When I left for my leave to England, I was not very keen on going.
The excitement of the chase had a tight hold on my heart-strings,
and I felt that the only thing I wanted was to stay right at it and
fight and fight and fight in the air. I don’t think I was ever happier
in my life. It seemed that I had found the one thing I loved above
all others. To me it was not a business or a profession, but just
a wonderful game. To bring down a machine did not seem to me to be
killing a man; it was more as if I was just destroying a mechanical
target, with no human being in it. Once or twice the idea that a live
man had been piloting the machine would occur and recur to me, and it
would worry me a bit. My sleep would be spoiled perhaps for a night. I
did not relish the idea even of killing Germans, yet, when in a combat
in the air, it seemed more like any other kind of sport, and to shoot
down a machine was very much the same as if one were shooting down clay
pigeons. One had the great satisfaction of feeling that he had hit the
target and brought it down; that one was victorious again.
When I reached England, however, I found I was in a very nervous
condition. I could not be still. After a week there, in which I enjoyed
myself tremendously, I found I was getting quieter, and realized that
my leave was probably doing me a world of good. My last week of leave I
enjoyed without stint, every minute seeming better than the one before.
To make it still more ideal, I did not have the usual dread of going
back to France--I was looking forward to it. I realized that this short
rest had quieted my nerves and had left me in a much better state of
health, so that when the two weeks were up and the day came for my
return I gladly got on the train leaving Charing Cross, and all day
looked forward to my return to the squadron. By great luck, I managed
to catch an automobile going in my direction from Boulogne, and
arrived at the aerodrome the same night I had left London. I felt like
a small boy returning home for his holidays. I was plied with questions
as to what “good old England” looked like, what I had done and what was
happening in “Blighty”; and in my turn I was full of questions as to
what had happened in the squadron while I was away. Many things had:
several people had been killed, and quite a number of Hun machines had
been shot down by our pilots. A great many exciting and a great many
amusing fights in the air were related.
It was typical of the attitude of these comrades of mine that when a
man had been in an exceedingly tight corner and had managed to squeeze
out of it, it was later related as a very amusing, not as a very
terrible, incident, and as the narrator would tell his story the others
would shriek with laughter at the tale of how nearly he had been hit
and how “scared” he had been. It was such a wonderful way to take life
that, upon looking back at it, I feel that nothing the future can ever
hold for me can excel those wonderful days. Face to face with death
every day, but always with the best of comrades and the most tried of
friends, it has left a wonderful memory with me.
The day after rejoining the squadron, I did my first job at 9 o’clock
in the morning. I must admit I felt very funny in the machine. I seemed
to have lost all “feel” of it and could not turn or fly it properly at
all. However, that day I had two jobs, and by the end of the second
luckily had run into no exciting episodes.
Then came the reaction. I felt a wonderful thrill at being back in the
air again, and handling my beloved Nieuport. It seemed that nothing was
dangerous, and that to throw this machine about in the air was just
the best sport that had ever been invented. I remember racing along
close to the ground, seeing how close I could make my wing-tips come to
the sheds and trees without hitting them. It was all just a wonderful
thrill, and no thought of peril entered my head. That evening I went up
and spent an hour in flying, just for the pure pleasure of it. Life
was as sweet as it could be, and I saw the world through rose-coloured
glasses.
That night the romance of our life at the front was brought home to me
again. We spent the evening after dark standing around a piano, while
one of our number played popular songs, the remainder singing in loud
and varied keys, going on the principle that if you cannot sing, at
least you can make a joyful noise.
About 9 o’clock a party of ten others arrived from a squadron stationed
near us, and we had more music and songs with them. Everybody was
happy; flying and fighting had been forgotten for the moment, and war
was a thing far, far away. Toward the end of the party we went to
the farmyard near by, appropriated some small pigs only a few months
old, and placed them in the room of one of our pilots who was dining
out. Then, about 11 o’clock, when he had come back, we went into the
next room to listen through the thin partition to his remarks when he
entered his pig-filled boudoir. In a small space about 10 by 6 over
fifteen of us were jammed anxiously waiting for the climax of the
evening. In the other room the little pigs were grunting away merrily,
and it was all we could do to keep from roaring with laughter. It was
pitch black, and with the funny little squeals coming through the
partition there would occasionally be a bit of a scamper, for although
we at first placed the pigs on the bed, on looking over the partition I
saw they were moving around the room in formation, one of their number
evidently having assigned himself the position of leader of the pork
patrol.
Unfortunately, the episode fell through miserably, as the pigs took
up a station near the door, and when the owner of the room returned
and opened it he walked across to light his lamp. The pigs, seeing the
opening before he had seen them, made a dash and managed to get out,
with a great chorus of squealing. They hid under the huts, and it took
the rest of us several hours to find them and take them back to their
mother.
After going to bed, I was awakened by one of my dogs scampering out
of the hut. I listened for a minute and heard voices outside, got up
and walked out in my pyjamas. It was a perfect moonlight night, without
a breath of wind, and bright as could be. Outside two or three others
were standing in pyjamas, and after asking what was the matter I was
told there was a German machine overhead. Listening carefully, I could
hear the beat of a Mercédès engine about a mile away. We could not see
the Hun, but could hear him quite distinctly as he flew past. Then came
the explosions as a few bombs were dropped, and then more explosions
as the anti-aircraft guns located the moonlight marauder and began to
fire. We could see little bursts of flame as the shells exploded high
in the air. It was a beautiful show. The light was too bright even to
see the stars, but these fierce little bursts of flame dotted the sky
first in one spot, then in another, and gradually travelled in a line
towards the trenches, as the enemy made in that direction. He got away
safely, however, and we returned to bed.
In our home in a beautiful green orchard, our life was full of the most
extraordinary contrasts. One minute we were as far removed from the war
as if we were in South America, and an hour later we would be fighting
for our lives or carrying on in some way directly connected with the
mad world-struggle. It all added to the lure of life and somehow made
the real fighting, when it came, seem less real and tragic.