the fight one fears that he is dead. What a loss to France and to the
Allies! the end of a career of unparalleled romantic brilliancy. I shall
never forget one evening in Paris last spring. I was sitting in the Café
de la Paix, under the long awning that fronts the Boulevard des
Capucines. All Paris was buzzing with Guynemer's mighty exploit of the
day before--four German planes in one fight, two of them sent hurtling
down in flames within sixty seconds. It took one back to the old days,
and one foresaw that Guynemer would take his place with the legendary
heroes of France, with Roland and Oliver, Archbishop Turpin, Saint
Louis, and Charles Martel.
Presently I looked up. A man was standing in the aisle before me--a
slender youth, rather, dressed in the black and silver uniform of a
captain in the French Aviation. Delicately built, of middle height, with
dark tired eyes set in a pale face, he had the look of a haggard boy who
had crowded the experience of a lifetime into a score of years. The
mouth was remarkable in so young a man--mobile and thin-lipped,
expressing dauntless resolution. On his breast the particolored ribbons
of his decorations formed three lines: Croix de Guerre, Médaille
Militaire, Officer of the Legion of Honor, Cross of St. George, English
Military Cross, and others too rare for recognition.
All about me there arose a murmur of excited interest; chairs were
pushed back and tables moved as the crowd rose to its feet. Cynical
Swiss waiters, with armloads of pink and green drinks, halted agape. A
whisper, collective and distinct, passed along the terrace: "It is
Guynemer!"
The day before, over the fiery lines, he had done battle for his life;
and this evening, in the gay security of Paris, he received the homage
of the people who adored him.
He had been looking for a table, but when it became no longer possible
to ignore the stir, he raised his right hand in embarrassed salute and
walked quickly into the café.
I spent my ten days' leave in a trip to Nice, and used up about half of
it in getting there.
The trip south was a martyrdom--a long stifling ride to Paris, three
days' wait there for a reserved place to Marseilles, a day and a night
standing up in a corridor from Paris to Marseilles (had to give up my
seat to an unfortunate woman with two youngsters), and twenty-three
hours more in a corridor to get to Cannes. On the whole, the worst
journey I recollect. No stops for meals, so we all nearly starved, till
I finally obtained an armful of bottled beer and some sandwiches.
I sat down on a trunk in the corridor and nodded off to sleep, only to
be awakened half an hour later by H---- F---- (S----'s cousin), who
stole up with a gesture for silence, and pointed at me with a shake of
his head and a broad grin. It must have been rather a rakish tableau.
On the floor to my left were half a dozen empty bottles; on one end of
the trunk I sat, heavy-eyed and half awake, and beside me, sound asleep,
with her head on my shoulder, was a respectable, very attractive, and
utterly unknown young woman! C'est la guerre! I motioned H---- away and
promptly went to sleep again.
In Marseilles I had time for the Corniche, to see Monte Cristo's castle,
and eat a bouillabaisse, which I cannot recommend without reserve. With
an enormous floating population of sailors, shipping booming, and
streets ablaze at night, Marseilles seems far away from the war, after
the hushed gloom of nocturnal Paris.
The trials for my military brevet were by far the most interesting thing
I have done in aviation. On finishing the sixty horse-power Blériot
class, I was told that I would have to do my brevet work on a small
Caudron biplane, as there were no Blériots available. A few short
flights in the Caudron gave me confidence that I could handle it; so one
rather cloudy morning the officer told me to make my official
altitude--which is merely one hour's stay at heights of over seven
thousand feet. I pulled on my great fur combination and fur-lined boots,
adjusted mittens, helmet, and goggles, and stepped into my machine,
number 2887, which the mechanic had been tuning up. "Coupe, plein gaz,"
he shouted, above the roar of a score of motors, and gave the stick half
a dozen turns. Then, "Contact reduit"; and as I yelled back, "Contact
reduit," after the old starting formula, he gave a quick half turn to
the blades. Off she went with a roar, all ten cylinders hitting
perfectly, so I motioned him to pull out the blocks from before the
wheels. A quick rush and a turn headed me into the wind, and the next
moment the starter's arm shot forward.
Old 2887 is a bully 'bus. I was off the ground and heading up in forty
yards. It was rather an occasion for a beginner who had never before
flown over twenty-five hundred feet. The little Caudrons, of course, are
not high-powered, but she climbed splendidly. In ten minutes I was
circling over the camp at thirty-eight hundred feet, and in twenty, I
had reached six thousand, just under the roof of the clouds. There was
only one blue hole through, so up this funnel I climbed in decreasing
circles, till I finally burst out into the gorgeous upper sunlight. At
eight thousand feet I began to float about in a world of utter celestial
loneliness--dazzlingly pure sun, air like the water of a coral atoll,
and beneath me a billowy sea of clouds, stretching away to infinity.
Here and there, from the cloudy prairies, great fantastic mountain
ranges reared themselves; foothills and long divides, vast snowy peaks,
impalpable sisters of Orizaba or Chimborazo, and deep gorges, ever
narrowing, widening, or deepening, across whose shadowy depths drove
ribbons of thin gray mist.
Once, as I was sailing over a broad cañon, I saw, far off in the south,
a dark moving dot, and knew with a sudden thrill that another man like
myself, astride his gaunt buzzing bird, was exploring and marveling at
this upper dream-world.
At last the hour was up. I shut off the motor and drove downward in a
series of long easy glides. Going through the clouds, one loses all
sense of balance and direction. It is bizarre and sometimes dangerous.
You plunge out into the old gray world beneath, to find yourself in a
nose-dive, or off on a wing, or upside down--it is all the same in a
cloud.
The balance of the military trials consists in spirals, and so forth,
and a lot of cross-country flying by map and compass. First you make
two round trips to a place fifty miles away, and then two triangular
trips of about one hundred and fifty miles each. It is very easy, if you
keep your wits about you and have no hard luck. Roads, railroads,
rivers, woods, and canals are the principal guides to follow; towns and
cities you can only recognize by having counted their predecessors,
unless there is some very prominent building, cathedral or factory. A
road, from three thousand feet, shows as a very straight white line,
occasionally making angular turns. A railroad is a dark gray line,
always curving gently when it turns. Canals are ribbons of water, very
straight, between twin lines of trees. And so on. You watch your
compass, to check up the tend of roads and railroads, watch your
altimeter and tachometer (which tells the speed of your engine), and
above all watch always ahead for suitable landing fields, in case of
motor trouble. The wind also must be borne in mind; its direction can be
told from smoke. I was lucky and had no trouble at all.
At Nice I ran into many Americans, and there were a good many Britishers
about, recovering from the recent severe fighting around Passchendaele.
They are a quiet and agreeable lot--very interesting when they talk
about their work, which is seldom.
One captain had strolled into some heavy fighting with no weapon but a
heavy cane, and with this, walking astride of a deep narrow enemy
trench, he had killed eight Germans! An Australian captain, with the
rare ribbon of the V.C. on his breast, had gone into a crowded German
dugout with one companion, who was wounded at the first exchange of
bombs. Single-handed, he had bombed out the Boches, taken forty
prisoners back single-handed, and returned to bring out his wounded
brother officer. An epic feat!
III
FULL-FLEDGED
Soon after my stay at Nice I went for a month to the Combat and
Acrobatic School of Pau, which completes the most dangerous of all the
flying training. A wonderful experience--somersaults, barrel-turns,
corkscrew dives, every conceivable aerial caper, and long flights daily:
skimming the highest peaks of the Pyrenees at three hundred feet above
the snow--trips to Biarritz and along the coast, flying ten feet above
the waves, etc.
It is hard to say enough in praise of the school at Pau--the hundreds of
splendid machines, the perfect discipline and efficiency, the food, the
barracks, the courteous treatment of pilots by officers and instructors.
We were twenty Americans, in a clean airy barrack, with an Annamite to
make the beds and sweep up. The school covers an enormous area in the
valley of the Gave, just under the Pyrenees, and is ideal for an
aviation center so far as weather conditions go, its one drawback being
that motor-trouble, out of range of the aerodromes, means almost
inevitably a smash. All along the Gave they have the smallest fields and
the highest hedges I ever saw. The climate is superb--like the foothill
climate of California: cool nights, delicious days, wonderful dawns and
sunsets.
They started us on the eighteen-metre machine, doing vertical spirals,
which are quite a thrill at first. You go to a height of about three
thousand feet, shut off the motor, tilt the machine till the wings are
absolutely vertical, and pull the stick all the way back. When an
aeroplane inclines laterally to over forty-five degrees, the controls
become reversed--the rudder is then the elevator, and the elevator the
rudder, so that, in a vertical spiral, the farther back you pull the
stick, the tighter the spiral becomes. You are at the same time dropping
and whirling in short circles. I once did five turns in losing a
thousand feet of altitude--an unusual number, the monitor told me with
satisfaction. Usually, one loses about three hundred feet to each turn,
but on my first attempt, I lost twenty-one hundred feet in three fourths
of a turn, because I did not pull back enough on the stick.
After the eighteen-metre spirals we were given a few rides on the
fifteen-metre machine--very small, fast and powerful, but a delicious
thing to handle in the air; and after left and right vertical spirals on
this type, we went to the class of formation-flying, where one is
supposed to learn flying in squadron formation, like wild geese. This is
extremely valuable, but most men take this chance for joy-riding, as
they have petrol for three hours, and are responsible to no one.
On my first day in this class I found no one at the rendezvous, so I
rose to about four thousand feet, and headed at a hundred miles an hour
for the coast. In thirty-five minutes I was over Biarritz, where my eyes
fairly feasted on the salt water, sparkling blue, and foam-crested. I do
not see how men can live long away from the sea and the mountains. My
motor was running like a clock and as I was beginning to have perfect
confidence in its performance, I came down in a long coast to the
ground, and went rushing across country toward the mountains, skimming a
yard up, across pastures, leaping vertically over high hedges of poplar
trees, booming down the main streets of villages, and behaving like an
idiot generally, from sheer intoxication of limitless speed and power.
In a few moments I was at the entrance of one of the huge gorges that
pierce the Pyrenees--the sort of place up which the hosts of Charlemagne
were guided by the White Stag: deep and black and winding, with an icy
stream rushing down its depths. Why not? I gave her full gas and whizzed
up between black walls of rock that magnified enormously the motor's
snarl, up and up until there was snow beneath me and ahead I could see
the sun gleaming on the gorgeous ragged peaks. Up and up, nine, ten,
eleven thousand feet, and I was skimming the highest ridges that
separate France and Spain. Imagine rising from a field in Los Angeles,
and twenty-five minutes later flying over the two-mile-high ridges of
Baldy and Sheep Mountain, swooping down to graze the snow, or bounding
into the air with more speed and ease than any bird.
At last, as my time was nearly up, I headed back for Pau. A few minutes
later, just as I sighted the pygmy groups of hangars, my motor gave
forth a loud bang and a sheet of flame, and several chunks of metal tore
whizzing through the aluminum hood. Automatically, I pulled at the lever
which closes the gasoline flow and tilted the machine forward to keep my
speed. Another bang, accompanied by black smoke. "Holy mackerel!" I
thought; "this is the end of me! Let's see--in case of fire, shut off
petrol, open throttle, and leave the spark on. Then go into a
nose-dive."
Somehow you can't seem to get very excited at such moments,--everything
seems inevitable,--good or bad luck. I nose-dived, came out at five
thousand feet, killed my propeller, and was gratified to see, on looking
behind, that there was no more smoke. Starting the motor was of course
out of the question, as it would have promptly taken fire; so I shut
off throttle and spark, struck an easy glide, and began an anxious
search for a field. Most of them were no larger than postage-stamps, and
I knew they were hedged by the beastly poplars, but at last I spotted a
long one, in the direction of the wind, though not long enough to afford
more than a bare chance of avoiding a crash. It was the only hope, at
any rate; so down I coasted in glides and serpentines, jockeying to lose
height just over the trees. As luck would have it, I was a few feet low
and had to chance jumping the trees with none too much speed. The
splendid stability of the Nieuport saved me from a wing-slip, and a
moment later I landed with a bang in a ditch, breaking one wheel and
stopping within ten yards of a formidable line of willows.
I crawled out of my seat and lay down in the long grass to rest, as my
head ached villainously from the too rapid descent. Somehow I dozed off
and was awakened by the friendly tongue of a huge Basque shepherd dog.
His mistress, a pretty Spanish-speaking peasant girl, appeared a minute
later, and her family were very decent to me. After some hot coffee with
brandy, and a piece of goat cheese, I attended to the formalities and
went back to camp.
After formation-flying we went to the acrobatic class or "Haute École du
Ciel," where you are taught to put a machine through the wildest kinds
of maneuvers. This is the most dangerous class in any aviation training
in France--many excellent pilots, whose nerves or stomachs would not
stand the acrobatics, rest in the little cemetery at Pau. Wonderful
sport, though, if nature intended one for that sort of thing! The most
dreaded thing one does is the spinning nose-dive, or vrille (gimlet),
which formerly was thought invariably fatal. They have now discovered
that the small, very strong machines will come out of it safely, if the
rudder is put exactly in the middle and the stick pushed forward.
The instructor in this class was a very dandified lieutenant, in a Bond
Street uniform, and wearing a monocle, who lay in a steamer-chair all
day, gazing up into the sky at the antics of his pupils. Around him
stood assistants with field-glasses, who watched the heavens anxiously,
and would suddenly bark out, "Regardez, mon lieutenant--l'Américain
Thompson en vrille." The lieutenant would then languidly look up at the
machine pointed out (they are distinguished by broad stripes, or
checker-boards, or colors), and, if the "type" up above had done well,
would remark, "Pas mal, celui-là." If some unfortunate plunged into the
ground and killed himself, the officer would rise gracefully from his
chair, flick the dust from his sleeve, and call for the "Black Cat,"
his special "taxi." Jumping in with remarkable speed, he rose in a
series of the most breakneck evolutions, and flew to the scene of the
accident. In reality, his pose is the best in the world, as it keeps the
pilots gonflés, that is, courageous and confident, as opposed to
dégonflés, or scared and nervous.
I was watching all this from the ground, when a monitor unexpectedly
called out, "Nordhoff, Nordhoff!"
"Present!" I yelled, as I ran toward him.
"You will take the checker-board," he ordered, "rise to twelve hundred
metres, and do one vrille and two upside-down turns."
I admit that I had a slight sinking spell as I walked to the machine, a
little thirteen-metre beauty. (Think of it, only thirteen square yards
of supporting surface!) It was all right as soon as I was strapped in
and had the motor going. Up we went, the "Bébé" climbing like a cat, at
incredible speed, while I anxiously repeated, again and again, the
instructions. Two turns of the field gave me my thirty-six hundred feet.
This was no time to hesitate, so, as I reached the required spot, away
from the sun, I shut off the motor, took a long breath, and pulled back
a bit on the stick. Slower and slower she went, until I felt the rather
sickening swaying that comes with a dangerous loss of speed. The moment
had come. Gritting my teeth, I gave her all the left rudder and left
stick, at the same moment pulling the stick all the way back. For an
instant she seemed to hang motionless--then with unbelievable swiftness
plunged whirling downwards. "Remember, keep your eyes inside--don't look
out, whatever happens," I thought, while a great wind tore at my
clothing and whistled through the wires. In a wink of time I had
dropped six hundred feet: so I carefully put the rudder in the exact
center, centered the stick, and pushed it gently forward. At once the
motion grew steadier, the wind seemed to abate, and the next moment I
dared to look out. It was over--I was in a steep glide, right side up,
safe and sound. I had done a vrille and come out of it! A gorgeous
sensation! I loved it, and queerly enough my first bewildered thought
was, "M---- would adore that!"
Just to show the lieutenant that I was having a good time, I buzzed up
again and did two more vrilles, looking out the whole time at the
panorama of Pyrenees, villages, and river, whirling around with the most
amazing rapidity. Not a thing for bilious or easily dizzy people though,
as it means horses at the walk if you fail to do the right thing at
exactly the right moment.
After the acrobatics, we went to classes in machine-gun shooting and
combat-flying--very interesting and practical, but not to be talked
about.
After Pau, I had forty-eight hours' leave in Paris, bought a few things
I needed for the front, and was then sent to a place it is forbidden to
mention, expecting soon to get to flying over the lines.
On New Year's morning, as it was snowing hard and there was no flying, I
sat by a cozy fire, in the house of some English people. Curious thing,
running into them here. They are of the tribe of English who wander over
the face of the earth, and make England what she is. The man of the
house is an expert on ----, and has pursued his unusual vocation in
Cuba, Jamaica, Honduras, Guiana, "Portuguese East" and other parts of
Africa, as well as in Ceylon and a few other places I forget. Here he is
now, as expert for the French. His wife and seven children, who speak
French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Zulu, I think, follow him everywhere,
and are everywhere equally at home. I have tea with them after work,
and, needless to say, they are a Godsend in this desolate place. Let us
all pray that next New Year's day we shall be thanking God for a
victorious peace and returning to civilian life, never to put on
uniforms again. The finest uniform of all is the old civilian
suit--brass buttons and gold braid to the contrary.
For this winter air-work, which is the coldest known occupation, I
think, this is the way we dress. First, heavy flannels and woolen socks.
Over that, a flannel shirt with sleeveless sweater on top, and uniform
breeches and tunic. Boots and spiral puttees (very warm things, if not
put on too tightly) go on next, and over all we pull on a great
combination, or fur-lined "teddy-bear" suit--waterproof canvas outside.
Over our boots we pull fur-lined leather flying boots, reaching half-way
up to our knees. For head-gear, a fur-lined leather cap, and around the
neck, several turns of gray muffler. A variety of mask and a pair of
"triplex" goggles to protect one's face from the icy breeze. With all
this, and heavy fur gloves, one can keep reasonably warm.
As the 16th of January was the first good flying day for some time,
there was much activity. After lunch I went to the aerodrome just in
time to see the combat patrol come swooping down. An excited crowd was
gathered about the first machine in, and I learned that one of our best
pilots had just been brought down by a German two-seater, and that
H----, a nineteen-year-old American in our sister escadrille here, had
promptly brought the Hun down. I was proud to think that an American had
revenged our comrade. This makes H----'s second German within a week--a
phenomenal record for a beginner. He is an unusual youngster, and
handles a machine beautifully. He seems to have the mixture of dash,
cold nerve, and caution which makes an "ace."
The German fell ten thousand feet directly over the trenches, but at the
last moment managed to straighten out a bit and crashed two hundred
yards inside his lines. H---- followed him down, and gliding over the
trenches at one hundred feet, saw one German limp out of the wreck and
wave a hand up at the victor.
Another American boy had quite an exciting time lately when his motor
went dead far inside the enemy lines. Luckily he was high at the time;
so he flattened his glide to the danger-point, praying to be able to
cross into friendly country. Down he came, his "stick" dead, the wind
whistling through the cables, until close ahead he saw a broad belt of
shell-marked desolation, crisscrossed by a maze of meaningless trenches.
The ground was close; automatically he straightened out, avoiding a pair
of huge craters, touched, bumped, crashed into a thicket of wire, and
turned over. A jab at the catch of his belt set him free; but the really
important thing was whether or not he had succeeded in crossing the
German lines. Wisely enough, he crawled to a shell-hole, and from its
shelter began to reconnoiter warily. Muddy figures began to appear from
various holes and ditches, and at length a soldier who, so far as
appearances went, might have belonged to any army, leaned over the edge
of the hole and said something in _French_. Young S---- at that began to
breathe for the first time in at least a quarter of an hour. His
discoverer led him to a spacious dugout where two generals were at
lunch--a wonderful lunch, washed down with beverages forbidden to any
but generals. The great ones made the corporal welcome, laughed
themselves ill over his voluble but wonderful French, plied him with
food and good Scotch whiskey, and sent him home in one of their superb
closed cars.
Now that so many young Americans are beginning to fly in France, I fancy
that the people at home must wonder what sort of a time their sons or
brothers are having--how they live, what their work is, and their play.
Most people who have an immediate interest in the war must by now
possess a very fair idea of the military aviation training; but of the
pilot's life at the front I have seen little in print.
I can speak, of course, only of conditions in the French aviation
service; but when our American squadrons take their places at the front,
the life is bound to be very similar, because experience has taught all
the armies that, to get the best results, pilots should be given a
maximum of liberty and a minimum of routine, outside of their duty,
which consists in but one thing--flying.
Let us suppose, for example, that an American boy--we will call him
Wilkins, because I never heard of a man named Wilkins flying--has passed
through the schools, done his acrobatics and combat-work, and is waiting
at the great dépôt near Paris for his call to the front. Every day he
scans the list as it is posted, and at last, hurrah! his name is there,
followed by mysterious letters and numbers--G.C. 17, or S.P.A. 501, or
N. 358. He knows, of course, that he will have a single-seater scout,
but the symbols above tell him whether it will be a Spad or a Nieuport
and whether he is to be in a groupe de combat ("traveling circus," the
British call them) or in a permanent fighting unit.