 CHAPTER IV. AT GDE Somewhere to the north of Paris, in the zone des Armies, there is a village known to all aviators in the French service as GDE. It is the village through which pilots who have completed their training at the aviation school 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, Dru and I, at the hotel de la Bonne Rinnecarte, which belies its name in the most villainous fashion. An inn at Rochester in the days of Henry IV 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 escalade off yet, many Americans have lodged here while awaiting their orders for active service. As I write, JV 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. Badam Rodel is to keep careful record of all its American occupants, just as she has done in the past. She has 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 or judging by the other furniture in our apartment. Drew is not sentimental, but he sometimes carries sentiment to extremes which appear to me absurd. When I attempt to define even to myself the charm of our adventures thus far, I find it impossible. I'll 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 incivity. They should show not the faintest trace of where. 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, 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 pledging aviator in particular, often runs a whole gamut of human feeling during a single flight. I did in the course of half an hour. Reaching the high sea 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 broomstick, as the control is called which governs aereons 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 three hours' walk distance from each other, but in the air I was free to go wither 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 cauldron barely missed colliding with a hedge of fruit trees, rolled down along 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'd needn't have landed, of course, but I was then so much an amateur that the buffeting of the cross currents of air nearer the ground awed me into it. Come what might, the village was out of sight over the crest of the hill. However thinking that someone 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 pair of shops of children dancing the very embodiment of joy and movement. He turned and waved to someone 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 engaged 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 game, I'm sure. I was mighty impressed with the high illness 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 conflections. As for the young girls, many of them were exceptionally pretty, and the children were sturdy youngsters, not the one 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. Someone pushed through the crowd, and to my great relief began speaking to me. It was Monsour, 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 moments thought he said, was estate Anglis Monsour. With a smile of very real pleasure, I said, No, Monsour, American. The magic word. What potency it has in France. The more so at the 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 of 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 seat and showed them how to manage the controls. The astonishing thing to me was that while this village was not twenty kilometers off the much frequent and air rod between sea and air, mine was the first aeroplane which most of them had seen. During long months at various aviation schools, pilots grew accustomed to thinking that aircraft were 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, opportunally, 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, brother, it is because they are in such contrast to any that we have 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 aeronauts shot it, let her 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 to 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 shades over their great billowing folds. Sometimes I skirted them so closely that the current of air from my propeller ravelled 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, unaccountable change of feeling, which shades off into a kind of dull, colorless depression. I passed the twin motor cauldron going in the opposite direction. It was fantastically painted, the wings upright yellow, and the circular hoods over the two motors of 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 the 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 wrap in mid-ocean. Underlying this feeling, and no doubt part of 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 internal and exhorable 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 and 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 hangers and machine shops of the aviation school. My joy when I saw them can only be appreciated and 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 Baravet Monitor had not 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, business-like step. As I climbed down from my machine, I swallowed to clear the passage to my ears and heard him say, Avois ca va, in a most disappointingly functionary tone of voice. I nodded. Where's your biograph? My biograph. It is the altitude registering instrument which also marks on a cross-line chart the time consumed on each lap of an aerial voyage. My card should have shown four neat outlines in ink, something like this, 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 I 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, this said unmistakably, you poor, simple prune. You choice sample of moly American cheese. J.B. didn't return until the following afternoon, after leaving me overseas. He had blown out two spark plugs. For a while he limped along on six cylinders, then landed in a field three kilometers 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 historic illusion, this time with a French revolutionary setting. He says not, however. All his faculties were concentrated on 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, as shown to be 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 backwarded by the mayor. Although he had nearly run him down a few hours earlier and had ruined forever his reputation of the man of dignified bearing, but the mayor was not alone in his forced display of unseemly haste. Many other town people, long past the nibbleness of youth, rushed for shelter and pried Goeth before a collision with a wayward aeroplane. Jackson said the sky rained hats, market baskets, and wooden shoes for five minutes after he's beloyte had come to rest on the steps of the Bureau d. Poste. And no one was hurt. Murphy's defective motor provided him with the names and addresses of every possible and impossible, Marianne in the town of Y, near which he was compelled to land. While waiting for the arrival of his mechanic, 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 have an aviator as a filibur. They covered the wings of his avion with messages and pencil. The least pointed of these hints were, et chevez l'apportant possible, and, je vendes bien un vieil americain, traise général comme évo, Matthew's byplane crashed through the roof of a camp bakery. Had he practiced this unusual aterosage 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 flower could make them. The commandant of the camp rushed in. Yes, what have you done with the corpse? The bread-bakers pointed to Matthew's. 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, the gasoline was scarce. After laborious search through several navy-earing 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, the all-ed-lose, the bluit-poised mat, 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 the air, like a duck hunting bugs in the mud. The story loses nine-tenths of its interest for want of Mac's pungent method of telling it. One of the bonafide god-children of chance was millered. The circumstances leading to his engagement in the French service as a member of the Franco-American Corps proves this. Millered 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 rustabout on cattle-boats. He had boiled his coffee down by stockyards in every sizable town in 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. A roofing job fell through, owing so Millered insisted through the unnatural and inevitable depression which follows a dry election. Having lost his perspective employment as a roofer, what more natural than that he should turn to this other high calling. He was gain, he tried hard, and at last reached his brevet test. Three times he started off on triangles. No one expected to see him return, but he surprised him 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 on itself, and Millered would crawl out from under the wreckage and come back by train. I don't know, he would say doggly, 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 boxcar with the train going hell-bent for election, but I guess I'm too old to learn to fry. The War Office came to this opinion after Millered 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. JB's motor behaved splendidly, I remembered my biograph at every stage of the journey, and we were home again within three hours. We did our altitude test, and were then no longer Elevis pilots, but pilots aviators. By reason of this distinction we passed from the rank of soldier of the second class to that of corporal. At the tailor shop the wings and star insignia were sewn upon our collars, and our corporal stripes upon our sleeves. For we were proud as every aviator's proud, who reaches the end of his apprenticeship and enters into the dignity of a reverend military pilot. Six months have passed since I made the last entry in my journal. JB was asleep in his historic bed, and I was sitting at a rickety table, riding by candlelight, stopping now and then to listen to the mutter of guns on the Ains 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 November. I arrived at Guerre du Nord. Only a few hours ago, never before, had I come to Paris with a finer sense of the joy of living. I walked down the Rue Lafayette, through the Rue des Provences, the Rue du Havre, to a little hotel in the vicinity of the Guerre Saint Laurent. 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 in my life. I saw everything with the eyes of the permissioneer, and sniffed the orders 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 of the Madeleine to the Place de la République, through the maze of narrow streets to the river and over to Pointe-Nyap, to Notre-Dame. I was surprised at 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 bravettes, militaries, 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 to Importance, was the last phase of our training, and the culmination of it all. At the school of Aquabesie, preliminary to our work there, we had a sixth week course of instruction, first on the Twin Motor Calderon, and then on various types of Newport Byplane. We thought to Calderon 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 Calderon had almost passed its period of usefulness at the front, and there was a prospect of our being transferred to a yet larger and more powerful, the Tord, a three-passenger biplane carrying two machine gunners beside 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-chase, we eventually followed the usual course of training for such pilots. We passed in turn to the Newport biplane, which compares in speed and grace with those larger craft as the flight of a swallow with the movements of a great lazy buzzard. And now the Newport has been surpassed and almost entirely supplanted by the SPAD of 140, 180, 200, and 230 horsepower, and we have transferred our allegiance to each in turn, marvelling 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 untrained 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 forecast of our ability as acrobats. There was JB, 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 resemblet. 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 nosedive, accidents and fatalities were most frequent at the school of acrobacy, for the reason that one could not know beforehand. Rather, he would be able to keep his head, when 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 had 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 posts, and the crows caw in sullen despair from the hedgerows. At GDE, while awaiting our call to the front, we perfected ourselves in these maneuvers and practiced them in combat and group plying. 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. JB and I saw it in all its moods. In the haze of early morning, at bid day when the air had been washed clean by spring rains, in the soft light of afternoon, domes, theatres, temples, spires, streets, parks, the rivers, bridges, all of it spread out in magnificent panorama. We would circle over Montmore, nearly, the boys sink loud, 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 aviants, pushers and tractors, single motor and bimotor, mono place, biplace and triplace, mono plane and biplane. And we mingled with the pilots of all these many kinds of aircraft. They were arriving and departing by every train for GTE. 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 GDE 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 was 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 Bonne. Suzanne, the maid of all work at the Bonne du Carnet, 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 est pierre, » said Suzanne. « We're posted, » said JB. « Et hélène, » she continued. I shall never know the names of the others. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of High Adventure A Narrative of Airfighting in France By James Norman Hall This is a LibreVox recording. All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Recording by Mike Vendetti MikeVendetti.com High Adventure A Narrative of Airfighting in France By James Norman Hall Chapter 5 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 the 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 accumulation 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 pernician-on-years 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. "'Doesn't fare,' said J.B. It is going toward Delux. These old bullies ought to be their aviators, but hang it all. Of course, they couldn't be. Aviation is a young man's business. It was 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-bosh! We hurried to the door of the cafe, where we had been hiding. Officers were ordering the crowds off the street. Very along there, undercover. Oh! I know that you're brave I know that you're brave enough to mawn and fawn. It isn't that. He's not to see only soldiers here. That's the reason. A-la-dvoo! 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 among those not here,' one of them said, pointing to the white echelonments. You see that said another? He's a-bosh, 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 easy enough, the return home is a different matter. Telephones are busy from the moment lines are crossed, and a hostile patrol to say nothing of a lone avion will be fortunate if he 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 it northward again. Don and my miller came to greet us. We had all four been in 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 tauntness 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 had five hundred dollars over the lines. You don't know what that means, not yet. I'm no good any more. It's drain. Make you some vise. Save your nervous energy. You will need all you have and more. Above everything else I don't think at the front. The best pilot is the best machine. Dunham was talking about patrols to 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, Hootie hootie dum-dye. 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 kind of a standing joke. You think now that four hours a day over the lines is a light program. 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, It's all rot. You fellows are having it too soft. They ought to put you on the school regime again. Let them talk, Dunham. They know JB says it's laziness. Let it go with 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 the questioning and, thanks to his interest, I got many hints about our work, which came back opportunally afterward. Think down to the gunners. That will help a lot. It's a game after that. You're a skill against theirs. I couldn't do it at first, and Shell Fire seemed absolutely damnable. And you want to remember that a chase machine is almost never brought down by anti-aircraft fire. You're too fast for them. You can fool them in a thousand ways. I had been flying for two weeks before I saw a Bosch. They were 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, JB. Don't be too anxious to mix it up 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 Bosch 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. Now, as I was saying, 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 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. And to a virail 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 further down. Next time I looked, the five Bosches, or six whichever it was, had all been ravelled out by the wind. That's for that's due of us. You may have heard about Franklin's Bosch. He got hit during his first combat. He didn't know there was a German in the sky until he saw the tracer bullets. Then the machine passed him about thirty meters 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. Inchace, unless you are sent out on a definite mission, protecting photographic machines or avianity bombardment, 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 did never have a fight. At two hundred kilometers 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 tail 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 towards Germany and call it a combat. Oh, he can find plenty of excuses. And he can get away with him. That's spreading it, Dunham. What about Houston? Is he getting away with it? No, don't let's get personal. Very likely Houston 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 puck, above every other man in the squadron. What about Talbot and Barry? Lord, they haven't any nerves. It's no job for them to do their work well. This conversation continued until 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. Houston 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 Eskradale, 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 it to it by some newspaper correspondence. 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 wasn't an astonishing total. The daily average was so high that, granting it to be correct, America might safely have abandoned her far-reaching aerial program, 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 smoldering ruin on the war-devastated planes 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 Eskradale 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 George Tenot, the valiant leader of the Eskradale Lafayette. Upon the morning when news was received that the United States of America had declared war upon rulers of Potham. 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 USA sprang into their trim little by planes. 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, of how far back of the German line they encountered a formidable battle squadron of the enemy, vastly superior to their own 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 sat hurdling 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 half 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 standards set by our fellow Americans who had preceded us on active service. We were in part reassured during our first afternoon at the front. Yet 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 Escadal Lafayette was one of four pursuit squadrons occupying hangars on the same field, and that, together, these formed what is called a group 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, patrol the lines, harass the enemy, attacking whenever possible, thus giving protection to their own corps d'armées 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 depth 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 goodwill, 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 the 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 a tenant in a natural history museum. Only a few minutes before these men had been taking part in aerial battles, attacking infantry and trenches, or enemy transport on roads fifteen or twenty kilometers 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 rot of the air. For when weather permitted, there was an interlaping 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 so pieced together that the hole 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 explosive, 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 foreboding interest to the student of the future. Whereas he reads of the battles on the Assene, the Somme, or 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 the 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 advance 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 mess room steward, was standing by my cot with a lighted candle in his hand. The furrows of his kindly old face were outlined in shadow. His bald head gleamed, like the bottom of a yellow bowl, he said. Quamontense, Massura. 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 mess room, where a fire was going. Someone started the phonograph. Ritz Kreisler was playing chassonne, sand, perones. This was followed by a song, O Movin' Man, Don't Take My Baby Grand. It was a strange combination, and to hear them at that hour of the morning. Before going out for a first sortay over the lines gave me a mixed-up feeling, which it is impossible to analyze. Two patrols were to leave the field at the same time, one to cover a sector at an altitude of from 2,000 to 3,000 meters, the other 3,500 to 5,000 meters. 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 Talbot, who was leading our patrol, to volunteer his instructions. He went to the door to look at the weather. There were clouds at about 3,000 meters, but the stars were shining through gaps in them, on the horizon in the direction of the lines, broad belt of blue sky. The wind was blowing into Germany. He came back yawning, we'll go up, oh, 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 other 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. JB and I were the only ones fully awake. We had finished our chocolate and were watching the clock uneasily, afraid that we would be late getting started. Ten minutes before patrol time we went out to the field, the canvas hangers billowed and flapped, and the wooden supports creaked with a quiet sound made by ships at sea. And there was almost peace of the sea there, intensified, if anything, by the distant rumble of heavy cannonating. Our spat pipelines were drawn up in two long rows outside the hangers. They were in exact alignment, wing to wing. Some of them were clean and new, others discolored with smoke and oil. Among those latter were the ones which JB 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 core, 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 it could be easily seen and recognized in the air. The Mechanicans were getting the motors in route, alarming the machine guns and giving a final polish to the glass of the windshields. In a moment every machine was turning over, ralente, 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 the lozen-shaped breathing hole and slanted openings covered with yellow glasses for eyes. He was the most faintish-looking demon of them all. I was glad to turn from him to the Duke, who wore a passe-bon tanger 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 Durman'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 Talbot 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 at 2,000 over-field, he yelled. I nodded. No, me. Big T. Wing's fuselage. I'll be turning right. You and the others left. When see me, start lines, fall 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 a field. Mechanic and 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 sped, lifted its tail and gathered plying 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, Talbot headed northeast, the rest of us falling into our places behind him. Then I found, despite the new motor, my machine was not a rapid climber. Talbot noticed this and kept me well in the group, he and the others losing height, in reversements and return tournaments, 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 sideways 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-chase. I was close to Talbot 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 and fiery lands forlorn. The sun was just rising in the floor of cloud gathered with delicate shades of rose and emethyst and gold. I saw the others rising through it, at wildly 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 the bursting of shells. At that time the Germans were making trials of the French positions along the Sherman-de-Dames, and the artillery fire was unusually heavy. The lights soon faded, and the long winding battlefront emerged from the shadow. A broad strip of desert land through a fair green country. We turned westward, along the sector, several kilometers 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 Malmécien was a minute square, not as large as a posty stamp. With thumb and forefinger I could have spanned the distance between Cissons and Lyon. Clouds of smoke were arising from Alamont to Crayon, and these were constantly added to by infinitesimal puffs in black and white. I knew that shells of enormous caliber were wrecking trenches, bursting 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 Pardes 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, 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 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 turn 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 Canyon. 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, and 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 I ended I redressed and put on my motor. My altimeter registered two thousand meters 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 meters 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 out a aircraft fire. Talbot 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 regular 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 them 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 I lost control of my machine for a moment. Three others followed, two in front and one behind, which I believe have direct my tail. They burst with a terrific, rending, sound in clouds of cold 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 escalements and had heard the shells popping faintly with a sound like the bursting of steed 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 man let loose in war. In that moment one doesn't remember that men have loosed him. He is alone. And he sees the face of an utterly evil thing. Milder'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, mambous, tins. Comment, cowboy? Ah, non, just jes, praise. Or something like that. It amuses me. This need of some means of humanizing shellfire is common. Aviators know little of modern warfare as it touches the infantrymen. 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 science which in a way fills this need, one may waggle his flappers 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 meters and saw me all the time, although I didn't know this until later. Talbot's instructions were, if you'll 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, west, 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, and trying to find a way out of the collectiments I was getting further and further away from home and coming within range of additional batteries of hostile anti-aircraft guns. I might have landed at Carve-Truth 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 Concorde 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 eye 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. Dumb it is. 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 boy. I yielded the point to save further argument. He had come swooping down fairly suddenly, when I saw him making his way so saucidly among the assailments. 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 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 ordinance 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 won an opportunity, and I bungled it, through being too eager. When was this? Just after the others dove, you remember? I told him briefly at 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 meters 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 him crashing into him. Up I went and fell into a nosedive. Then 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 I'm not a word of this to anyone. But there was no need for secrecy. The near combat had been seen by both Talbot and Porter, and at luncheon we both came in for our share of ragging. You should have seen them following us down, said Porter, like two old romantics going to the subway. We saw them both when we were taking height again. The scrap was over hours before, and they were still a thousand meters away. You want to dive vertically. You needn't worry about your old bus. You'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 each 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 millitour was firing at us after that. When he had the chance of a lifetime he fell into a virile 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 splish, the Bosch got in the way. All this happened months ago. But every trifling incident connected with our first patrol is still in mind. And twenty years from now, if I have a chance to hear, chaisons don sparrows, or if I hum to myself a few bars of a ballad, then sure to be long forgotten by the world at large. Oh, moving man, don't take my baby grand. I shall have only to close my eyes and wait passively. First Tiffin will come with a lighted candle. Votemps, Monsour. I shall hear Talbot shouting. Rendez-vous, two thousand over-field. If get lost, better home. J.B. will rush up smoking the cork into his 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 order 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. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of High Adventure, a Narrative of Air Fighting in France by James Norman Hall. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Coming by Mike Vendetti, MikeVendetti.com. High Adventure, a Narrative of Air Fighting in France by James Norman Hall. Chapter 6 A Balloon Attack I'm looking for two balloon attics, said Talbot, as he came into the mess-room, and I think I've found them. Percy, Talbot's orderly, tiffin' the steward, drew an eye with 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 Esquadal Lafayette. These two being eliminated, the identity of the balloon attics was plain. The orders have just come, Talbot added, and I decided that the first men I met after leaving the Bureau would be the balloon attics. Virtue has gone into both of you, now. If you can make fire come out of a blanched 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 umpteenth day of June, the escalades of Group de Combat Blanc, that's ours, will co-operate in an attack on the German observation balloons along the sector extending from X to Y. The patrols to be furnished are, one, two patrols of protection of five avions each by the escalades, Spa 87 and Spa 12, two, four patrols of attack of three avions each by the Esquadals, 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 3,500 meters. 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 1,600 meters, each patrol making in a direct line for the balloon assigned to it. Numbers one and two of each of these patrols will carry rockets. Number three will fly immediately above them, offering further protection in case of attack by enemy aircraft. Number one of each patrol will first attack the balloon. If he fails, number two will attack. If number one is successful, number two will then attack the observers in their parachutes. If number one fails and number two is successful, number three will attack the observers. The patrol will then proceed to the aerodrome by the shortest route. Squadron commanders will make a return before noon today 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 one and two 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. Art of the Army marks, said Talbot, as if he had been reading the minutes at a debating club meeting. Yes, said JB. When is the umpteenth of June? Ah, mon vioks. 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 one. That's right, Drew. How would you like to be the first rocketeer? No ejection, said JB, grinning as if the frenzy of balloon attacking had already gone into his blood. Right, that's settled. I'll see your mechanicals 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, Yvonne. I've been there. I've seen it and I know. Does them all good to see a sausage brought down? There's another one of their eyes knocked out, I'd say. Percy is right, said JB. As we've been 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. Why 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 polis 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 meters. At that height it can be seen by men on the ground within a radius of fan 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 the front. But supposing we should miss our sausage, JB 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 one fails and number two is successful, number three 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're at it. Oh, yes. By the way, coming home, you'll be down pretty low. Every Bosch machine in the air will have you at a disadvantage. Better return by the shortest route. One feature of the program 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 borderline 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 Talbot if this feature of the attack could be eliminated, he said, certainly. I have instructions from the Commodot touching on this point. In case any pilot objects to attacking the observers with machine gun fires, he has just drew 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 trainload of soldiers and to kill the observer is really more important than to destroy the balloon. If you're 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 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 the bead-tacked and about ten kilometers 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 distance 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 a shortest way home. Our spads were ready after luncheon. A large square of tin had been fashioned 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 ensure they're pricking the silk balloon envelope. The batteries for igniting them were connected with a button inside the car, within an 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 400 meters 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 meters 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 Iron Drome 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, following up the hillsides, submerging everything but the crest 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 the batteries to those positions which stood revealed. Shells were also exploding on lower ground, before we saw the mist billow upward time after time, with a 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 a 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 the decisive effect upon morale. Two hours later we were pitching pennies in one of the hangars when Talbot came across the field, followed solemnly by Whisky and Soda, the lion mascots of the Escadal and Lafayette. What's the date? Anybody know? he asked, very casually. J.B. is an agile-minded youth. It isn't the upteeth 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 ten thirty-five. Irving, Drew, and I were strapped in our machines waiting for our motors turning Greenland Day for Talbot's signal to start. He was romping with Whisky. Atta boy, Whisky. Eat em up. Eat em up. Atta ol' lion. As a squadron leader, Talbot 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 escadality chase. Situations are dramatic enough, tense enough, without ones taking thought of the fact. He might have stood there, watching 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 watches if he had just remembered us. All right, run along. Use sausage spears. 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 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 Panay de Motour in Germany and the need I would have of my toilet articles. At ten-fifty-four, J.B. came slanting down over me, then pulled up in Elysian de Ville, and went straight for the lines. I fell in behind him at about one hundred meters distance. Irving was two hundred meters 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 program 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, the 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 upwards in clouds of black oily smoke. Drew signaled with his joystick and I knew what he meant. Hooray, two down and 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 kilometers an hour, racing against time, and very little time of that, shared in only five miles away, could not have been more eager for his journey to 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 barrage and dive. 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 spurred it 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, and oil lamp was on the table between the two cots. Drew was sitting propped up, his fur coat rolled into a bundle for a backrest. 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 Pius incense from a sensor old, seemed taking flight for heaven without a death. And yet Pius has hearted the word. J.B. was swearing, frown from a coarse reserve of picturous empathath, which I did not know that he possessed. I regret the necessity of admitting some of them. I don't see how I could have missed it. Why? I didn't turn to look 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 meters. I couldn't have been more than one hundred meters away when I fired the rockets. What did you do then? Took a round waiting for you. I had the balloon inside 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, artistic 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 leapt out with a fine blood-stirring roar. The mirrors' sound ought to have been enough to make any balloon collapse. But when I turned, there was intact a super-probogvian pumpkin, seen a close view and still ripe, still ready for plucking. If I live to be one hundred years, I shall never have a greater surprise or a more bitter disappointment. There was no leisure for brooding over then. My altimeter registered only 250 meters 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, in case of a forced landing in Henry country. An airman must destroy his machine in such an event, but my spad did not mean to insults career so ingloriously. The motor ran beautifully, hitting on every cylinder. We climbed from 250 meters to 350, 450, 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 tranquility. When I was clear of them, I sent my course westward in 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 make a leisurely survey of the ground beneath was hard to resist. It was not wholly resisted, in fact. And our 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 and then on the other, examining the rows, 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 aviands, I realized now much better than I did then. Unless flying at six thousand meters or above, when he is comparatively safe from attack, a pilot may never relax his vigilant for thirty seconds together. He must look behind him below above constantly. All aviators learned 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 dollars 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 a lingerie de vol, about one hundred meters above me, showing their French concords. It was a 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. Langer, the sergeant, the mechanic, was sitting in a sunny corner of the hangar, reading the Martin, just as I had left him. Lieutenant Talbot's only comment was, don't let it worry you. Better luck next time. The group bag two out of four, and Irving knocked down a Bosch who was trying to get at you. It 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 four stars down, but it bobbed up again, very soon afterward. The one o'clock patrol saw it higher. Miller said then that it had ever, ever been. It was Miller, by the way, who looked on us at nine o'clock, the same evening. The lamp was out. They're 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?