +five thousand metres, their bursts have been so close under us that we +have been lifted by the concussions and set down violently again at +the bottom of the vacuum; and this on a clear day when a _chasse_ +machine is almost invisible at that height, and despite its speed of +two hundred kilometres an hour. On a gray day, when we are flying +between twenty-five hundred and three thousand metres beneath a film +of cloud, they repay the honor we do them by our acrobatic turns. They +bracket us, put barrages between us and our own lines, give us more +trouble than all the other batteries on the sector combined. + +For this reason it is all the more humiliating to be forced to land +with motor trouble, just at the moment when they are paying off some +old scores. This happened to Drew while I have been writing up my +journal. Coming out of a tonneau in answer to three _coups_ from the +battery, his propeller stopped dead. By planing flatly (the wind was +dead ahead, and the area back of the first lines there is a wide one, +crossed by many intersecting lines of trenches) he got well over them +and chose a field as level as a billiard table for landing-ground. In +the very center of it, however, there was one post, a small worm-eaten +thing, of the color of the dead grass around it. He hit it, just as he +was setting his Spad on the ground, the only post in a field acres +wide, and it tore a piece of fabric from one of his lower wings. No +doubt the crack battery has been given credit for disabling an enemy +plane. The honor, such as it is, belongs to our aerial godfather, +among whose lesser vices may be included that of practical joking. + +The remnants of the post were immediately confiscated for firewood by +some _poilus_ who were living in a dugout near by. + + + + + IX + + "LONELY AS A CLOUD" + + +The French attack which has been in preparation for the past month is +to begin at dawn to-morrow. It has been hard, waiting, but it must +have been a great deal worse for the infantrymen who are billeted in +all of the surrounding villages. They are moving up to-night to the +first lines, for these are the shock troops who are to lead the +attack. They are chiefly regiments of Chasseurs--small men in stature, +but clean, hard, well-knit--splendid types. They talk of the attack +confidently. It is an inspiration to listen to them. Hundreds of them +have visited our aerodrome during the past week, mainly, I think, for +a glimpse of Whiskey and Soda, our lions, who are known to French +soldiers from one end of the line to the other. Whiskey is almost +full-grown, and Soda about the size of a wild cat. They have the +freedom of the camp and run about everywhere. + +The guns are thundering at a terrific rate, the concussions shaking +our barracks and rattling the dishes on the table. In the messroom the +gramophone is playing, "I'm going 'way back home and have a wonderful +time." Music at the front is sometimes a doubtful blessing. + +We are keyed up, some of us, rather nervous in anticipation of +to-morrow. Porter is trying to give Irving a light from his own +cigarette. Irving, who doesn't know the meaning of nerves, asks him +who in hell he is waving at. Poor old Porter! His usefulness as a +combat pilot has long past, but he hangs on, doing the best he can. He +should have been sent to the rear months ago. + +The first phase of the battle is over. The French have taken eleven +thousand prisoners, and have driven the enemy from all the hills down +to the low ground along the canal. For the most part, we have been too +high above them to see the infantry actions; but knowing the plans and +the objectives beforehand, we have been able to follow, quite closely, +the progress of the battle. + +It opened on a wet morning with the clouds very low. We were to have +gone on patrol immediately the attack commenced, but this was +impossible. About nine o'clock the rain stopped, and Rodman and Davis +were sent out to learn weather conditions over the lines. They came +back with the report that flying was possible at two hundred metres. +This was too low an altitude to serve any useful purpose, and the +commandant gave us orders to stand by. + +About noon the clouds began to break up, and both high and low patrols +prepared to leave the ground. Drew, Dunham, and I were on high patrol, +with Lieutenant Barry leading. Our orders were to go up through the +clouds, using them as cover for making surprise attacks upon enemy +_reglage_ machines. We were also to attack any enemy formations +sighted within three kilometres of their old first lines. The clouds +soon disappeared and so we climbed to forty-five hundred metres and +lay in wait for combat patrols. + +Barry sighted one and signaled. Before I had placed it, he dived, +almost full motor, I believe, for he dropped like a stone. We went +down on his tail and saw him attack the topmost of three Albatross +single-seaters. The other two dived at once, far into their own lines. +Dunham, Drew, and I took long shots at them, but they were far outside +effective range. The topmost German made a feeble effort to maneuver +for position. Barry made a _renversement_ with the utmost nicety of +judgment and came out of it about thirty metres behind and above the +Albatross. He fired about twenty shots, when the German began falling +out of control, spinning round and round, then diving straight, then +past the vertical, so that we could see the silver under-surface of +his wings and tail, spinning again until we lost sight of him.[1] + + [Footnote 1: This combat was seen from the ground, and + Barry's victory was confirmed before we returned to the + field.] + +Lieutenant Talbott joined us as we were taking our height again. He +took command of the patrol and Barry went off hunting by himself, as +he likes best to do. There were planes everywhere, of both +nationalities. Mounting to four thousand metres within our own lines, +we crossed over again, and at that moment I saw a Letord, a +three-passenger _reglage_ machine, burst into flames and fall. There +was no time either to watch or to think of this horrible sight. We +encountered a patrol of five Albatross planes almost on our level. +Talbott dived at once. I was behind him and picked a German who was +spiraling either upward or downward, for a few seconds I was not sure +which. It was upward. He was climbing to offer combat. This was +disconcerting. It always is to a green pilot. If your foe is running, +you may be sure he is at least as badly rattled as you are. If he is a +single-seater and climbing, you may be equally certain that he is not +a novice, and that he has plenty of sand. Otherwise he would not +accept battle at a disadvantage in the hope of having his inning next. + +I was foolish enough to begin firing while still about three hundred +metres distant. My opponent ungraciously offered the poorest kind of a +target, getting out of the range of my sights by some very skillful +maneuvering. I didn't want him to think that he had an inexperienced +pilot to deal with. Therefore, judging my distance very carefully, I +did a _renversement_ in the Lieutenant Barry fashion. But it was not +so well done. Instead of coming out of it above and behind the +German, when I pulled up in _ligne de vol_ I was under him! + +I don't know exactly what happened then, but the next moment I was +falling in a _vrille_ (spinning nose dive) and heard the well-known +crackling sound of machine-gun fire. I kept on falling in a _vrille_, +thinking this would give the German the poorest possible target.[2] + + [Footnote 2: A mistake which many new pilots make. In a + _vrille_, the machine spins pretty nearly on its own axis, + and although it is turning, a skillful pilot above it can + keep it fairly well within the line of his sights.] + +Pulling up in _ligne de vol_ I looked over my shoulder again. The +German had lost sight of me for a moment in the swiftness of his dive, +but evidently he saw me just before I pulled out of the _vrille_. He +was turning up for another shot, in exactly the same position in which +I had last seen him. And he was very close, not more than fifty metres +distant. + +I believed, of course, that I was lost; and why that German didn't bag +me remains a mystery. Heaven knows I gave him opportunity enough! In +the end, by the merciful intervention of Chance, our godfather, I +escaped. I have said that the sky had cleared. But there was one +strand of cloud left, not very broad, not very long; but a +refuge,--oh! what a welcome refuge! It was right in my path and I +tumbled into it, literally, head over heels. I came skidding out, but +pulled up, put on my motor, and climbed back at once; and I kept +turning round and round in it for several minutes. If the German had +waited, he must have seen me raveling it out like a cat tangled in a +ball of cotton. I thought that he was waiting. I even expected him to +come nosing into it, in search of me. In that case there would have +been a glorious smash, for there wasn't room for two of us. I almost +hoped that he would try this. If I couldn't bag a German with my gun, +the next best thing was to run into him and so be gathered to my +fathers while he was being gathered to his. There was no crash, and +taking sudden resolution, I dived vertically out of the cloud, head +over shoulder, expecting to see my relentless foe. He was nowhere in +sight. + +In that wild tumble, and while chasing my tail in the cloud, I lost my +bearings. The compass, which was mounted on a swinging holder, had +been tilted upside down. It stuck in that position. I could not get +it loose. I had fallen to six hundred metres, so that I could not get +a large view of the landscape. Under the continuous bombardment the +air was filled with smoke, and through it nothing looked familiar. I +knew the direction of our lines by the position of the sun, but I was +in a suspicious mood. My motor, which I had praised to the heavens to +the other pilots, had let me down at a critical moment. The sun might +be ready to play some fantastic trick. I had to steer by it, although +I was uneasy until I came within sight of our observation balloons. I +identified them as French by sailing close to one of them so that I +could see the tricolor pennant floating out from a cord on the bag. + +Then, being safe, I put my old Spad through every antic we two had +ever done together. The observers in the balloons must have thought me +crazy, a pilot running amuck from aerial shell shock. I had discovered +a new meaning for that "grand and glorious feeling" which is so often +the subject of Briggs's cartoons. + +Looking at my watch I received the same old start of surprise upon +learning how much of wisdom one may accumulate in a half-hour of +aerial adventure. I had still an hour and a half to get through with +before I could go home with a clear conscience. Therefore, taking +height again, I went cautiously, gingerly, watchfully, toward the +lines. + + + + + X + + "MAIS OUI, MON VIEUX!" + + +The "grand and glorious feeling" is one of the finest compensations +for this uncertain life in the air. One has it every time he turns +from the lines toward--home! It comes in richer glow, if hazardous +work has been done, after moments of strain, uncertainty, when the +result of a combat sways back and forth; and it gushes up like a +fountain, when, after making a forced landing in what appears to be +enemy territory, you find yourself among friends. + +Late this afternoon we started, four of us, with Davis as leader, to +make the usual two-hour sortie over the lines. No Germans were +sighted, and after an uneventful half-hour, Davis, who is always +springing these surprises, decided to stalk them in their lairs. The +clouds were at the right altitude for this, and there were gaps in +them over which we could hover, examining roads, railroads, villages, +cantonments. The danger of attack was negligible. We could easily +escape any large hostile patrol by dodging into the clouds. But the +wind was unfavorable for such a reconnaissance. It was blowing into +Germany. We would have it dead against us on the journey home. + +We played about for a half-hour, blown by a strong wind farther into +Germany than we knew. We walked down the main street of a village +where we saw a large crowd of German soldiers, spraying bullets among +them, then climbed into the clouds before a shot could be fired at us. +Later we nearly attacked a hospital, mistaking it for an aviation +field. It was housed in _bessonneau_ hangars, and had none of the +marks of a hospital excepting a large red cross in the middle of the +field. Fortunately we saw this before any of us had fired, and passed +on over it at a low altitude to attack a train. There is a good deal +of excitement in an expedition of this kind, and soldiers themselves +say that surprise sorties from the air have a demoralizing effect upon +troops. But as a form of sport, there is little to be said for it. It +is too unfair. For this reason, among others, I was glad when Davis +turned homeward. + +While coming back I climbed to five thousand metres, far above the +others, and lagged a long way behind them. This was a direct violation +of patrol discipline, and the result was, that while cruising +leisurely along, with motor throttled down, watching the swift changes +of light over a wide expanse of cloud, I lost sight of the group. Then +came the inevitable feeling of loneliness, and the swift realization +that it was growing late and that I was still far within enemy +country. + +I held a southerly course, estimating, as I flew, the velocity of the +wind which had carried us into Germany, and judging from this estimate +the length of time I should need to reach our lines. When satisfied +that I had gone far enough, I started down. Below the clouds it was +almost night, so dark that I could not be sure of my location. In the +distance I saw a large building, brilliantly lighted. This was +evidence enough that I was a good way from the lines. Unshielded +windows were never to be seen near the front. I spiraled slowly down +over this building, examining, as well as I could, the ground behind +it, and decided to risk a landing. A blind chance and blind luck +attended it. In broad day, Drew hit the only post in a field five +hundred metres wide. At night, a very dark night, I missed colliding +with an enormous factory chimney (a matter of inches), glided over a +line of telegraph wires, passed at a few metres' height over a field +littered with huge piles of sugar beets, and settled, _comme une +fleur_, in a little cleared space which I could never have judged +accurately had I known what I was doing. + +Shadowy figures came running toward me. Forgetting, in the joy of so +fortunate a landing, my anxiety of a moment before, I shouted out, +"Bonsoir, messieurs!" Then I heard some one say, "Ich glaube--" losing +the rest of it in the sound of tramping feet and an undercurrent of +low, guttural murmurs. In a moment my Spad was surrounded by a +widening circle of round hats, German infantrymen's hats. + +Here was the ignoble end to my career as an airman. I was a prisoner, +a prisoner because of my own folly, because I had dallied along like a +silly girl, to "look at the pretty clouds." I saw in front of me a +long captivity embittered by this thought. Not only this: my Spad was +intact. The German authorities would examine it, use it. Some German +pilot might fly with it over the lines, attack other French machines +with my gun, my ammunition! + +Not if I could help it! They stood there, those soldiers, gaping, +muttering among themselves, waiting, I thought, for an officer to tell +them what to do. I took off my leather gloves, then my silk ones under +them, and these I washed about in the oil under my feet. Then, as +quietly as possible, I reached for my box of matches. + +"Qu'est-ce-que vous faites la? Allez! Vite!" + +A tramping of feet again, and a sea of round hats bobbing up and down +and vanishing in the gloom. Then I heard a cheery "Ca va, monsieur? +Pas de mal?" By way of answer I lighted a match and held it out, torch +fashion. The light glistened on a round, red face and a long French +bayonet. Finally I said, "Vous etes Francais, monsieur?" in a weak, +watery voice. + +"Mais oui, mon vieux! Mais oui!" this rather testily. He didn't +understand at first that I thought myself in Germany. "Do I look like +a Boche?" + +Then I explained, and I have never heard a Frenchman laugh more +heartily. Then he explained and I laughed, not so heartily, a great +deal more foolishly. + +I may not give my location precisely. But I shall be disclosing no +military secrets in saying that I am not in Germany. I am not even in +the French war-zone. I am closer to Paris than I am to the enemy +first-line trenches. In a little while the sergeant with the round red +face and the long French bayonet, whose guest I am for the night, will +join me here. If he were an American, to the manner born and bred, and +if he knew the cartoons of that man Briggs, he might greet me in this +fashion:-- + +"When you have been on patrol a long way behind the enemy lines, +shooting up towns and camps and railway trains like a pack of aerial +cowboys; when, on your way home, you have deliberately disobeyed +orders and loafed a long way behind the other members of your group in +order to watch the pretty sunset, and, as a punishment for this +aesthetic indulgence, have been overtaken by darkness and compelled to +land in strange country, only to have your machine immediately +surrounded by German soldiers; then, having taken the desperate +resolve that they shall not have possession of your old battle-scarred +_avion_ as well as of your person, when you are about to touch a match +to it, if the light glistens on a long French bayonet and you learn +that the German soldiers have been prisoners since the battle of the +Somme, and have just finished their day's work at harvesting beets to +be used in making sugar for French _poilus_--Oh, BOY! Ain't it a GRAND +AND GLORYUS FEELING?" + +To which I would reply in his own memorable words,-- + +"Mais oui, mon vieux! Mais OUI!" + + + + + XI + + THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS + + +Nancy, a moonlight night, and "les sales Boches encore." I have been +out on the balcony of this old hotel, a famous tourist resort before +the war, watching the bombardment and listening to the deep throb of +the motors of German Gothas. They have dropped their bombs without +doing any serious damage. Therefore, I may return in peace to my huge +bare room, to write, while it is still fresh in mind, "The Adventure +of the Camouflaged Cows." + +For the past ten days I have been attached--it is only a temporary +transfer--to a French _escadrille_ of which Manning, an American, is a +member. The _escadrille_ had just been sent to a quiet part of the +front for two weeks' _repos_, but the day after my arrival orders came +to fly to Belfort, for special duty. + +Belfort! On the other side of the Vosges Mountains, with the Rhine +Valley, the Alps, within view, within easy flying distance! And for +special duty. It is a vague order which may mean anything. We +discussed its probable meaning for us, while we were pricking out our +course on our maps. + +"Protection of bombardment _avions_" was Andre's guess. "Night combat" +was Raynaud's. Every one laughed at this last hazard. "You see?" he +said, appealing to me, the newcomer. "They think I am big fool. But +wait." Then, breaking into French, in order to express himself more +fluently: "It is coming soon, _chasse de nuit_. It is not at all +impossible. One can see at night, a moonlight night, very clearly from +the air. They are black shadows, the other _avions_ which you pass, +but often, when the moonlight strikes their wings, they flash like +silver. We must have searchlights, of course; then, when one sees +those shadows, those great black Gothas, _vite! la lumiere!_ +Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop! C'est fini!" + +The discussion of the possibility or impossibility of night combat +continued warmly. The majority of opinion was unfavorable to it: a +useless waste of gasoline; the results would not pay for the wear and +tear upon valuable fighting planes. Raynaud was not to be persuaded. +"Wait and see," he said. There was a reminiscent thrill in his voice, +for he is an old night bombarding pilot. He remembered with longing, I +think, his romantic night voyages, the moonlight falling softly on the +roofs of towns, the rivers like ribbons of silver, the forests patches +of black shadow. "Really, it is an adventure, a night bombardment." + +"But how about your objectives?" I asked. "At night you can never be +sure of hitting them, and, well, you know what happens in French +towns." + +"It is why I asked for my transfer to _chasse_," he told me afterward. +"But the Germans, the blond beasts! Do they care? Nancy, Belfort, +Chalons, Epernay, Rheims, Soissons, Paris,--all our beautiful towns! I +am a fool! We must pay them back, the Huns! Let the innocent suffer +with the guilty!" + +He became a combat pilot because he had not the courage of his +conviction. + +We started in flights of five machines, following the Marne and the +Marne Canal to Bar-le-Duc, then across country to Toul, where we +landed to fill our fuel tanks. Having bestowed many favors upon me for +a remarkably long period, our aerial godfather decided that I had been +taking my good fortune too much for granted. Therefore, he broke my +tail skid for me as I was making what I thought a beautiful +_atterrissage_. It was late in the afternoon, so the others went on +without me, the captain giving orders that I should join them, weather +permitting, the next day. + +"Follow the Moselle until you lose it in the mountains. Then pick up +the road which leads over the Ballon d'Alsace. You can't miss it." + +I did, nevertheless, and as always, when lost, through my own fault. I +followed the Moselle easily enough until it disappeared in small +branching streams in the heart of the mountains. Then, being certain +of my direction, I followed an irregular course, looking down from a +great height upon scores of little mountain villages, untouched by +war. After weeks of flying over the desolation of more northerly +sectors of the front, this little indulgence seemed to me quite a +legitimate one. + +But my Spad (I was always flying tired old _avions_ in those days, the +discards of older pilots) began to show signs of fatigue. The pressure +went down. Neither motor nor hand pump would function, the engine +began to gasp, and, although I instantly switched on to my reserve +tank, it expired with shuddering coughs. The propeller, after making a +few spins in the reverse direction, stopped dead. + +I had been in a most comfortable frame of mind all the way, for a long +cross-country aerial journey, well behind the zone of fire, is a +welcome relaxation after combat patrols. It is odd how quickly one's +attitude toward rugged, beautiful country changes, when one is faced +with the necessity of finding landing-ground there. The steep ravines +yawn like mouths. The peaks of the mountains are teeth--ragged, +sinister-looking teeth. Being at five thousand metres I had ample time +in which to make a choice--ample time, too, for wondering if, by a +miscalculation, I had crossed the trench lines, which in that region +are hardly visible from the air. + +I searched anxiously for a wide valley where it would be possible to +land in safety. While still three thousand metres from the ground I +found one. Not only a field. There were _bessonneau_ hangars on it. An +aerodrome! A moment of joy,--"but German, perhaps!"--followed by +another of anxiety. It was quickly relieved by the sight of a French +reconnaissance plane spiraling down for a landing. I landed, too, and +found that I was only a ten-minutes' flight from my destination. + + * * * * * + +With other work to do, I did not finish the story of my adventure with +the camouflaged cows, and I am wondering now why I thought it such a +corking one. The cows had something to do with it. We were returning +from Belfort to Verdun when I met them. Our special duty had been to +furnish aerial protection to the King of Italy, who was visiting the +French lines in the Vosges. This done we started northward again. Over +the highest of the mountains my motor pump failed as before. I got +well past the mountains before the essence in my reserve tank gave +out. Then I planed as flatly as possible, searching for another +aviation field. There were none to be found in this region, rough, +hilly country, much of it covered with forests. I chose a miniature +sugar-loaf mountain for landing-ground. It appeared to be free from +obstacles, and the summit, which was pasture and ploughed land, seemed +wide enough to settle on. + +I got the direction of the wind from the smoke blowing from the +chimneys of a near-by village, and turned into it. As I approached, +the hill loomed more and more steeply in front of me. I had to pull up +at a climbing angle to keep from nosing into the side of it. About +this time I saw the cows, dozens of them, grazing over the whole +place. Their natural _camouflage_ of browns and whites and reds +prevented my seeing them earlier. Making spectacular _virages_, I +missed collisions by the length of a match-stick. At the summit of the +hill, my wheels touched ground for the first time, and I bounded on, +going through a three-strand wire fence and taking off a post without +any appreciable decrease in speed. Passing between two large apple +trees, I took limbs from each of them, losing my wings in doing so. My +landing chassis was intact and my Spad went on down the reverse +slope-- + + "Like an embodied joy, whose race is just begun." + +After crashing through a thicket of brush and small trees, I came to +rest, both in body and in mind, against a stone wall. There was +nothing left of my machine but the seat. Unscathed, I looked back +along the wreckage-strewn path, like a man who has been riding a +whirlwind in a wicker chair. + +Now, I have never yet made a forced landing in strange country without +having the mayor of the nearest village appear on the scene very soon +afterward. I am beginning to believe that the mayors of all French +towns sit on the roofs of their houses, field-glasses in hand, +searching the sky for wayward aviators, and when they see one landing, +they rush to the spot on foot, on horseback, in old-fashioned family +phaetons, by means of whatever conveyance most likely to increase +expedition their municipality affords. + +The mayor of V.-sur-I. came on foot, for he had not far to go. Indeed, +had there been one more cow browsing between the apple trees, I +should have made a last _virage_ to the left, in which case I should +have piled up against a summer pavilion in the mayor's garden. Like +all French mayors of my experience, he was a courteous, big-hearted +gentleman. + +After getting his breath,--he was a fleshy man, and had run all the +way from his house,--he said, "Now, my boy, what can I do for you?" + +First he placed a guard around the wreckage of my machine; then we had +tea in the summer pavilion, where I explained the reason for my sudden +visit. While I was telling him the story, I noticed that every window +of the house, which stood at one end of the garden, was crowded with +children's heads. War orphans, I guessed. Either that or the children +of a large family of sons at the front. He was the kind of man who +would take them all into his own home. + +Having frightened his cows,--they must have given cottage cheese for a +week afterward,--destroyed his fences, broken his apple trees, +accepted his hospitality, I had the amazing nerve to borrow money from +him. I had no choice in the matter, for I was a long way from Verdun, +with only eighty centimes in my pocket. Had there been time I would +have walked rather than ask him for the loan. He granted it gladly, +and insisted upon giving me double the amount which I required. + +I promised to go back some day for a visit. First I will do acrobacy +over the church steeple, and then, if the cows are not in the pasture, +I am going to land, _comme une fleur_, as we airmen say, on that +hill. + + + + + XII + + CAFARD + + +It is mid-January, snowing, blowing, the thermometer below zero. We +have done no flying for five days. We have read our most recent +magazines from cover to cover, including the advertisements, many of +which we find more interesting, better written, than the stories. We +have played our latest phonograph record for the five hundred and +ninety-eighth time. Now we are hugging our one stove, which is no +larger than a length of good American stove-pipe, in the absurd hope +of getting a fleeting promise of heat. + +Boredom, insufferable boredom. There is no American expression--there +will be soon, no doubt--for this disease which claims so many victims +from the Channel coast to the borders of Switzerland. The British have +it without giving it a name. They say "Fed up and far from home." The +more inventive French call it "Cafard." + +Our outlook upon life is warped, or, to use a more seasonable +expression, frozen. We are not ourselves. We make sarcastic remarks +about one another. We hold up for ridicule individual peculiarities of +individuality. Some one, tiring of this form of indoor sports, starts +the phonograph again. + + Wind, wind, wind (the crank) + Kr-r-r-r-r-r-r (the needle on the disk) + La-dee-dum, dee-doodle, di-dee-day (the orchestral introduction) + + Sometimes when I feel sad + And things look blue, + I wish the boy I had + Was one like you-- + +"For the love of Pete! Shut off that damn silly thing!" + +"I admire your taste, Irving!" + +"Can it!" + +"Well, what will you have, then?" + +"Play that Russian thing, the 'Danse des Buffons.'" + +"Don't play anything." + +"Lord! I wish some one would send us some new records." + +"Yes, instead of knitted wristers--what?" + +"And mufflers." + +"Talking about wristers, how many pair do you think I've received? +Eight!" + +"You try to head 'em off. Doesn't do any good. They keep coming just +the same." + +"It's because they are easy to make. Working wristers and mufflers is +a method of dodging the knitting draft." + +"Well, now, I call that gratitude! You don't deserve to have any +friends." + +"Isn't it the truth? Have you ever known of a soldier or an aviator +who wore wristers?" + +"I give mine to my mechanician. He sends them home, and his wife +unravels the yarn and makes sweaters for the youngsters." + +"Think of the waste energy. Harness up the wrist-power and you could +keep three aircraft factories going day and night." + +"Oh, well, if it amuses the women, what's the difference?" + +"That's not the way to look at it. They ought to be doing something +useful." + +"Plenty of them are; don't forget that, old son." + +"Anybody got anything to read?" + +"Now, if they would send us more books--" + +"And magazines--" + +"Two weeks ago, Blake, you were wishing they wouldn't send so many." + +"What of it? We were having fine weather then." + +"There ought to be some system about sending parcels to the front." + +"The Germans have it, they say. Soldier wants a book, on engineering, +for example, or a history, or an anthology of recent poetry. Gets it +at once through Government channels." + +"Say what you like about the Boches, they don't know the meaning of +waste energy." + +"But you can't have method and efficiency in a democracy." + +"There you go! Same old fallacy!" + +"No fallacy about it! Efficiency and personal freedom don't go +together. They never have and they never will." + +"And what does our personal freedom amount to? When you get down to +brass tacks, personal freedom is a mighty poor name for it, speaking +for four fifths of the population." + +"Germany doesn't want it, our brand, and we can't force it on her." + +"And without it, she has a mighty good chance of winning this war--" + +When the talk begins with the uselessness of wristers, shifts from +that to democratic inefficiency, and from that to the probability of +_Deutschland ueber Alles_, you may be certain of the diagnosis. The +disease is _cafard_. + +The sound of a motor-car approaching. Dunham rushes to the window and +then swears, remembering our greased-cloth window panes. + +"Go and see who it is, Tiffin, will you? Hope it's the mail orderly." + +Tiffin goes on outpost and reports three civilians approaching. + +"Now, who can they be, I wonder?" + +"Newspaper men probably." + +"Good Lord! I hope not." + +"Another American mission." + +"That's my guess, too." + +Rodman is right. It is another American mission coming to "study +conditions" at the front. + +"But unofficially, gentlemen, quite unofficially," says Mr. A., its +head, a tall, melancholy-looking man, with a deep, bell-like voice. +Mr. B., the second member of the mission, is in direct contrast, a +birdlike little man, who twitters about the room, from group to group. + +"Oh! If you boys only knew how _splendid_ you are! How much we in +America--You are our _first_ representatives at the front, you know. +You are the vanguard of the _millions_ who--" etc. + +Miller looks at me solemnly. His eyes are saying, "How long, O Lord, +how long!" + +Mr. C., the third member, is a silent man. He has keen, deep-set eyes. +"There," we say, "is the brain of the mission." + +Tea is served very informally. Mr. A. is restless. He has something on +his mind. Presently he turns to Lieutenant Talbott. + +"May I say a few words to your squadron?" + +"Certainly," says Talbott, glancing at us uneasily. + +Mr. A. rises, steps behind his chair, clears his throat, and looks +down the table where ten pilots,--the others are taking a +constitutional in the country,--caught in negligee attire by the +unexpected visitors, are sitting in attitudes of polite attention. + +"My friends--" the deep, bell-like voice. In fancy, I hear a great +shifting of chairs, and following the melancholy eyes with my own, +over the heads of my ten fellow pilots, beyond the limits of our poor +little messroom, I see a long vista of polished shirt fronts, a +diminishing track of snowy linen, shimmering wineglasses, shining +silver. + +"My friends, believe me when I say that this occasion is one of the +proudest and happiest of my life. I am standing within sound of the +guns which for three--long--years have been battering at the bulwarks +of civilization. I hear them, as I utter these words, and I look into +the faces of a little group of Americans who, day after day, and week +after week" (increasing emphasis) "have been facing those guns for the +honor and glory of democratic institutions" (rising inflection). + +"We in America have heard them, faintly, perhaps, yet unmistakably, +and now I come to tell you, in the words of that glorious old war +song, 'We are coming, Father Woodrow, ONE HUN-DRED MIL-LION strong!'" + +We listen through to the end, and Lieutenant Talbott, in his official +capacity, begins to applaud. The rest of us join in timidly, +self-consciously. I am surprised to find how awkwardly we do it. We +have almost forgotten how to clap our hands! My sense of the spirit of +place changes suddenly. I am in America. I am my old self there, with +different thoughts, different emotions. I see everything from my old +point of view. I am like a man who has forgotten his identity. I do +not recover my old, or, better, my new one, until our guests have +gone. + + * * * * * + + FROM A LETTER RECEIVED IN BOSTON, OCTOBER 1, 1918 + + OFFIZIERS-KRIEGSGEFANGENEN LAGER, + KARLSRUHE, BADEN, DEUTSCHLAND + _July 27, 1918_ + +I've been wondering about the ultimate fate of my poor old "High +Adventure" story, whether it was published without those long promised +concluding chapters which I really should have sent on had I not had +the misfortune to be taken prisoner. I hope the book has been +published, incomplete as it is. Not that I am particularly proud of +it as a piece of literature! + +I told you briefly, on my card, how I happened to be taken prisoner. +We were a patrol of three and attacked a German formation at some +distance behind their lines. I was diving vertically on an Albatross +when my upper right plane gave way under the strain. Fortunately, the +structure of the wing did not break. It was only the fabric covering +it, which ripped off in great strips. I immediately turned toward our +lines and should have reached them, I believe, even in my crippled +condition; but by that time I was very low and under a heavy fire from +the ground. A German anti-air craft battery made a direct hit on my +motor. It was a terrific smash and almost knocked the motor out of the +frame. My machine went down in a spin and I had another of those +moments of intense fear common to the experience of aviators. Well, by +Jove! I hardly know how I managed it, but I kept from crashing nose +down. I struck the ground at an angle of about 30 degrees, the motor, +which was just hanging on, spilled out, and I went skidding along, +with the fuselage of the machine, the landing chassis having been +snapped off as though the braces were so many toothpicks. One of my +ankles was broken and the other one sprained, and my poor old nose +received and withstood a severe contact with my wind-shield. I've been +in hospital ever since until a week ago, when I was sent to this +temporary camp to await assignment to a permanent one. I now hobble +about fairly well with the help of a stick, although I am to be a lame +duck for several months to come, I believe. + +Needless to say, the lot of a prisoner of war is not a happy one. The +hardest part of it is, of course, the loss of personal liberty. Oh! I +shall know how to appreciate that when I have it again. But we are +well treated here. Our quarters are comfortable and pleasant, and the +food as good as we have any right to expect. My own experience as a +prisoner of war and that of all the Frenchmen and Englishmen here with +whom I have talked, leads me to believe that some of those tales of +escaped or exchanged prisoners must have been highly imaginative. Not +that we are enjoying all the comforts of home. On the contrary, a +fifteen-cent lunch at a Child's restaurant would seem a feast to me, +and a piece of milk chocolate--are there such luxuries as chocolate in +the world? But for prisoners, I for one, up to this point, have no +complaint to make with respect to our treatment. We have a splendid +little library here which British and French officers who have +preceded us have collected. I didn't realize, until I saw it, how +book-hungry I was. Now I'm cramming history, biography, essays, +novels. I know that I'm not reading with any judgment but I'll soon +settle down to a more profitable enjoyment of my leisure. Yesterday +and to-day I've been reading "The Spoils of Poynton," by Henry James. +It is absurd to try cramming these. I've been longing for this +opportunity to read Henry James, knowing that he was Joseph Conrad's +master. "The Spoils of Poynton" has given me a foretaste of the +pleasure I'm to have. A prisoner of war has his compensations. Here +I've come out of the turmoil of a life of the most intense nervous +excitement, a life lived day to day with no thought of to-morrow, +into this other life of unlimited bookish leisure. + +We are like monks in a convent. We're almost entirely out of touch +with the outside world. We hear rumors of what is taking place at the +front, and now and then get a budget of stale news from newly arrived +prisoners. But for all this we are so completely out of it all that it +seems as though the war must have come to an end. Until now this +cloistered life has been very pleasant. I've had time to think and to +make plans for a future which, comparatively speaking, seems assured. +One has periods of restlessness, of course. When these come I console +myself as best I may. Even for prisoners of war there are +possibilities for quite interesting adventure, adventure in +companionship. Thrown into such intimate relationships as we are here, +and under these peculiar circumstances, we make rather surprising +discoveries about ourselves and about each other. There are obvious +superficial effects which I can trace back to causes quite easily. But +there are others which have me guessing. By Jove! this is an +interesting place! Conrad would find material here which would set +him to work at once. I can imagine how he would revel in it. + +Well, I'm getting to be a very wise man. I'm deeply learned in many +kinds, or, better, phases, of human psychology and I'm increasing my +fund of knowledge every day. Therefore, I've decided that, when the +war is over, I'll be no more a wanderer. I'll settle down in Boston +for nine months out of the year and create deathless literature. And +for vacations, I've already planned the first one, which is to be a +three months' jaunt by aeroplane up and down the United States east +and west, north and south. You will see the possibilities of adventure +in a trip of this sort. By limiting myself somewhat as to itinerary I +can do the thing. I've found just the man here to share the journey +with, an American in the British Air Force. He is enthusiastic about +the plan. If only I can keep him from getting married for a year or so +after getting home! + +I had a very interesting experience, immediately after being taken +prisoner on May 7th. I was taken by some German aviators to their +aerodrome and had lunch with them before I was sent on to the +hospital. Some of them spoke English and some of them French, so that +there was no difficulty in conversing. I was suffering a good deal +from my twisted ankles and had to be guarded in my remarks because of +the danger of disclosing military information; but they were a fine +lot of fellows. They respected my reticence, and did all they could to +make me comfortable. It was with pilots from this squadron that we had +been fighting only an hour or so before. One of their number had been +killed in the combat by one of the boys who was flying with me. I sat +beside the fellow whom I was attacking when my wing broke. I was right +"on his tail," as we airmen say, when the accident occurred, and had +just opened fire. Talking over the combat with him in their pleasant +quarters, I was heartily glad that my affair ended as it did. I asked +them to tell me frankly if they did not feel rather bitterly toward me +as one of an enemy patrol which had shot down a comrade of theirs. +They seemed to be surprised that I had any suspicions on this score. +We had "a fair fight in an open field." Why should there be any +bitterness about the result. One of them said to me, "Hauptmann, +you'll find that we Germans are enemies of a country in war, but never +of the individual." My experience thus far leads me to believe that +this is true. There have been a few exceptions, but they were +uneducated common soldiers. Bitterness toward America there certainly +is everywhere, and an intense hatred of President Wilson quite equal +in degree and kind to the hatred in America of the emperor.... + + NORMAN HALL. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of High Adventure, by James Norman Hall + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGH ADVENTURE *** + +***** This file should be named 24570.txt or 24570.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/7/24570/ + +Produced by Kevin Handy, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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