way in, I got my helmet and we strolled down the boyau to meet the
stretcher-bearers. It was, to me, a new section of the front and very
interesting. The country is broken and hilly, and the lines zigzag about
from crest to valley in the most haphazard way, which really has been
painfully worked out to prevent enfilading fire. There is scarcely any
fighting here, as neither side has anything to gain by an advance, which
would mean giving up their present artillery positions.
In one place the boyau ran down a steep slope, badly exposed, and Jean
said, "Follow me on the run!" We sprinted for twenty yards, and next
moment, _tat-tat-tat-tat_ came from the Boches, and little spurts of
dust shot up behind us. They can never shoot quickly enough to hurt any
one at this point, Jean said, but after all, "You can't blame a fellow
for trying."
At the next turn we came on a train of the little grenade donkeys--so
small that they make the tiniest Mexican burro seem a huge clumsy brute.
They do not show above the shallowest trench, and each one carries two
panniers full of grenades. These last are vicious little things of cast
iron, checkered so as to burst into uniform square fragments, and about
the size and shape of lemons. They make an astonishingly loud bang when
they go off, and if close enough, as in a narrow trench, are pretty bad.
At a little distance, of course, they are not very dangerous. In the
trench warfare--raids, infantry attacks, and so forth--they seem to have
supplanted rifles, just as the knife has supplanted the bayonet.
_May 11, 1917_
Sunday, another lovely day. It is 7 A.M., and already the indefinable
Sunday atmosphere has come over the camp. The shower-baths are open and
strings of men are coming and going with towels on their arms. Under the
trees little groups are shaving and cutting one another's hair, amid
much practical joking and raillery.
One becomes very fond of the French soldier. Large floods of rhetoric
have been poured out in describing him, and yet nearly every day one
discovers in him new and interesting traits. Let me try to sketch for
you a composite picture of the French infantryman--the fantassin who is
winning the war for France. On the whole, I do not see him as a boy,
but as a sturdy middle-aged man--the father of a family. He is short and
solidly built, with thick calves and heavy shoulders. His round head, on
which the hair is short, crisp, and black, is surmounted by a battered
blue helmet. He wears a long overcoat, looped up and buttoned at the
sides, showing evidence, in several places, of home-made patching. It
was once horizon blue, but has now faded to an ideally protective shade
of blue-green-gray. About his middle is a worn cartridge-belt, and from
either shoulder, their straps crossing on breast and back, hang his
musettes--bags of brown canvas for carrying extra odds and ends,
including everything from a bottle of wine to a dictionary. On his back
is his square pack, an affair of formidable weight, to which he has
lashed his rolled blanket in the form of a horseshoe, points down.
Perched on top of this, he carries his gamelle and quart--the saucepan
and cup which serve for both cooking and eating; and beside them you
perceive with astonishment that he has strapped a large German trench
torpedo--a souvenir for the home folks. From his belt hangs the tin box,
painted horizon-blue, which contains his gasmask, and on the other side
his long slender bayonet rattles against his thigh.
A large calloused hand, not too clean, holds his shouldered rifle at a
most unmilitary angle. The gun has seen hard service, the wood is
battered, and in places bright steel shows through the bluing; but look
closely and you will see that it is carefully greased, and in the muzzle
a little plug of cloth keeps out dust and moisture. In spite of a load
which would make a burro groan, he walks sturdily, whistling a march
between puffs of a cigarette. Glance at his face. The eyes are dark
gray, deep-set, and twinkling with good humor; they are the clear
decisive eyes of a man who knows what he wants and has set about getting
it. The nose is aquiline, the mouth strong and ironically humorous, the
unshaven chin positive and shapely. It is the face of a breed that has
been settling to type for many centuries, a race old in cultivation and
philosophy.
What is he in civil life? That is hard to say. A lawyer, a farmer, a
customhouse clerk, a cook--probably a cook; most of them seem to be
cooks, and mighty good ones. Ours at the mess was assistant chef at the
Savoy, in London, and when he has the material (for example a
hind-quarter of mule, a few potatoes, some dandelions, a tin of lobster,
and an egg) he can turn out a dinner hard to equal anywhere--delicious
hors d'oeuvres, superb soup, roast, sauté potatoes, salad, and so on.
The French soldier's one great joy and privilege is to grumble. Back in
billets where he goes to rest, he spends the whole day at it--hour after
hour, over a bock or a litre of wine, he complains of everything: the
food, the uniforms, the trenches, the artillery, the war itself. To hear
him, one would suppose that France was on the verge of ruin and
disintegration. Let some unwise stranger make the slightest criticism of
France, and watch the change. The poilu takes the floor with a bound.
There is no country like France--no better citizens or braver soldiers
than the French.
"Dis donc, mon vieux," he ends triumphantly, "where would Europe be now
if it were not for us?"
To be a French general is a terrible responsibility. Their ears must
burn continually, for every act is criticized, picked to pieces, and
proved a fatal mistake, daily, in a thousand roadside wine-shops. Some
celebrity once remarked, that every French soldier was a potential
general. He knew them; he was right. They are no carping destructive
critics who tear things down but suggest no method of building up. On
the contrary, any chance-met poilu will tell you exactly how any
maneuver or bit of strategy should be carried out--from a trench-raid to
an enveloping movement, which will--he is sure of it!--net fifty
thousand prisoners. In last night's coup de main they caught only three
Germans. "Do you know why, my friend? I will tell you. Our artillery cut
the wires all right, and tapped on the front trench. Good. After that
they raised their guns for the barrage, but pouf! the Boches had already
run back to their dugouts in the second or third lines. Had the gunners
made a barrage on the second line from the beginning, the Germans would
have been forced to remain in the first line, and instead of three, we
would have bagged thirty. Oh, well, we get our extra leave anyhow, and
you should have heard them squeal when we dropped grenades down their
stove-pipes!"
The French infantryman would drive a foreign officer mad until he began
to understand him and appreciate his splendid hidden qualities. The only
thing he does without grumbling is fight; and, after all, when you come
to think of it, that is a rather important part of a soldier's duty.
An officer wants a new boyau dug--you never _heard_ such grumbling and
groaning and kicking. Finally, a bit put out, he says,--
"All right, don't dig it, if you are all sick and tired, and think I
make you work simply to keep you busy. It was only a whim of mine
anyhow--the Boches put up a new machine-gun last night, which enfilades
the old boyau, and when day breaks and you go back to the third lines,
they will doubtless put a dozen of us out of our misery."
As if by magic the new zigzag trench is dug, and the chances are that
the officer finds a supply of extra-good firewood in his abri next day.
In an army like France's, one finds many odd birds among the simple
soldiers. I was playing "shinny" (we introduced it and it has become
very popular in our section) the other evening, and, when a soldier took
off his coat, four thousand francs in bills dropped out of the breast
pocket. Another evening, in a café, a roughly dressed soldier stood up
to give us a bit of music--and for an hour the world seemed to stand
still while one of the greatest violinists of France (two years at the
front, twice wounded, Croix de Guerre, with several citations) made us
forget that anything existed except a flood of clear throbbing sound.
It was a rough, drinking crowd--a moment before there had been a
pandemonium of loud voices and clattering plates; but for an hour the
listeners were still as death--not a whisper, not even a hand-clap of
applause. It was, I think, the finest tribute I ever saw paid a
musician. And so it goes: one never knows what variety of man is hidden
beneath the uniform of faded horizon-blue.
_June 17, 1917_
At last I am free to sit down quietly for a letter to you. It has been a
week of rather frenzied running about--passing examinations, and the
like. I arrived here in the expectation of taking the first boat,
crossing the continent, and seeing you.
A talk with some American officers changed the whole aspect of affairs
and showed me that, if I was to be of any use, my job was to remain
here. At home, it seems, men are a drug on the market--the rub is to
train them and fit them in. Here, on the other hand, they fairly welcome
healthy young men--and will train us and put us where we will do the
most good, with the least possible delay. Don't let yourself think that
flying over here is unduly hazardous--a skillful pilot (as I hope to be)
has as good a chance of living to a ripe old age as his comrades in the
infantry. Numbers of them have been at it since 1914. The school where I
hope to be is the finest in the world, and the machines are beyond
praise.
Since writing the above, I have received my papers of acceptance in the
Foreign Legion, conditional on passing the French physical tests. I have
already passed the tests of the Franco-American Committee. Before
cabling I took all the tests.
_Later_
I have passed the French examination and am to leave for the school in a
day or two. I have been lucky!
It was interesting at the Paris recruiting office. I stood in line with
dozens of other recruits for the Foreign Legion--all of us naked as so
many fish, in the dirty corridor, waiting our turns. Each man had a
number: mine was seven--lucky, I think! Finally the orderly shouted,
"Numéro sept," and I separated myself from my jolly polyglot neighbors,
marched to the door, did a demi-tour à gauche, and came to attention
before a colonel, two captains, and a sergeant.
"Name, Nordhoff, Charles Bernard--born at London, 1887--American
citizen--unmarried--no children--desires to enlist in Foreign Legion for
duration of war--to be detached to the navigating personnel of the
Aviation," read the sergeant, monotonously. In two minutes I had been
weighed, measured, stethoscoped, ears and eyes tested, and passed.
The colonel looked at me coldly and turned to the captain.
"Not so bad, this one, hein? He has not the head of a beast."
I bowed with all the dignity a naked man can muster, and said
respectfully, "Merci, mon colonel."
"Ah, you speak French," he rejoined with a smile; "good luck, then, my
American."
II
THE FLEDGLING
Here at Avord there are about seventy-five Americans of every imaginable
sort--sailors, prize-fighters, men of the Foreign Legion, and a good
scattering of University men. As good a fellow as any is H----, formerly
a chauffeur in San Francisco. He is pleasant, jolly, and hard-working,
with an absurdly amiable weakness for "crap-shooting," in which he
indulges at all times, seconded by an American darky who is a pilot
here--and a good one.
I can hear them as I write, snapping their fingers as the dice roll:
"Come on 'leben--little seben, be good to me! Fifty days--little
Phoebe--fever in the South! Read 'em and weep! Ten francs--let 'er ride.
I'll fade you!" The crap-shooting circle is always either stuffed with
banknotes or reduced to a few sous--which latter predicament is a bit
serious here, where we have to pay eight to ten francs a day to get
sufficient nourishing food.
We sleep in barracks, about twenty to the room, on cots with straw
mattresses. All days are pretty much alike. At 3 A.M. a funny little
Annamite Chinaman, with betel-blackened teeth, comes softly in and
shakes you by the shoulder in an absurdly deprecating way. You reach for
your tin cup, and he pours out a quarter-litre of fearful but hot
liquid, somewhat resembling coffee. Then a cigarette in bed, amid drowsy
yawns and curses; a pulling on of breeches, golf-stockings, and leather
coats; a picking up of helmets, and a sleepy march to the bureau, under
the wind-gauges, barometers, and the great red balls that show the
passing side (right or left) for the day.
"Rassemblement! Mettez-vous sur quatre!" barks the adjutant, and off we
go to the field. There till nine, or till the wind becomes too
strong--each man taking his sortie of ten minutes as his name is called.
Back about ten; then a lecture till eleven, a discussion after that, and
the first meal of the day. Sleep afterwards till three or three-thirty;
then a bath, a shave, brush teeth, and clean up in general. At five,
assembly again, the same march, the same lessons till nine; then a meal,
a smoke, and to bed at eleven.
It has been a bit strenuous this past month, getting accustomed to this
life, which is easy, but absurdly irregular. Up at 3.30 A.M., and never
to bed before 11 P.M. Meals snatched wherever and whenever possible.
Some sleep by day is indispensable, but difficult in a barrack-room with
twenty other men, not all of whom are sleepy. This, together with fleas
and even more unwelcome little nocturnal visitors, has made me rather
irregular in my habits, but now I have got into a sort of régime--four
and a half hours of sleep at night, some sleep every afternoon, and
decent meals. Also I have discovered a sort of chrysanthemum powder,
which, with one of the "anti" lotions, fairly ruins my small attackers.
Baths, thank Heaven! I can get every day--with a sponge and soap. There
is no real hardship about this life--it is simply a matter of
readjusting one's self to new conditions and learning where and what to
eat, how to sleep, how to get laundry done, and so forth.
This school is superb. I shall have the honor of being one of the last
men in the world trained on the famous Blériot monoplane--obsolete as a
military plane, but the best of all for training, because the most
difficult. In spite of the fact that from the beginning to the end one
is alone, it is said to be the safest of all training, because you
practically learn to fly in the "Penguins" before leaving the ground;
and also because you can fall incredible distances without getting a
bruise.
In practically all of the French planes the system of control is the
same. You sit on cushions in a comfortable little chair--well strapped
in, clothed in leathers and helmet. At your left hand are two little
levers, one the mixture, the other the throttle. Your right controls the
manche-à-balai, or cloche--a push forward causes the machine to point
downward (pique) and a pull back makes it rise. Moving it sideways
controls the ailerons, or warps the wings--if you tip left, you move the
cloche right. Your feet rest on a pivoted bar which controls the rudder.
To rise, you head into the wind, open the throttle (steering with great
care, as a little carelessness here may mean a wrecked wing or a turn
over), and press forward the cloche: you roll easily off; next moment,
as the machine gathers speed, the tail rises, and you pull back the
stick into the position of ligne de vol. Faster and faster you buzz
along,--thirty, thirty-five, forty miles an hour,--until you have flying
speed. Then a slight backward pull on the cloche, and you are in the
air.
I made my first flight in a small two-place machine of the fighting
type--a Nieuport. It is a new sensation,--one which only a handful of
Americans have experienced,--to take the air at seventy-five or eighty
miles an hour, in one of these little hornets. The handling of them is
incredibly delicate, all the movements of the stick could be covered by
a three-inch circle. A special training is required to pilot them, but
once the knack is acquired they are superb, except for the necessity of
landing at sixty or seventy miles an hour. In the air you can do
anything with them--they will come out of any known evolution or
position.
Lately I have been making short low flights in a Blériot, and enjoying
it keenly. All I know (a mere beginning) I have learned entirely alone,
and the first time I left the ground, I left it alone. They simply put
you in the successive types of machines, with a brief word of
instruction, and tell you to fly--if you haven't the instinct, you are
soon put out of the school. After your month of preparation in
"Penguins" and "grass-cutters," the first short flight is a great
experience.
My name was at the end of the list, so for two hours of increasing
tension I watched my mates make their débuts. We were about a dozen, and
there were some bad "crashes" before my turn came. At last the monitor
called me and I was strapped in behind the whirling stick. The monitor
waved his arm, the men holding the tail jumped away, and I opened the
throttle wide, with the manche-à-balai pushed all the way forward. Up
came the tail; I eased back the control bit by bit, until I had her in
ligne de vol, tearing down the field at top speed. Now came the big
moment, mentally rehearsed a hundred times. With a final gulp I gingerly
pulled back the control, half an inch, an inch, an inch and a half. From
a buoyant bounding rush the machine seemed to steady to a glide, swaying
ever so little from side to side. A second later, the rushing green of
grass seemed to cease, and I was horrified to find myself looking down
at the landscape from a vast height whence one could see distant fields
and hangars as if on a map. A gentle push forward on the manche brought
her to ligne de vol again; a little forward, a reduction of gas, a pull
back at the last moment, and I had made my first landing--a beauty,
without a bounce. To-night I may crash, but I have always the memory of
my beginner's luck--landing faultlessly from fully twelve feet!
Lack of sleep is our main foe--a hard one to combat, as all sorts of
other things develop as its followers; one has simply to learn to sleep
in any odd moments of the day or night.
I may still "fall down" and be "radiated" to an observation or bombing
plane (which is of course no disgrace); but on the whole I have good
hopes of making a fighting pilot. Flying (on a Blériot monoplane) is by
no means as easy as I had supposed. It took us four weeks to learn to
run one at full speed, _in a straight line_, on the ground. The steering
and handling of the elevators (which regulate height of tail) are
extremely tricky, and many men are thrown out or sent to other schools
(Caudron, Farman, or Voisin) for inaptitude or "crashes" at this stage.
Then comes the stage of low straightaway flights, when you leave the
ground fast and in correct line of flight, and have to land smoothly.
Make no mistake--landing any kind of an aeroplane is hard, and to land
the fast fighting machines is a very great art, which forty per cent of
picked young men never acquire. They are so heavy for their supporting
area, that the moment they slow down to less than seventy-five or eighty
miles an hour they simply fall off on a wing (or "pancake"). Even a
Blériot requires a good eye and a steady delicate touch and judgment to
land in decent style. You are flying, say, three hundred feet up, and
wish to land. Forward goes your stick, the machine noses down as you cut
the motor. The ground comes rushing up at you until the moment comes
when you think you should "redress"--precisely as a plunging duck levels
before settling among the decoys. If you have gauged it to a nicety,
you skim over the ground a few yards up, gradually losing speed, and
settling at last without a jar or break in the forward motion. If you
redress too late, you turn over (capoter), or else bounce and fall off
on a wing. (I have seen men bounce fifty feet!) If you redress too high,
you lose speed too far above the ground, and either pique into the
ground and turn over, fall flat, or crash on one wing.
The secret of the whole game of learning to fly is, I believe, never to
get excited. I have seen beginner after beginner smash when he was first
sent up to fly. They run along the ground, pull back the stick, as told,
and a moment later are so astounded to find themselves twenty or thirty
feet off the ground that they can think of nothing but shutting off the
throttle. Many crash down tail first, with controls in climbing position
to the last. If they would simply think,--
"Ha, old boy, you're in the air at last--some thrill, but the main
thing now is to stay here a bit and then ease down without a crash. Ease
the stick forward--now we have stopped climbing. Feel that puff--she's
tipping, but a little stick or rudder will stop that. Now pique her
down, and reduce the gas a notch or two. Here comes the
ground--straighten her out; too much, she's climbing again; there, cut
the gas--a little more--there--not a bad landing for the first try."
Really there is no system in the world like learning alone, but it costs
the Government, I am told, from $30,000 to $40,000 to turn out a
fighting pilot. Three, six, ten machines--costly, delicate things--are
smashed daily in the school. Never a word is said, until a man smashes
one too many, when he is quietly sent to the easier double-command
school of bombardment or observation flying.
Some of the fellows are in bad shape nervously. Any night in our
barracks you can see a man, sound asleep, sitting up in bed with hands
on a set of imaginary controls, warding off puffs, doing spirals,
landings, and the like. It is odd that it should take such a hold on
their mental lives.
I enjoy hugely flying the old monoplane, especially when I fly home and
nose her down almost straight for a gorgeous rush at the ground. As you
straighten out, a few yards up, lightly as a seagull, and settle on the
grass, it is a real thrill.
I have purchased, for twenty-five francs, a beautiful soft
Russia-leather head-and-shoulder gear, lined with splendid silky fur. It
covers everything but one's eyes,--leaving a crack to breathe
through,--and is wonderfully warm and comfortable.
I have finally finished the Monoplane School, which is the end of
preliminary training. There remain spirals, etc., an altitude, and a few
hundred miles of cross-country flying, before I can obtain my brevet
militaire and have the glory of a pair of small gold wings, one on each
side of my collar. After that I shall have seven days' leave (if I am
lucky), followed by two or three weeks perfectionnement on the type of
machine I shall fly at the front. If I smash nothing from now on, I
shall have practically my choice of "zincs"--a monoplace de chasse, or
anything in the bombing or observation lines. If I break once, I lose my
chasse machine, and so on, down to the most prosaic type of heavy
bomber. Only one compensation in this very wise but severe system--the
worse the pilot, the safer the machine he finally flies.
In spite of all my hopes, I had the inevitable crash--and in the very
last class of the school. Landing our Blériots is a rather delicate
matter (especially to a beginner), and last week I had the relapse in
landings which so few beginners escape, with the result that I crashed
on my last flight of the morning. I felt pretty low about it, of course,
but on the whole I was not sorry for the experience, which blew up a lot
of false confidence and substituted therefor a new respect for my job
and a renewed keenness to succeed. After that I did better than ever
before, and made a more consistent type of landing.