 Chapter 7 of High Adventure, A Narrative of Air-Fighting in France by James Norman Hall. The preceding chapters of this journal have been written to little purpose if it has not been made clear that Drew and I, like most pilots during the first weeks of service at the front, were worth little to the Allied cause. We were warned often enough that the road to efficiency in military aviation is a long and dangerous one. We were given much excellent advice by aviators, who knew what they were talking about. Much of this we solicited, in fact, and then proceeded to disregard it, item by item, eager to get results we plunged into our work, with the valor of ignorance. The result being that Drew was shot down in one of his first encounters, escaping with his life by one of those more than miracles for which there is no explanation. That I did not fear as badly or worse as due solely to the indulgence of that godfather of ours already mentioned, who watched over my first flights while in a mood beneficently pro-ally. Drew's adventure followed soon after our first patrol, when he had the near combat with the two-seater. Luckily on that occasion both the German pilot and his machine gunner were taken completely off their guard. Not only did he attack with his son squarely in his face, but he went down in a long gradual dive. In full view of the gunner, who could not have asked for a better target, but the man was asleep, and this gave J.B. a dangerous contempt for all gunners of enemy nationality. Lieutenant Talbot cautioned him. You have been lucky, but don't get it into your head that this sort of thing happens often. Now, I'm going to give you a standing order. You are not to attack again, neither of you, are to his thank of attacking during your first month here. As likely as not it would be your luck next time to meet an old pilot. If you did, I wouldn't give much for your chances. He would outmaneuver you in a minute. You will go out on patrol with the others, of course. It's the only way to learn to fight. But if you get lost, go back to our balloons and stay there, until it is time to go home. Neither of us obeyed this order, and as it happened, Drew was the one to suffer. A group of American officers visited the Swatternoon afternoon in courtesy to our guest. It was decided to send out all the pilots for an additional patrol to show them how the thing was done. Twelve machines were in readiness for the sortie, which was set for seven o'clock. The last one of the day. We were to meet at three thousand meters, and then to divide forces, one patrol to cover the east half of the sector, and one the west. We got away beautifully, with the exception of Drew, who had motor trouble, and who was five minutes late in starting. With his permission, I insert here his own account of the adventure, a letter written while he was in hospital. No doubt you were wondering what happened. Listening, meanwhile, to many I told you so explanations from the others. This will be hard on you, but bear up, son. It might not be a bad plan to listen, with the understanding as well as to the ear, to some expert advice on how to bag the hun. To quote the prophetic Miller, I am telling you this for your own good. I gave my name and the number of the escradel to the medical officer at the post desecores. He said he would phone the captain at once, so that you must know before this that I have been amazingly lucky. I fell the greater part of two miles, count them, two, before I actually regained control, only to lose it again. I fainted, while still several hundred feet from the ground. But more of this later. Couldn't sleep last night. Had a fever and my brain went on a spree. Taking advantage of my helplessness. I just lay in bed and watched it function. Besides, there was a great artillery racket all night long. It appeared to be coming from our sector, so you must have heard it as well. This hospital is not very far back, and we get the full orchestral effect of heavy firing. The result is that I am dead tired to-day. I believe I can sleep for a week. They have given me a bed and the officer's ward. Me. A corporal. It is because I am an American, of course. Wished there was some way of showing one's appreciation for so much kindness. My neighbor on the left is a Cheshire captain. A hand grenade exploded in his face. He will go through life horribly disfigured. An old Padre with two machine-gun bullets in his hip is on the other side. He's very patient, but sometimes the pain is a little bit too much for him. To a Frenchman, ou la la, is an expression for every conceivable kind of emotion. In the future it will mean unbearable physical pain to me. Our orderlies are to poloise, long past military age. They are as gentle and thoughtful as the nurses themselves. One of them brought me lemonade all night long, worthwhile getting wounded, just to have something to taste so good. I meant to finish this letter a week ago, but haven't filled up to it. Quite perky this morning. So I'll go on with the tale of my heroic combat. Only first. Tell me how that absurd account of it got into the Herald. I hope Talbot knows that I was not foolish enough to attack Six Germans single-handed. If he doesn't, please enlighten him. His opinion of my common sense must be low enough as it is. We were to meet over S at three thousand meters, you remember, to cover the sector at five thousand until dusk. I was late in getting away and, by the time I reached the rendezvous, you had all gone. There wasn't a chase machine in sight. I ought to have gone back to the balloons as Talbot advised, but thought it would be easy to pick you up later. So went on alone after I had got some height. Crossed the lines at thirty five hundred meters and finally got up to four thousand, which was the best I could do with my rebuilt engine. The Huns started shelling, but there were only a few of them that barked. I went down the lines for a quarter of an hour meeting two Sopworths and a Leotard, but no spots. You were almost certain to be higher than I, but my old packet was doing its best at four thousand, and getting overheated with the exertion. Had to throttle down and the peak several times to cool off. Then I saw you, at least I thought it was you, about four kilometers inside the German lines. I counted six machines while grouped, one a good deal higher than the others, and one several hundred meters below them. The pilot on top was doing beautiful reversements and an occasional barrel turn in Barry's manner. I was so certain it was our patrol that I started over at once to join you. It was getting dusk and I lost sight of the machine lowest down for a few seconds. Without my knowing it, he was approaching in exactly my altitude. You know how difficult it is to see a machine in that position. Suddenly he loomed up in front of me like an express train. As you have seen them approach from the depths of a moving picture screen, only ten times faster, and he was firing as he came. I realized my awful mistake, of course. His tracer bullets were going by on the left side, but he corrected his aim, and my motor seemed to be eating them up. I banked to the right, and was about to cut my motor and dive when I felt a smashing blow in the left shoulder, a sickening sensation, and a very peculiar one. Not at all what I thought it might feel like to be hit with a bullet. I believed that it came from the German in front of me, but it couldn't have, for he was still approaching when I was hit, and I have learned that the bullet entered from behind. This is the history of less than a minute I'm giving you. It seemed much longer than that, but I don't suppose it was. I tried to shut down the motor, but couldn't manage it because my left arm was gone. I really believed that it had been blown off into space until I glanced down and saw that it was still there. But for any service it was to me, I might just as well have lost it. There was a vacant period of ten to fifteen seconds which I can't fill in. After that, I knew that I was falling, with my motor going full speed. It was a helpless realization. My brain refused to act. I could do nothing. Finally I did have one clear thought. Am I on fire? This cut right through the fog, brought me up, or odd awake. I was falling almost vertically. In a sort of half-brell, no machine but a spad, could have stood the strain. The Huns were following me and were not far away, judging by the sound of their guns. I fully expected to feel another bullet or two boring its way through. One did cut the skin of my right leg, although I didn't know this until I reached the hospital. Perhaps it was well that I did fall out of control for the firing soon stopped, the Germans thinking, and with reason, that they had bagged me. Some broad-boy shareman is wearing an iron cross on my account. Perhaps the whole crew of daredevils has been decorated. However, no unseemly sarcasm. We would pounce on our lonely Hun just as quickly. There is no Chevrolet in war, these modern days. I pulled out of the spin, got the broomstick between my knees, reached over and shut down the motor with my right hand. The propeller stopped dead. I didn't much care being very drowsy and tired. The worst of it was, that I couldn't get my breath. I was gasping as though I had been hit in the pit of the stomach. Then I lost control again, started falling. It was awful. I was almost ready to give up. I believed I said out loud, I'm going to be killed. This is my last sortie. At any rate, I thought it. Made one last effort and came out in Lejeune du Vol, as nearly as I could judge about one hundred and fifty meters from the ground. It was an ugly-looking place for landing, trenches and shell-holes everywhere. I was wondering, in a vague way, whether they were French or German, when I fell into the most restful sleep I've ever had in my life. I have no recollection of the crash, not the slightest. I might have fallen as gently as a leaf. That is one thing to be thankful for among a good many others. When I came to, it was at once, completely. I knew that I was on a stretcher and remembered immediately exactly what had happened. My heart was going pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, and I could hardly breathe, but I had no sensation of pain except in my chest. This made me think that I had broken every bone in my body. I tried moving first one leg, then the other, then my arms, my head, my body. No trouble at all, except with my left arm and side. I accepted the miracle without attempting to explain it, for I had something more important to wonder about. Who had the handles of my stretcher? The first thing I did was to open my eyes. But I was bleeding from a scratch on the forehead and saw only a red blur. I wiped them dry with my sleeve and looked again. The broad back in front of me was covered with mud, impossible to distinguish the color of the tunic. But the shrapnel helmet above it was French. I was in French hands. If ever I lived long enough in one place so that I may gather a few possessions and make a home for myself, on one wall of my living-room, I will have a bust-length portrait, review of a French branched ear, mud-covered back and battered tin hat. Do you remember our walk with Mernart in the rain and the Dignior at the restaurant where they made such wonderful omelets? I'm sure that you will recall the occasion, although you may have forgotten the conversation. I have not forgotten one remark of Meadalt's apropos of talk about risks. If a man were willing, he said to stake everything for it, he would accumulate an experience of fifteen or twenty minutes, which would compensate him a thousand times over for all the hazard. And if you live to be old, he said quitely, you can never be bored with life. You will have something always very pleasant to think about. I mentioned this in connection with my discovery that I was not in German hands. I have had five minutes of perfect happiness without any background, no thought of yesterday or tomorrow to spoil it. I said, bonjour, Monsour, in a gurgling voice. The man in front turned his head sideways and said, tiens kava Monsour, la aviator? The other one said, ah, monvo. You know the infection they give this expression? Particularly when it means, this is something wonderful. He added that they had seen the combat and my fall and a little expected to find the pilot living, to say nothing of speaking. I hoped that they would go about on talking, but I was being carried along a trench. They had to lift me shoulder high at every turn and needed all their energy. The Germans were shelling the lines several fell fairly close. And they brought me down a long flight of wooden steps into a dugout to wait until the worst of it should be over. While waiting they told me that I had fallen just within the first line trenches at a spot where a slight rising ground hid me from the sight of the enemy. Otherwise they might have had a bad time rescuing me. My spad was completely wrecked. It fell squarely into a trench, the wings breaking the force of the fall. Before reaching the ground I turned. They said and was making straight for Germany, fifty metres higher and I would have come down in no man's land. For a long time we listened in silence to the subdued clump of the shells. Sometime showers of earth pattered down the stairway and we would hear the high-pitched droning zzz of pieces of shell casing as they whizzed over the opening. One of them would say, not far that one, or, he's looking for someone, that fellow, in a voice without a hint of emotion. Then long silences and other deep earth-chicking rumbles. They asked me several times if I was suffering and offered to go to the post-East Socorres if I wanted them to. It was not heavy bombardment, but it would be safer to wait for a little while. I told them that I was afraid to go on at any time, but not to hurry on my account. I was quite comfortable. The light glimmering down the stairway faded out and we were in complete darkness. My brain was amazingly clear. It registered every trifling impression. I wish it might always be so intensely awake and active. There seemed to be four of us in the dugout. The two, Brancoged of Dears, and the second self of mine, as curious as an eavesdropper at a keyhole, listening intently to everything and then turning to whisper to me. The Brancoged of Dears repeated the same comments after every explosion. I thought, they have been saying this to each other for over three years. It has become automatic. They will never be able to stop. I was feverish, perhaps. If it was fever, it burned away any illusions I may have had of modern warfare from the infantryman's viewpoint. I know that there is no glamour in it for them. That it has long since become a deadly monotony. An endless repetition of the same kinds of horror and suffering. A boredom more terrible than death itself, which is repeating itself in the same ways day after day and month after month. It isn't often that an aviator has the chance I've had. It would be a good thing if they were to send us into the trenches for twenty-four hours every few months. It would make us keener fighters, more eager to do our utmost to bring the war to an end, for the sake of the Polus. The dressing station was in a very deep dugout, lighted by candles. At a table in the center of the room the medical officer was working over a man with a terribly crushed leg. Several others were sitting or lying along the wall, awaiting their turn. They watched every movement he made in an apprehensive animal way, and so did I. They put me on the table next, although it was not my turn. I protested, but the doctor paid no attention. Aviator American again? It's a pity that Frenchmen can't treat us Americans as though we belong here. As soon as the doctor had finished with me my stretcher was fastened to a two-wheeled carrier, and we started down a cobbled road to the ambulance station. I was lightheaded, and don't remember much of that part of the journey. And to take refuge in another dugout when the Huns dropped a shell on an ammunition dump in the village through which we were to pass. There was a deafening banging and booming for a long time, and when we did go through the town it was on the run. The whole place was in flames and small arms ammunition still exploding. I remember seeing a long column of soldiers going at the double in the opposite direction, and they were in full marching order. Well, this is the end of the tale, all of it, at any rate in which you would be interested. It was one o'clock in the morning before I got between cool, clean sheets, and I was wounded at about a quarter-past eight. I have been tired ever since. There is another aviator here, a Frenchman who broke his jaw and both legs in a fall while returning from a night bombardment. His medicaments across the aisle from mine. He has a formidable looking apparatus fastened on his head and under his chin to hold his jaw firm until the bones knit. He is forbidden to talk, but breaks the rule whenever the nurse leaves the ward. He speaks a little English and has told me a delightful story about the origin of aerial combat. A French pilot, a friend of his, he says, attached to a certain army group during August and September 1914. Often met a German aviator during his reconnaissance patrol. In those Arcadian days fighting in the air was a development for the future, and these two pilots exchanged greetings, not cordially perhaps, but courtlessly, a wave of the hand as much as to say, we are enemies, but we need not forget sabilities. Then they both went about the work of spotting batteries, watching for movements of troops, etc. One morning the German failed to return the salute. The Frenchman thought little of this and greeted him in the customary manner at their next meeting. To his surprise the boy shook his fist at him in the most blustering and catish way. There was no mistaking the insult. They had passed not fifty meters from each other, and the Frenchman distinctly saw the closed fist. He was saddened by the incident, for he had hoped that some of the ancient courtesies of war would survive in the aerial branch of the service at least. It angered him too. Therefore, on his next reconnaissance, he ignored the German. Evidently the Bosch air squadrons were being pressionized. The enemy pilot approached very closely and threw a missile at him. He could not be sure what it was as the object went wide of the mark. But he was so incensed that he made a verrage and, drawing a small flask from his pocket, hurled it at his borish antagonist. The flask contained some excellent support, he said. But he was repaid for the loss in seeing it crash on the exhaust pipe of the enemy machine. This marked the end of courtesy and the beginning of active hostilities in the air. They were soon shooting at each other with rifles, automatic pistols, and at last with machine guns. Later developments we know about. The night-bombered ear has been telling me this yarn in serial form. When a nurse is present he illustrates the last chapter by means of gestures. I am ready to believe everything but the incident about the port. That doesn't sound plausible. A Frenchman would have thrown his watch before making such a sacrifice. CHAPTER VIII. 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. Recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com. High Adventure, a narrative of air fighting in France by James Norman Hall. CHAPTER VIII. ONE HUNDRED HOURS. A little more than a year after our first meeting in the Paris restaurant, which has so many pleasant memories for us, Drew completed his first one hundred hours of flight over the lines, an event in the life of an airman, which calls for a celebration of some sort. Therefore, having been granted leave for the afternoon, the two of us came into the old French town of Bar-les-Duc by the toy train which wanders down from the Verdun sector. We had dinner in one of those home-like little places where the food is served by the proprietor himself. On this occasion it was served hurriedly, and the bill presented promptly at eight o'clock. Our host was very sorry, but the sales-boshes-vosses-mesures. They had come the night before, a dozen houses destroyed, women and children killed, and maimed. With a full moon to guide them, they would be sure to return to night. A set de guerre qu'est-ce que fin? He offered us a refuge until our train should leave. Usually, he said, he played solitaire while waiting for the Germans, but with houses tumbling about one's ears, he much preferred company, and my wife and I are old people. She is very deaf. Here is month. She hears nothing. J.B. declined the invitation. A brave way that would be to finish our evening, he said, as we walked down the silent street. I wanted to say, Monsour, I have just finished my first one hundred hours of flight at the front. But he wouldn't have known what that means. I said, no, he wouldn't have known. Then we had no further talk for about two hours, a few soldiers late arrivals were prowling about in the shadow of the houses, searching for food and a warm kitchen where they might eat it, some insistent ones pounded on the door of a restaurant far in the distance. T'es d'un patron, nois-e-von-fem, mon-ti-dou, escalait tout t'es mon-s'est, mort-ci? Only a host of phantom listeners, that dwelt in the lone house then stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight to that voice from the world of men. It was that kind of silence, profound, tense, ghostlike. We walked through street after street from one end of the town to the other and saw only one light, a faint glimmer, which came from a slit of a cellar window almost on the level of the pavement. We were curious, no doubt. At any rate we looked in a woman was sitting on a cot bed with her arms around to little children. They were snuggled up against her and both fast asleep. But she was sitting very erect, in a strained listening attitude, staring straight before her. Since that night we have believed, both of us, that if wars can be won only by haphazard night bombardments of towns where there are women and children, then they had far better be lost. But I am writing a journal of high adventure, of a cleaner kind in which all the resources in skill and cleverness of one set of men are pitted against those of another set. We have no bomb dropping to do, and there are but few women and children living in the territory over which we fly. One hundred dollars is not a great while as time is measured on the ground, but in terms of combat patrols the one hundredth part of it has held more of an adventure in the true meaning of the word than we have had during the whole of our lives previously. At first we were far too busy learning the rudiments of combat to keep an accurate record of flying time. We thought our airplane clocks convenient pieces of equipment, rather than necessary ones. I remember coming down from my first air battle and the breathless account I gave of it, at the barrel of breathless and vague. Lieutenant Talbot listened quietly, making out the com-de rendu as I talked. When I had finished he emphasized the haziness of my answers to his questions by quoting them, region, you know, that big wood time. This morning, of course, rounds fired, oh, a lot, et cetera. Not until we had been flying for a month or more did we learn how to make the right use of our clocks and of our eyes while in the air. We listened with amazement to the after patrol talk at the mess. We learned more of what actually happened on our sorties. After they were over then, while they were in progress, all of the older pilots missed seeing nothing, which there was to see. They reported the numbers of the enemy planes encountered. The type, where seen and when, they spotted batteries, trains, and stations back of the enemy lines, gave the hour precisely, reported any activity on the roads. In moments of exasperation, Drew would say, I think they are stringing us. This is all a put up job. Certainly this did appear to be the case at first. For we were air blind. We saw little of the activity all around us, and details on the ground had no significance. How were we to take thought of time and place and altitude? Note the peculiarities of enemy machines. Count their numbers and store all this information away in memory at the moment of combat. This was a great problem. What I need, JB used to say, is a traveling private secretary. I'll do the fighting, and he can keep the diary. I needed one, too. A man, air wise and battle wise, who could calmly take note of my clock, altimeter, temperature and pressure dials, identify exactly the air locality on my map, count the numbers of the enemy, estimate their approximate altitude, all this. When the air was crisscrossed with streamers of smoke from machine gun tracer bullets and opposing aircraft for maneuvering for position, diving and firing at each other, spiraling, nose spinning, wing slipping, climbing in a confusing intermingling of tricolored co-cards and black crosses. We made gradual progress, the result being that our patrols became a hundredfold more fascinating. Sometimes, in fact, too much so. It was important that we should be able to read the ground. But more important still to remember that what was happening there was only of secondary concern to us. Often we became absorbed in watching what was taking place below us to the exclusion of any thought of aerial activity. Our chances for attack or of being attacked, the view from the air of a heavy bombardment or of an infantry attack under cover of barrage fires is a truly terrible spectacle. And in the air one has a feeling of detachment which is not easily overcome. Yet it must be overcome, as I have said and cannot say too many times for the benefit of any young airman who may read this journal. During an offensive, the air swarms with planes. They are at all altitudes from the lowest artillery rheogallage machines to a few hundreds of meters. To the highest avions they chase at six thousand meters and above. Reglage, photographic and reconnaissance planes have their particular work to do. They defend themselves as best they can, but almost never attack. Combat avions, on the other hand, are always looking for victims. They are the ones chiefly dangerous to the unwary pursuit pilot. Drew's first official victory came as the result of a one-sided battle with an albatross single-seater, whose pilot evidently did not know there was an enemy within miles of him. No more did JB for that matter. It was pure accident, he told me afterward. He had gone from Reims to the Argonne Forest without meeting a single German. And I didn't want to meet one, for it was Thanksgiving Day. It has associations for me, you know. I'm a New Englander. It is not possible to convince him that it has any real significance for men who were not born on the North Atlantic seaboard. Well, all the way he had been humming over the river and through the woods to Grandfather's house we go. To himself, it is easy to understand why he didn't want to meet a German. He must have been in a curiously mixed frame of mind. He covered the sector again and passed over Reims. Going northeast, then he saw the albatross. And if you had been standing on one of the towers of the cathedral, you would have seen a very unequal battle. The German was about two kilometers inside his own lines, and at least a thousand meters below. Drew had every advantage. He didn't see me until I opened fire. And then, as it happened, it was too late. My gun didn't jam. The Germans started falling out of control, Drew following him down until he lost sight of him in, making a variation. I leaned against the canvas wall of a hangar, registering incredulity. Three times out of seven to make a conservative estimate, we fight inconclusive battles because of faulty machine guns or defective ammunition. The ammunition, most of it that is bad, comes from America. While Drew was giving me the details and orderly from the Bureau, brought word that an enemy machine had just been reported shut down on our sector. It was Drew's albatross. But he nearly lost official credit for having destroyed it because he did not know exactly the hour when the combat occurred. His watch was broken and he had neglected asking for another before starting. He judged the time of the attack approximately as two-thirty, and the infantry observers reporting the result gave it as twenty minutes to three. The region in both cases coincided exactly. However, and fortunately, Drew's was the only combat which had taken place in that vicinity during the afternoon. For an hour after his return he was very happy. He had won his first victory, always the hardest to gain, and had been complimented by the commandant, by Lieutenant Nougrasseur, the Roy de Ases, and by other French and American pilots. There is no petty jealousy among airmen. And in our group the esprit de corps is unusually fine. Rivalry is keen, but each squadron takes almost as much pride in the work of the other squadrons as it does in its own. The details of the result were horrible. The albatross broke up two thousand meters from the ground. One wing falling within the French lines. Drew knew what it meant to be wounded and falling out of control, but his spad held together. He had a chance for his life. Supposing the German to have been merely wounded and airmen's joy and victory is a short-lived one, nevertheless a curious change takes place in his attitudes towards his work as the months pass. I can best describe it in terms of Drew's experience and my own. We came to the front feeling deeply sorry for ourselves and for all airmen of whatever nationality whose lives were to be snuffed out in their promising beginnings. I used to play The Minstrel Boy to see if the war has gone. On a tin flute in Drew wrote poetry. While we were waiting for our first machine, he composed the airmen's rendezvous, written in the manner of Alan Seeger's poem. And I in the white fields of air must keep with him my rendezvous. It may be I shall meet him there when clouds like sheep move slowly through. The pathless meadows of the sky and their cool shadows go beneath. I have a rendezvous with death some summer noon of white and blue. There is more of it in the same manner, all of which he read me in a husky voice. I too was ready to weep at our untimely fate. The strange thing is that his prophecy came so very near being true. He had the first draft of the poem in his breast pocket when wounded, and has kept the gory relic to remind him. Not that he needs reminding of the airy manner in which he cancelled what ought to have been a bona-vide appointment. I do not mean to reflect in any way upon Alan Seeger's beautiful poem, who can doubt that it is a sincere as well as a perfect expression of a mood common to all young soldiers. Drew was just as sincere in writing his verses, and I put all the feeling I could into my ten-wistle interpretation of the menstrual boy. What I want to make clear is that as soldiers' moods of self-pity are fleeting ones, and if he lives, he outgrows them. Imagination isn't a special curse to an airman, particularly if it takes a gloomy or morbid turn. We used to write, to whom it may concern, letters before going out on patrol, in which we left directions for the notification of our relatives and the disposal of our personal effects in case of death. Then we would climb into our machines thinking, this may be our last sortie. We may be dead in an hour, in half an hour, in twenty minutes. We planned, splendidly, spectacular ways in which we were to be brought down, always emitting one, however the most horrible, as well as the most common, in flames. Thank fortune we have outgrown this second and belated period of adolescence, and can now take a healthy interest in our work. Now an inevitable part of the daily routine is to be shelled, persistently, methodically, and often accurately shelled. Our interest in this may, I suppose, be called healthy in as much as it would be decidedly unhealthy to become indifferent to the activities of the German anti-aircraft gunners. It would be farfetched to say that any airman ever looks forward zestfully to the business of being shot at with one hundred and fives, and seventy fives, if they are well placed, are unpleasant enough. After one hundred hours of it we have learned to assume that attitude of contemptuous toleration, which is the manner common to all pilots de-chasse. We know that the chances of a direct hit are almost negligible, and that we have the blue dome of the heavens in which to maneuver. Furthermore we have learned many little tricks by means of which we can keep the gunners guessing. By way of illustration we are patrolling, let us say, at thirty five hundred meters, crossing and recrossing the lines, following the patrol leader who has his motor throttled down so that we may keep well in formation. The guns may be silent for the moment, but we know well enough what the gunners are doing. We know exactly where some of the batteries are, and the approximate location of all of them along the sector, and we know from earlier experience when we come within range of each individual battery. Presently one of them begins firing in bursts of four shells. If their first estimate of our range has been an accurate one, if they place them uncomfortably close so that we can hear all too well above the roar of the motors, the rendering groan of the shells as they explode, we sail calmly to all outward appearances on, maneuvering very little. The gunners seeing that we are not disturbed will alter the ranges four times out of five, which is exactly what we want them to do. The next bursts will be hundreds of meters below or above us, whereupon we show signs of great uneasiness, and the gunners thinking they have our altitude begin to fire like demons. We employ our well-earned impunity in preparing for the next series of battles or in thinking of the cost to Germany at one hundred francs a shot of all this futile shelling. Drew in particular loves this cost-accounting business, and I must admit that much pleasure may be had in it after patrol. They rarely fire less than fifty shells at us during a two-hour patrol. Making a low general average, the number is near one hundred and fifty. In our present front, where aerial activity is fairly brisk and the sector is a large one, three or four hundred shells are wasted upon us often before we have been out an hour. We have memories of all the good batteries from Flanders to the Vosage Mountains, battery after battery. We make their acquaintance along the entire sector whenever we go. Many of them, of course, are mobile, so that we never lose the sport of searching for them. Only a few days ago we located one of this kind which came into action in the open by the side of the road. First we saw the flashes and then the shell bursts, in the same cadence. We tipped up and fired at him in bursts of twenty to thirty rounds, which is the only way airmen have of passing the time of day with their friends, the enemy anti-aircraft gunners who ignore the art of camouflage. But we can converse with them after a fashion even though we do not know their exact position. It will be long before this chapter of my journal is in print. Having given no indication of the date of writing, I may say without indiscretion that we are again on the champagne front. We have a wholesome respect for one battery here, a respect it has justly earned by shooting which is really remarkable. We talk of this battery which is east of Reims and not far distant from Neigeant Labès and take professional pride in keeping its gunners in ignorance of their fine marksmanship. We signal them their bad shots which are better than the good ones of most of the batteries on the sector. By doing stunts, a barrel turn, a loop, two or three turns of a year old. As for their good shots, they are often so very good that we are forced into acrobacy. Of a wholly individual kind our avions have received many scars from their shells. Between 4500 and 5000 meters their bursts have been so close undress that we have been lifted by the concussions and set down violently again at the bottom of the vacuum. And this on a clear day when the chase machine is almost invisible at that height and despite its speed of 200 kilometers an hour. On a gray day when we are flying between 2500 and 3000 meters beneath a film of cloud they repay the honor we do them by our acrobatic turns. They bracket us, put barrages between us and our own lines, give us more trouble than all the other batteries on the sector combined. For this reason it is all the more humiliating to be forced to land with motor trouble. Just at the moment when they are paying off some old scores, this happened to Drew while I have been writing up my journal, coming out of a tonneau in answer to three coups from the battery, his propeller stopped dead. By planing flatly the wind was dead ahead and the area back of the first lines there is a wide one, crossed by many intersecting lines of trenches. He got well over them and chose a field as level as a billiard table for landing ground. In the very center of it, however, there was one post, a small worm-eaten thing, of the color of the dead grass around it. He hit it, just as he was setting his spat on the ground. The only post in a field, acres wide, and it tore a piece of fabric from one of his lower wings. No doubt the crack battery has been given credit for disabling an enemy plane. The honor, such as it is, belongs to our aerial godfather, among whose lesser vices may be included that of practical joking. The remnants of the post were immediately confiscated for firewood, by some poloys who were living in a dugout nearby. CHAPTER IX 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. Recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com. High Adventure. A narrative of air fighting in France by James Norman Hall. CHAPTER IX. LONELY AS A CLOUD. The French attack which has been in preparation for the past month is to begin at dawn tomorrow. It has been hard waiting, but it must have been a great deal worse for the infantrymen who are billeted in all of the surrounding villages. They are moving up to night, to the first lines, for these are the shock troops, who are to lead the attack. They are chiefly regiments of the Chachours, small men in stature but clean, hard, well-knit, splendid types. They talk of the attack confidently. It is an inspiration to listen to them. Hundreds of them have visited our aerodrome during the past week. Mainly, I thank for a glimpse of Whiskey and Soda, our lions, who are known to French soldiers from one end of the line to the other. Whiskey is almost full grown, and Soda, about the size of a wildcat. They have the freedom of the camp and run about everywhere. The guns are thundering at a terrific rate. The concussions shaking our barracks and rattling the dishes on the table. In the mess room, the gramophone is playing. I am going way back home and have a wonderful time. Music at the front is sometimes a doubtful blessing. We are keyed up, some of us. Rather nervous in anticipation of tomorrow. Porter is trying to give Irving a light from his own cigarette. Irving, who doesn't know the meaning of nerves, ask him who in hell is he waving at? Poor old Porter. His usefulness as a combat pilot has long passed. But he hangs on, doing the best he can. He should have been sent to the rear months ago. The first phase of the battle is over. The French have taken eleven thousand prisoners, and have driven the enemy from all the hills down to the low ground along the canal. For the most part, we have been too high above them to see the infant reactions, but knowing the plans and the objectives beforehand, we have been able to follow quite closely the progress of the battle. It opened on a wet morning, with the clouds very low. We were to have gone on patrol immediately, the attack commenced. But this was impossible. About nine o'clock the rain stopped, and Rodman and Davis were sent out to learn weather conditions over the lines. They came back with the report that flying was possible at two hundred meters. This was too low an altitude to serve any useful purpose, and the commandant gave us orders to stand by. About noon, the clouds began to break up, and both high and low patrols, prepared to leave the ground. Drew, Dunham, and I were on high patrol. With Lieutenant Barry leading, our orders were to go up through the clouds, using them as cover for making surprise attacks upon enemy relage machines. We were also to attack any enemy formation sighted within three kilometers of their old first lines. The clouds soon disappeared, and so we climbed to forty-five hundred meters, and lay in wait for combat patrols. Barry sighted one and signaled. Before I had placed it, he dived almost full motor, I believe, for he dropped like a stone. We went down on his tail and saw him attack the topmost of the three albatross single-seaters. The other two dived at once, far into their own lines. Dunham, Drew, and I took long shots at them, but they were far outside effective range. The topmost German made a feeble effort to maneuver for position. Barry made a reimbursement with the utmost nicety of judgment, and came out of it about thirty meters behind and above the albatross. He fired about twenty shots when the German began falling out of control, spinning round and round, then diving straight, then past the verticals so that we could see the silver under surface of his wings and tail, spinning again until we lost sight of him. This combat was seen from the ground, and Barry's victory was confirmed before we returned to the field. Lieutenant Talbot joined us as we were taking our height again. He took command of the patrol, and Barry went off hunting by himself, as he likes best to do. There were planes everywhere of both nationalities, mounting to four thousand meters within our own lines we crossed over again, and at that moment I silently toured. A three-passenger, regular large machine burst into flames and fall. There was no time, either to watch or to think of this horrible sight. We encountered a patrol of five albatross planes almost on our level. Talbot dived at once. I was behind him and picked a German, who was spiraling either upward or downward. For a few seconds I was not sure which. It was upward. He was climbing to offer combat. This was disconcerting. It always is to a green pilot. If your foe is running, you may be sure he is at least as badly rattled as you are. If he is a single-seater and climbing, you may be equally certain that he is not a novice, and that he has plenty of sand, otherwise he would not accept battle at a disadvantage in the hope of having his inning next. I was foolish enough to begin firing while still about three hundred meters distant. My opponent, ungraciously, offered the poorest kind of a target. Getting out of the range of my sights by some very skillful maneuvering. I didn't want him to think that he had an inexperienced pilot to deal with. Therefore, judging my distance very carefully, I did a reversement in the Lieutenant Barry fashion. But it was not so well done, instead of coming out of it above and behind the German, when I pulled up in Lange de Valle I was under him. I don't know exactly what happened then, but the next moment I was falling in a Vero spinning nosedive and heard the well-known cracking sound of machine-gun fire. I kept on falling in a Burrell, thinking this would give the German the poorest possible target. A mistake which many new pilots make. In a Burrell, the machine spins pretty nearly on its own axis, and although it is turning, a skillful pilot above it can keep it fairly well within the line of his sights. Coming up in an Lange de Valle, I looked over my shoulder again. The German had lost sight of me for a moment, in the swiftness of his dive, but evidently he saw me just before I pulled out of the rail. He was turning up for another shot in exactly the same position in which I had last seen him, and he was very close, not more than fifty meters distant. I believed, of course, that I was lost, and why that German didn't bag me remains a mystery. Have a nose, I gave him opportunity enough. In the end, by the merciful intervention of chance, our Godfather, I escaped. I have said that the sky had cleared, but there was one stand of cloud left. Not very broad, not very long, but a refuge. Oh, what a welcome refuge! It was right in my path, and I tumbled into it literally, head over heels. I came skidding out, but pulled up, put on my motor, and climbed back at once, and I kept turning round and round in it for several minutes. If the German had waited, he must have seen me raveling it out like a cat tangled in a ball of cotton. I thought that he was waiting. I even expected him to come nosing into it, in search of me. In that case there would have been a glorious smash, for there wasn't room for two of us. I almost hoped that he would try this. If I couldn't bag a German with my gun, the next best thing was to run into him, and so be gathered to my father's while he was being gathered to his. There was no crash. And, taking sudden resolution, I dived vertically out of the cloud, head over shoulder expecting to see my relentless foe. He was nowhere in sight. In that wild tumble and while chasing my tail in the cloud I lost my bearings. The compass, which was mounted on a swinging holder, had been tilted upside down. It s stuck in that position. I could not get it loose. I had fallen to six hundred meters so that I could not get a large view of the landscape. Under the continuous bombardment the air was filled with smoke, and, through it, nothing looked familiar. I knew the direction of our lines by the position of the sun, but I was in a suspicious mood. My motor, which I had praised to the heavens to the other pilots, had let me down at a critical moment. The sun might be ready to play some fantastic trick. I had to steer by it, although I was uneasy till I came within sight of our observation balloons. I identified them as French by sailing close to one of them so that I could see the tricolor pendant floating out from the cord on the bag. Then, being safe, I put my old spad through every antique wheat to it had ever done together. The observers in the balloons must have thought me crazy, a pilot running amuck from aerial shell-shock. I had discovered a new meaning for that grand and glorious feeling which is so often the subject of Briggs cartoons. Looking at my watch I received the same old start of surprise upon learning how much of wisdom one may accumulate in a half hour of aerial adventure. I still had an hour and a half to get through with before I could go home with a clear conscience. Therefore, taking height again, I went cautiously, gingerly, May we, Montvoy! The grand and glorious feeling is one of the finest compensations for this uncertain life in the air. One has it every time he turns from the lines toward home. It comes in richer glow if hazardous work has been done. After moments of strain, uncertainty, when the result of a combat sways back and forth and it gushes up like a fountain, when after making a forced landing in what appears to be enemy territory you find yourself among friends. Late this afternoon we started four of us, with David as the leader, to make the usual two-hour sortay over the lines. No Germans were sighted and after an uneventful half-hour, Davis, who was always bringing these surprises, decided to stock them in their layers. The clouds were at the right altitude for this, and there were gaps in them over which we could hover, examining roads, rail roads, villages. Cantaloupe's The danger of attack was negligible. We could easily escape any large hostile patrol by dodging into the clouds, but the wind was unfavorable for such a reconnaissance. It was blowing into Germany. We would have it dead against us on the journey home. We played about for half an hour blown by a strong wind further into Germany than we knew. We walked down the main street of a village where we saw a large crowd of German soldiers. Spraying bullets among them, then climbed into the clouds before a shot could be fired at us. Later we nearly attacked a hospital mistaking it for an aviation field. It was housed in by Sermont hangars, and had none of the marks of a hospital accepting a large red cross in the middle of the field. Fortunately we saw this before any of us had fired, and passed on over at a low altitude to attack a train. There is a good deal of excitement in an expedition of this kind. And soldiers themselves say that surprise sorties from the Arab have a demoralizing effect upon troops, but as a form of sport there is little to be said for it. It is too unfair. For this reason among others I was glad when Davis turned homeward. While coming back I climbed to five thousand meters, far above the others, and lagged a long way behind them. This was a direct violation of patrol discipline. And the result was that while cruising leisurely along, the motor throttled down. Watching the swift changes of light over a wide expanse of cloud, I lost sight of the group. Then came the inevitable feeling of loneliness in the swift realization that it was growing late, and that I was still far within enemy country. I held a southerly course, estimating as I flew, the velocity of the wind which had carried us into Germany, and judging from this estimate the length of time I should need to reach our lines. When satisfied that it had gone far enough I started down. Below the clouds it was almost night, so dark that I could not be sure of my location. In the distance I saw a large building, brilliantly lighted. This was evidence enough that I was a good way from the lines. Unshielded windows were never to be seen near the front. I spiraled slowly down over this building, examining as well as I could the ground behind it, and decided to risk a landing. A blind chance and blind luck attended it. In broad day Drew hit the only post in a field five hundred meters wide. At night, a very dark night, I missed colliding with an enormous factory chimney, a matter of inches. Glided over a line of telegraph wires, passed at a few meters height over a field littered with huge piles of sugar beats, and settled, comé unfleur, in a little cleared space, which I could never have judged accurately had I known what I was doing. Shadowy figures came running towards me, forgetting in the joy of so fortunate a landing, my anxiety of a moment before I shouted out, Once over, mon chores! Then I heard someone say, A glob? Losing the rest of it in the sound of cramping feet and an undercurrent of low guttural murmurs. In a moment my spad was surrounded by a widening circle of round hats, German infant human's hats. Here was the ignoble end of my career as an airman. I was a prisoner, a prisoner because of my own folly, because I had dallyed along like a silly girl, to look at the pretty clouds. I saw in front of me a long captivity, embittered by this thought. Not only this, my spad was intact. The German authorities would examine it, use it. Some German pilot might fly with it over the lines, attack other French machines with my gun, my ammunition. Not if I could help it. They stood there, those soldiers, gaping, muttering among themselves, waiting. I thought for an officer to tell them what to do. I took off my leather gloves, then my silk ones under them. And these I washed about in the oil under my feet. Then, as quietly as possible, I reached for my box of matches. Qu'est-ce qu'voix voites la svaite? A trampling of feet again, and a sea of round hats bobbing up and down and vanishing in the gloom. Then I heard a cheery, qu'vaa monsoeur, pas de mal? By way of answer I lighted a match and held it out, torch fashion, the light glistened on a round red face and a long French bayonet. Finally I said, Qu'est-ce, Francaise, monsoeur? In a weak weary voice. My wee, monvoix, my wee! This rather testily. He didn't understand at first that I thought myself in Germany. Do I look like a Bosch? Then I explained, and I have never heard a Frenchman laugh more heartily. Then he explained and I laughed, not so heartily, a great deal more foolishly. I may not give my location precisely, but I shall be disclosing no military secrets and saying that I am not in Germany. I am not even in the French war zone. I am closer to Paris than I am to the enemy first line trenches. In a little while the sergeant with the round red face and the long French bayonet, whose guest I am for the night, will join me here. If he were an American to the manner born and bred, and if he knew the cartoons of that man Briggs, he might greet me in this fashion. When you have been in patrol a long way behind the enemy lines, shooting up towns and camps, and railway trains like a pack of aerial cowboys, when on your way home you have deliberately disobeyed orders and loafed a long way behind the other members of your group in order to watch the pretty sunset, and as a punishment for this aesthetic indulgent, you have been overtaken by darkness and compelled to land in strange country, only to have your machine immediately surrounded by German soldiers. Then having taken the desperate resolve that they shall not take a possession of your old battle-scarred avion, as well as your person, when you are about to touch a match to it, if the light glistens on a long French bayonet. And you learn that the German soldiers have been prisoners since the Battle of Simone, and have just finished today's work at harvesting beets, to be used in making sugar for French Poulois. Oh boy, ain't it a grand and glorious feeling! To which I would reply in his own memorable words. My wee, mon voice, my wee! End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 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. Recording by Mike Vendetti, MikeVendetti.com. High Adventure, a Narrative of Air Fighting in France by James Norman Hall, Chapter 11. The Camouflage Cows Nancy, a Moonlit Night, and Les Sables, Boychoncourt. I have been out on the balcony of this old hotel, a famous tourist resort before the war, watching the bombardment and listening to the deep throb of the motors of German goths. They have dropped their bombs without doing any serious damage. Therefore I may return in peace to my huge, bare room to write, whether it is still fresh in mind. The Adventures of the Camouflaged Cows For the past ten days I have been attached, and it is only a temporary transfer, to a French eschredale of which Manning, an American is a member. The eschredale had just been sent to a quiet part of the front for two weeks' repose. But the day after my arrival orders came to fly to Belfort for special duty. Belfort, on the other side of O'Shea's Mountains, with the Rhine Valley, the Alps within view, within easy flying distance, and for special duty. It is a vague order which may mean anything. We discussed its probable meaning for us, while we were picking out our course on our maps. Protection of bombardment avions was André's guess. Night combat was Raynaud's. Everyone laughed at this last hazard. You see, he said appealing to me, the newcomer, they think I am big fool, but wait. Then breaking into French in order to express himself more fluently. It is coming soon. Chase, deno it. It is not at all impossible. One can see at night a moonlit night very clearly from the air. They are black shadows, the other avions, which you pass. But often, when the moonlight strikes at a wings, they flash like silver. We must have searchlights, of course. Then, when one sees those shadows, those great black ghosts fit à l'enluminaire, pop, pop, pop, pop. C'est fini. The discussion of the possibility or impossibility of night combat continued warmly. The majority of opinion was unfavorable to it. A useless waste of gasoline. The results would not pay for the wear and tear upon valuable fighting planes. Raynaud was not to be persuaded. Wait and see, he said. There was a reminiscent thrill in his voice, for he is an old night-bombarding pilot. He remembered with longing, I think his romantic night voyages, the moonlight falling softly on the roofs of towns, the rivers like ribbons of silver, the forest patches of black shadow. Really, it is an adventure, a night-bombardment. But how about your objectives, I ask? At night you can never be sure of hitting them, and, well, you know what happens in French towns. It is why I ask for my transfer to Chase, he told me afterward. But the Germans, the blonde beast. Do they care? Nancy, Belfort, Goulons, Eponeri, Reims, Cessons, Paris. All our beautiful towns. I am a fool. We must pay them back, the Huns. Let the innocents suffer with the guilty. He became a combat pilot because he had not the courage of his conviction. We started in flights of five machines. Following the Marne and the Marne Canal to Bar de Duc, then across country to Toul, where we landed to fill our fuel tanks. Having bestowed many favors upon me for a remarkably long period, our aerial godfather decided that I had been taking my good fortune and too much for granted. Therefore, he broke my tail-skid for me, as I was making what I thought a beautiful, atterishage. It was late in the afternoon, so the others went on without me, the captain giving orders that I should join them, weather permitting, the next day. Follow the Moselle until you lose it in the mountains, then pick up the road which leads over the Boulogne de Aslanse. You can't miss it. I did. Nevertheless, and as always, when lost through my own fault, I followed the Moselle easily enough until it disappeared in small branching streams in the heart of the mountains. Then being certain of my direction, I followed an irregular course, looking down from a great height upon scores of little mountain villages, untouched by war. After weeks of flying over the desolation of more northerly sectors of the front, this little indulgence seemed to me quite a legitimate one. But my spand, I was always flying tired old avions in those days, the discards of older pilots, began to show signs of fatigue. The pressure went down, neither motor nor hand pump would function. The engine began to gasp, and although I instantly switched on my reserve tank, it expired with shuddering coughs. The propeller, after making a few spins in the reverse direction, stopped dead. I had been in a most comfortable frame of mind, all the way. For a long cross-country aerial journey well behind the zone of fire is a welcome relaxation after combat patrols. It is odd how quickly one's attitude toward rugged beautiful country changes, when one is faced with the necessity of finding landing-ground there. The steep ravines yawn like mouths, the peaks of the mountains are teeth ragged. Sinister-looking teeth. Being at five thousand meters, I had ample time, which to make a choice ample time, too, for wondering if, by a miscalculation, I had crossed the trench-lines, which in that region are hardly visible from the air. I searched anxiously for a wide valley, where it would be possible to land in safety, while still three thousand meters from the ground I found one. Not only at field, there were best-in-no hangers on it. An aerodrome, a moment of joy, but German pamps, followed by another of anxiety. It was quickly relieved by the sight of a French reconnaissance plane spiraling down for a landing I landed to, and found that I was only of ten minutes flight from my destination. With other work to do, I did not finish the story of my adventure with the camouflage cows, and I am wondering now why I thought it's such a corking one. The cows had something to do with it. We were returning from Belfort to Verdun when I met them. Our special duty had been to furnish aerial protection to the king of Italy, who was visiting the French lines in the visage. This done we started northward again. Over the highest of the mountains my motor-pump failed as before. I got well past the mountains before the essence in my reserve-tank gave out. Then I planed as flatly as possible, searching for another aviation field. There were none to be found in this region, rough, hilly country. Much of it covered with forests. I chose a miniature sugar-loaf mountain for landing-ground. It appeared to be free from obstacles and the summit, which was pasture and plowed land, seemed wide enough to settle on. I got the direction of the wind from the smoke blowing from the chimneys of a nearby village, and turned into it. As I approached, the hill loomed more and more steeply in front of me. I had to pull up at a climbing angle to keep from nosing into the side of it. About this time I saw the cows, dozens of them grazing over the whole place. Their natural camouflage of browns and whites and reds prevented my seeing them earlier. Making spectacular verges I missed collisions by the length of a matchstick. At the summit of the hill my wheels touched ground for the first time and I bounced on, going through a three strand wire fence and taking off a post without any appreciable decrease in speed. Passing between two large apple trees I took limbs from each of them, losing my wings and doing so. My landing chasis was intact and my spad went on down the reverse slope, like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. After crashing through a thicket of brush and small trees I came to rest both in body and in mind, against the stone wall. There was nothing left of my machine but this seat. Unscathed I looked back along the wreckage-stroom path, like a man who has been riding a whirlwind in a wicker chair. Now I have never yet made a forced landing in strange country without having the mayor of the nearest village appear on the scene very soon afterward. I am beginning to believe that the mayors of all French towns sit on the roofs of their houses, field glasses in hand, searching the sky for wayward aviators, and when they see one landing they rush to the spot on foot, on horseback, in old-fashioned family phaetons, by means of whatever conveyance most likely to increase, expedition their municipality affords. The mayor of Bayserelle came on foot, for he had not far to go, indeed. Had there been one more cow browsing between the apple trees I should have made a last verage to the left, in which case I should have piled up against a summer pavilion in the mayor's garden. Like all French mayors of my experience he was a courteous, big-hearted gentleman. After getting his breath he was a fleshy man and had run all the way from his house he said, Now, oh boy, what can I do for you? First he placed a guard around the wreckage of my machine. Then we had tea in the summer pavilion where I explained the reason for my sudden visit. While I was telling him the story I noticed that every window of the house which stood at one end of the garden was crowded with children's heads, war orphans I guessed, either that or the children of a large family, of sons at the front. He was the kind of man who would take them all into his own home. Being frightened his cows, they must have given cottage cheese for a week afterward, destroyed his fences, broken his apple trees, accepted his hospitality, I had the amazing nerve to borrow money from him. I had no choice in matter, for I was a long way from Verdun with only eighty centimes in my pocket. Had there been time I would have walked rather than ask him for the loan. He granted it gladly and insisted upon giving me double the amount which I required. I promised to go back some day for a visit. First I will do acrobesi over the church steeple, and then if the cows are not in the pasture I am going to land. Call my own flower, as we airmen say, on that hill. END OF CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII 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, recording by Mike Vendetti. MikeVendetti.com. HIGH ADVENTURE. A narrative of air fighting in France by James Norman Hall. CHAPTER XII. CAFARD. It is mid-January, snowing, blowing the thermometer below zero. We have done no flying for five days. We have read our most recent magazines from cover to cover, including the advertisements, many of which we find more interesting, better written than the stories. We have played our latest phonograph record for the five hundred and ninety-eighth time. Now we are hugging our one stove, which is no larger than a length of good American stove pipe, in the absurd hope of getting a fleeting promise of heat. Boredom. Insufferable boredom. There is no American expression. There will be soon, no doubt, for this disease, which claims so many victims from the Channel Coast to the borders of Switzerland. The British have it without giving it a name. They say, FEDUP, and far from home. The more inventive French call it CAFARD. Our outlook upon life is warped, or to use the more seasonable expression, Frozen. We are not ourselves. We make sarcastic remarks about one another. We hold up for ridicule, individual peculiarities or individuality. Someone, tiring of this form of indoor sports, starts the phonograph again. Wine, wine, wine, the crank. The needle on disc. La-dee-dum-dee-diddle-dee-diddle-dee. The orchestral introduction. Sometimes when I feel sad and things look blue, I wish the boy I had was one like you. For the love of Pete, shut off that damn silly thing. I admire your taste, Irving. Can it. Well, what will you have, then? Play the Russian thing, the dance-de-buffoons. Don't play anything. Lord, I wish someone would send us some new records. Yes, instead of knitted wristlers. What? And mufflers? Talking about wristlers. How many pair do you think I've received? Eight? You try to hit them off. Doesn't do any good. They keep coming just the same. It's because they are easy to make. Working wristlers and mufflers is a method of dodging the knitting draft. Well, now I call that gratitude. You don't deserve to have any friends. Isn't it the truth? Have you ever known of a soldier or an aviator who wore wristlers? I give mine to my mechanic and he sends them home and his wife unravels the yarn and makes sweaters for the youngsters. Think of a waste of energy, harness up the wrist power, and you could keep three aircraft factories going day and night. Oh, well, if it amuses the women, what's the difference? That's not the way to look at it. They ought to be doing something useful. Plenty of them are. Don't forget that, old son. Anybody got anything to read? Now, if they would send us more books and magazines, do we sculpt like you or wish and they wouldn't send you so many? What of it? We were having fine weather then. There ought to be some system about sending parcels to the front. The Germans have it, they say. Soldier wants a book. On engineering, for example, or a history or an anthology of recent poetry gets it at once through government channels. Say what you like about the Bosch's. They don't know the meaning of waste energy. But you can't have method and efficiency in a democracy. There you go. Same old fallacy. No fallacy about it. Efficiency and personal freedom don't go together. They never have and they never will. And what does your personal freedom amount to when you get down to brass tax? Personal freedom is a mighty poor name for it. Speaking for four fifths of the population. Germany doesn't want it, our brand, and we can't force it on her. And without it, she has a mighty good chance of winning this war. When the talk begins with the uselessness of risters, shifts from that to democratic inefficiency and from that to the probability of Deutschland-Uber allies, you may be certain of the diagnosis. The DZ's is caffard. The sound of a motor car approaching. Dunham rushes to the window and then swears, remembering our greased cloth window panes. Go and see who it is. Tiffin, will you? Hope it's a mail orderly. Tiffin goes on outpost and reports three civilians approaching. Now, who can they be, I wonder? Newspaperman, probably. Good lord, I hope not. Another American mission? That's my guess, too. Rodman is right. It is another American mission coming to study conditions at the front. But unofficially, gentlemen, quite unofficially, says Mr. A. its head, a tall, melancholy-looking man. With a deep bell-like voice, Mr. B., the second member of our mission, is in direct contrast a bird-like little man who put us about the room from group to group. Oh, if you boys only knew how splendid you are, how much we in America, you are our first representatives at the front. You know, you are the vanguard of the millions who, et cetera. Miller looks at me solemnly. His eyes are saying, How long? Oh, lord, how long? Mr. C., the third member, is a silent man. He has keen, deep-set eyes. There, we say, is the brain of the mission. T. has served very informally. Mr. A. is restless. He has something on his mind. Presently, he turns to Lieutenant Talbot. May I say a few words to your squadron? Certainly, says Talbot, granting us uneasily. Mr. A. rises, steps behind his chair, clears his throat, and looks down the table where ten pilots, the others are taking a constitutional in the country, caught in negligee attire by the unexpected visitors, are sitting in attitudes of polite attention. My friends, the deep bell-like voice. In fancy I hear a great shifting of chairs, and, following the melancholy eyes with my own over the heads of my ten fellow pilots, beyond the limits of our poor little mess room, I see a long vista of polished shirt fronts, a diminishing track of snowy linen, shimmering wine-glasses shining silver. My friends, believe me, when I say that this occasion is one of the proudest and happiest of my life, I am standing within sound of the guns which, for three long years, have been battering at the bulwarks of civilization. I hear them, as I utter these words, and I look into the faces of a little group of Americans, who day after day, and week after week, increasing emphasis, have been facing these guns for the honor and glory of democratic institutions, rising inflection. We in America have heard them, faintly, perhaps, yet unmistakably, and now I come to tell you, in the words of that glorious old war song, we are coming, Father Woodrow, one hundred million strong. We listen through to the end, and Lieutenant Talibot, in his official capacity, begins to applaud. The rest of us join intimately, self-consciously. I am surprised to find how awkwardly we do it. We have almost forgotten how to clap our hands. My sense of the spirit of place changes suddenly. I am in America. I am my old self there, with different thoughts, different emotions. I see everything from my old point of view. I am like a man who has forgotten his identity. I do not recover my old or better my new one, until our guests have gone. Please visit LibreVox.org, recording by Mike Vendetti, Mike Vendetti.com. High Adventure, a narrative of air-fighting in France, by James Norman Hall, Chapter 13. From a letter received in Boston, October 1st, 1918. Officers Kregsgoff and Glyn Lager. Karlstruel Balden, Deutschland. July 27th, 1918. I have been wondering about the ultimate fate of my poor old High Adventure story. Whether it was published without those long promised concluding chapters, which I really should have sent on hand, had I not had the misfortune to be taken prisoner? I hope the book has been published and complete as it is. Not that I am particularly proud of it, as a piece of literature. I told you briefly on my card how I happened to be taken prisoner. We were a patrol of three, and a tactic German information, at some distance behind their lines. I was diving vertically on an albatross when my upper right plane gave way under the strain. Fortunately the structure of the wing did not break. It was only the fabric covering it, which ripped off in great strips. I immediately turned towards our lines and should have reached them, I believe, even in my crippled condition. But by that time I was very low and under a heavy fire from the ground. A German anti-aircraft battery made a direct hit on my motor. It was a terrific smash and almost knocked the motor out of the frame. My machine went down in a spin and I had another of those moments of intense fear common to the experience of aviators. Well, by Jove, I hardly know how I managed it, but I kept from crashing nose down. I struck the ground at an angle of about thirty degrees, the motor of which was just hanging on spilled out, and I went skidding along, with the fuselage of the machine. The landing chases having been snapped off as though their braces were so many toothpicks. One of my ankles was broken and the other one sprained, and my poor old nose received and withstood a severe contact with my windshield. I've been in the hospital ever since until a week ago, when I was sent to this temporary camp to wait assignment to a permanent one. I now hobble about fairly well with the help of a stick, although I am to be a lame duck for several months to come, I believe. Needless to say, the lot of a prisoner of war is not a happy one. The hardest part of it is, of course, the loss of personal liberty. Oh, I shall know how to appreciate that when I have it again. But we are well treated here. Our quarters are comfortable and pleasant, and the food is as good as we have any right to expect. My own experience as a prisoner of war and that of all the Frenchmen and Englishmen here with whom I have talked leads me to believe that some of those tales of escaped or exchanged prisoners must have been highly imaginative, not that we are enjoying all the comforts of home. On the contrary, a fifteen cent lunch at a child's restaurant would seem a feast to me. In a piece of milk chocolate, are there such luxuries as chocolate in the world? But for prisoners, I, for one, up to this point, have no complaint to make with respect to our treatment. We have a splendid little library here which British and French officers who have preceded us have collected. I didn't realize until I saw it how book-hungry I was. Now I am cramming history, biography, essays, novels. I know I'm not reading with any judgment, but I'll soon settle down to a more profitable enjoyment of my leisure. Yesterday and today I've been reading The Spoils of Pointon by Henry James. It is absurd to try cramming these. I've been longing for this opportunity to read Henry James. Knowing that he was Joseph Conrad's master, The Spoils of Pointon has given me a foretaste of the pleasure I'm to have. A prisoner of war has his compensations. Here I've come out of the turmoil of a life of the most intense nervous excitement. A life lived day to day, with no thoughts of tomorrow, into this other life of unlimited bookish leisure. We are like monks in a convent. We're almost entirely out of touch with the outside world. We hear rumors of what is taking place at the front, and now and then get a budget of stale news from newly arrived prisoners. But for all this we are so completely out of it. All of it seems as though the war must have come to an end. Until now this cloistered life has been very pleasant. I've had time to think and to make plans for a future which, comparatively speaking, seems assured. One has periods of restlessness, of course. When these come I can soul myself as best I may. Even for prisoners of war. There are possibilities for quite interesting adventure. Adventure in companionship. Thrown into such intimate relationships as we are here, and under these particular circumstances, we make rather surprising discoveries about ourselves and about each other. There are obvious superficial effects, which I can trace back to causes quite easily. But there are others which have me guessing. By Jove this is an interesting place. Conrad would find material here which would set him to work at once. I can imagine how he would revel in it. Well, I'm getting to be a very wise man. I'm deeply learned in many kinds, or better phrases of human psychology, and I'm increasing my fund of knowledge every day. Therefore I've decided that when the war is over, I'll be no more a wanderer. I'll settle down in Boston for nine months out of the year, and create deathless literature. And for vacations, I've already planned the first one, which is to be a three-month jaunt by airplane up and down the United States, east and west, north and south. You will see the possibilities of adventure in a trip of this sort. By limiting myself somewhat as to itinerary, I can do the thing. I've found just the man here to share the journey with. An American in the British Air Force. He is enthusiastic about the plan. If only I can keep him from getting married for a year or so after getting home. I had a very interesting experience immediately after being taken prisoner on May 7. I was taken by some German aviators to their airdrome and had lunch with them before I was sent on to the hospital. Some of them spoke English, and some of them French. So that there was no difficulty in conversing. I was suffering a good deal from my twisted ankles, and had to be guarded in my remarks because of the danger of disclosing military information. But they were a fine lot of fellows. They respected my reticence and did all they could to make me comfortable. It was with pilots from this squadron that we had been fighting only an hour or so before. One of their number had been killed in the combat by one of the boys who was flying with me. I sat beside the fellow whom I was attacking when my wing broke. I was right on his tail, as we airmen say, when the accident occurred, and had just opened fire. Talking over the combat with him in their pleasant quarters, I was heartily glad that my affair ended as it did. I asked them to tell me frankly if they did not feel rather bitterly pulled me as one of an enemy patrol which had shot down a comrade of theirs. They seemed to be surprised that I had any suspicions on this score. We had a fair fight in an open field. Why should there be any bitterness about the result? One of them said to me, Hopman, you'll find that we Germans are enemies of a country in war, but never of the individual. My experience thus far leads me to believe that this is true. There have been a few exceptions, but they were uneducated common soldiers. Bitterness toward America there certainly is everywhere, and an intense hatred of President Wilson quite equal in degree and kind to the hatred in America of the emperor.