me to wakefulness with his dripping-sweet music.
These are strenuous days--I have done nothing but fly, eat, and sleep
for a fortnight. Our "traveling circus" has been living up to its
name--going about from place to place with amazing mobility and speed. I
have lived for a week with no baggage but the little bag I carry in my
plane. It contains one change of light underwear, one pair of socks,
tooth-brush, tooth-paste, tobacco, sponge, soap, towel, shaving things,
mirror, a first-aid kit, and a bottle of eau de cologne. With this I can
weather a few days anywhere until the baggage-trucks catch up.
Our mobility is marvelous--we can receive our orders at daybreak,
breakfast, and land in a place a hundred miles away in an hour and a
half. Then a little oil and petrol, and we are ready to bounce
something off the local Boche. I could easily write a large calf-bound
volume on nothing but my experiences of the past week--one of the most
strangely fascinating (in retrospect) of my life, though saddened by the
loss of two of our pilots, one an American.
We had no sooner got to this place than we were sent out on a
patrol--six of us, with a French lieutenant, a special friend of mine,
as flight-commander. None of us had flown before in this sector, and a
young American (S----, of New York) was making his second flight over
the lines. The weather was wretched, thick, low-hanging clouds with a
fine drizzle of rain--visibility almost zero. While mechanics filled the
machine, I pored over my map till I had all necessary landmarks
thoroughly in mind. At last the captain glanced at his watch and
shouted, "En voiture!"
I climbed into my tiny cockpit, loaded my gun with a snap of the lever,
wiped the sights free of moisture, and sank back in my seat, while my
mechanic adjusted the belt which holds one tight in place. Up went the
captain's hand, and almost with a single roar the six motors started.
One after another we rushed across the field, rose to the low ceiling of
the clouds, and swept back, bunched like a flock of teal. The
flight-commander's head, a black leather dot in his cockpit, turned
swiftly for a glance back. All there and well grouped; so he headed for
the lines, flying so low that we seemed to shave the spires of village
churches. Soon the houses ceased to have roofs--we were over the front.
A great battle was raging below us--columns of smoke rose from the towns
and the air was rocked and torn by the passage of projectiles. Far and
near the woods were alive with the winking flash of batteries. Soon we
were far into the German lines; deep coughs came from the air about us
as patches of black sprang out. But we were too low and our speed was
too great to be bothered by the Boche gunners. Suddenly the clouds broke
for an instant, and across the blue hole I saw a dozen Albatrosses
driving toward us--German single-seaters, dark ugly brutes with broad
short wings and pointed snouts. Our leader saw them too, and we bounded
upward three hundred feet, turning to meet them. The rest happened so
swiftly that I can scarcely describe it coherently. Out of the tail of
my eye I saw our leader dive on an Albatross, which plunged spinning to
the ground. At the same instant I bounded upward to the clouds and
dropped on a Boche who was attacking a comrade. I could see my gun
spitting streams of luminous bullets into the German's fuselage. But
suddenly swift incandescent sparks began to pour past me, and a glance
backward showed three Albatrosses on my tail. I turned upside down,
pulled back, and did a hairpin turn, rising to get behind them. Not a
German machine was in sight--they had melted away as suddenly as they
came.
Far off to the south four of our machines were heading back toward the
lines. Feeling very lonely and somewhat de trop, I opened the throttle
wide and headed after them. Just as I caught up, the leader signaled
that he was done for, and glided off, with his propeller stopped.
Praying that he might get safely across to our side, I fell in behind
the second in command. Only four now--who and where was the other?
Anxiously I ranged alongside of each machine for a look at its number.
As I had feared, it was the American--a hot-headed, fearless boy, full
of courage and confidence, but inexperienced and not a skillful pilot.
No word of him since. Did he lose the patrol in a sharp turn and get
brought down by a prowling gang of Albatrosses, or did he have
motor-trouble which forced him to land in the enemy lines? These are the
questions we ask ourselves, hoping for the best.
An hour after we landed at our field, a telephone message came, saying
that Lieutenant de G---- had landed safely a thousand yards behind the
firing-line, with three balls in his motor.
The captain sent for me. "Take my motor-car," he said, "and go fetch de
G----. The machine is in plain view on a hill. I am giving you two
mechanics, so do your best to save the instruments and machine-gun. The
Boche artillery will probably drop shells on the machine before
nightfall."
The trip proved rather a thriller, for at this point the old-fashioned
picture-book trenchless warfare was in full blast. Picking up de G----,
we hid the car in a valley and sneaked forward under an unpleasant fire
of shrapnel and high explosives. The unconcerned infantry reserves,
chaffing and smoking where they lay hidden in fields of ripe wheat,
stiffened our slightly shaky nerves. Poor timid aviators, completely out
of their element--I heaved a sigh of relief that came from the very
soles of my feet when at last our task was done, and with our cargo
safely stowed, we sped out of the valley and back toward the rear. Hats
off to the infantry!
Next day two of us went patrolling with the captain--a famous "ace"
whose courage and skillful piloting are proverbial and who never asked
one of his men to do a thing he hesitated to do himself. He was
particularly fond of Americans (one of Lufbery's pallbearers), and on
many occasions had done things for me which showed his rare courtesy and
thoughtfulness. None of us dreamed, as he laughed and joked with us at
the breakfast-table, that it was his last day of life.
The details of this patrol will always be fresh in my mind. We were
flying at about seven thousand feet, the three of us, I on the captain's
right. At six thousand, stretching away into the German lines, there was
a beautiful sea of clouds, white and level and limitless. Far back, a
dozen miles "chez Boche," a flight of Albatrosses crawled across the
sky--a roughly grouped string of dots, for all the world like migrating
wildfowl. Suddenly, about seven or eight miles in, a Hun two-seater
poked his nose above the clouds, rose leisurely into view, and dove
back. I was quite sure that he had not seen us. The captain began at
once to rise, turning at the same time to take advantage of the sun, and
for a few minutes we wove back and forth, edging in till we were nearly
over the spot where the Boche had appeared. At last our patience was
rewarded. The Boche emerged from the clouds, seemed to hesitate an
instant like a timid fish rising from a bed of seaweed, and headed for
the lines, where doubtless he had some reglage or reconnaissance to do.
Our position was perfect--in the sun and well above the enemy. The
captain banked vertically and plunged like a thunderbolt on the German,
I following a little behind and to one side. At one hundred and fifty
yards, streaks of fire poured from his two guns, and as he dove under
the German's belly I got into range. Dropping vertically at a speed (I
suppose) of two hundred and fifty miles an hour, with the wind screaming
through the wires, I got my sights to bear and pulled the trigger.
Faintly above the furious rush of air, I could hear the stutter of my
gun and see the bullets streaking to their mark. It was over in a wink
of time: as I swerved sharply to the left, I caught a glimpse of the Hun
machine-gunner, in a great yellow helmet and round goggles, frantically
getting his gun to bear on me. A pull-back and I shot up under his tail,
tilted up, and gave him another burst.
But what was this--as I opened the throttle, the engine sputtered and
died! I dove steeply at once to keep the propeller turning, realizing in
a flash of thought that the long fast dive had made the pressure in my
gasoline tank go down. A turn of the little lever put her on the small
gravity tank called the "nurse"; but no luck--something was wrong with
the valve. Nothing to do but pump by hand, and I pumped like a madman.
Seven miles in the enemy lines and dropping like a stone--I was what the
French call très inquiet. Three thousand feet, two thousand, a
thousand--and I pumped on, visions of a soup-diet and all the tales I
had heard of German scientific food substitutes flashing through my
mind. Five hundred; a splutter from the engine, and at two hundred feet
above a ruined village she burst into her full roar, and I drew a breath
for the first time in the descent. Crossed the lines three hundred feet
up with full throttle and the nose down, and didn't get a bullet-hole!
I was unable to find the others, and as my petrol was low I went home.
The rest I have from the other pilot.
The captain apparently had the same trouble as I, for he continued his
dive to about three thousand feet, followed by the other. The German,
when last seen, was diving for the ground, so we shall never know
whether or not we got him. Rising again above the sea of clouds, the
captain attacked the rear man of a patrol of eleven Albatrosses which
passed beneath him. Turning over and over aimlessly, the Hun fell out
of sight into the clouds. At this moment three Boches dove on the
captain from the rear--his machine burst into flames and dove steeply
toward our lines. Our remaining pilot, hopelessly outnumbered,
extricated himself with difficulty and arrived a few minutes after me,
his bus riddled with balls. We found the captain's body, just behind the
firing-line. He had been killed by three bullets, but had retained
consciousness long enough to get to friendly ground before he died. A
splendid officer and a true friend, whom we all mourn sincerely.
The past fortnight has been rather stirring for us--constant flying,
plenty of fights, and the usual moving about. One gets used to it in
time, but at first it is a wrench to a man of my conservative nature and
sedentary habits. This time we have struck it rich in a village where
soldiers are still welcome. I have a really charming room in the house
of the principal family--well-to-do people who own the local factory.
Great sunny south windows, running water, and a soft snowy bed, scented
with lavender! A day of rest to-day, as they are installing a new motor
in my "taxi"; so I am planted at a little table, looking out through my
window on a warm peaceful scene of tiled roofs, rustling leaves, and a
delicious sky across which float summery clouds. Not a uniform in sight,
not a sound of a cannon--the war seems an impossible dream.
The last day at our old field I had a narrow escape. Two of us were
flying together up and down the lines at about four thousand feet. The
other chap had allowed me to get pretty far in the lead, when I spied,
about two thousand feet below me, a strange-looking two-seater, darkly
camouflaged, on which I could see no insignia. I dove on him, but not
headlong, as the English have a machine on similar lines, and it was not
until I was quite close that I made out two tiny black crosses _set in
circles of orange_. By this time the machine-gunner was on the alert,
and just as I was going to give him a burst, _flac, flac, flac_, bullets
began to pass me from behind. Holes suddenly appeared in my wings; in
another moment whoever was shooting would have had me, so I rose steeply
in a sharp turn, saw nothing, turned again and again, and finally,
disappearing in the distance after the two-seater, I made out two little
Pfalz scouts, painted dark green.
My comrade, who was having engine trouble, saw the whole thing. The
Boche single-seaters were well behind the larger plane they were
protecting,--somehow I missed seeing them,--and when I dove at their pal
they rose up under my tail and let me have it with their four guns.
Only some rotten shooting saved me from being brought down. The hardest
thing for a new pilot to learn is the proper combination of dash and
wariness: neither produces results alone; both are absolutely essential.
One must bear in mind two axioms: first, bring down the enemy; second,
don't get brought down yourself. A disheartening number of young pilots,
full of dash and courage, trained at great expense to their country, get
themselves brought down on their first patrol, simply because they lack
skill and the necessary dash of wariness. A good general does not
ordinarily attack the enemy where he is strongest.
Our field was deserted: the mechanics were packing to leave, and my
machine--old Slapping Sally--stood mournfully in the corner of a hangar.
I stowed my belongings in the little locker at my side, had her wheeled
out, adjusted my maps, and in five minutes was off on my long trip over
unknown country. Our maps are really marvelous. With the compass to
check up directions of roads, railroads, canals, and rivers, one can
travel hundreds of miles over strange country and never miss a crossroad
or a village. If, however, you allow yourself to become lost for an
instant, you are probably hopelessly lost, with nothing to do but land
and locate yourself on the map.
When I left, there was a gale of wind blowing, with spits of rain; and
in fifteen minutes, during which I had covered forty miles, the clouds
were scudding past at three hundred feet off the ground, forcing me at
times to jump tall trees on hills. A bit too thick. Seeing a small
aerodrome on my right, I buzzed over and landed, getting a great
reception from the pilots, who had never examined one of the latest
single-seaters. It is really comical, with what awe the pilots of slower
machines regard a scout. They have been filled full of mechanics'
stories about "landing at terrific speed--the slightest false movement
means death," and the like; whereas in reality our machines are the
easiest things in the world to land, once you get the trick.
In a couple of hours the weather showed signs of improvement, so I shook
hands all round and strapped myself in. To satisfy their interest and
curiosity, I taxied to the far edge of the field, headed into the wind,
rose a yard off the ground, gave her full motor, and held her down to
within thirty yards of the spectators, grouped before a hangar. By this
time Sally was fairly burning the breeze--traveling every yard of her
one hundred and thirty-five miles an hour; and as my hosts began to
scatter, I let her have her head. Up she went in a mighty bound at
forty-five degrees, nine hundred feet in the drawing of a breath. There
I flattened her, reduced the motor, did a couple of "Immelman turns"
(instead of banking, turn upside-down, and pull back), and waved
good-bye. Rather childish, but they were good fellows, and really
interested in what the bus would do.
All went well as far as Paris, where I had one of the classic Paris
breakdowns, though genuine enough as it chanced. Landed in the suburbs,
got a mechanic to work, and had time for a delicious lunch at a small
workmen's restaurant. Treated myself to a half bottle of sound Medoc and
a villainous cigar with the coffee, and got back just in time to find
them testing my motor. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I arrived
here in the early afternoon and installed myself for the night in these
superb quarters.
This is the classic hour for French pilots to foregather in excited
groups to expliquer les coups--an expressive phrase for which I can
recall no exact equivalent in English. They (or rather we) spend a full
hour every evening in telling just how it was done, or why it was not
done, and so on, _ad infinitum_. Snatches of characteristic talk reach
your ears--(I will attempt a rough translation). "You poor fish! why
didn't you dive that time they had us _bracketed_?--I had to follow you
and I got an éclat as big as a dinner-plate within a foot of my back."
"Did you see me get that Boche over the wood? I killed the observer at
the first rafale, rose over the tail, and must have got the pilot then,
for he spun clear down till he crashed."
"See the tanks ahead of that wave of assault? Funny big crawling things
they looked--that last one must have been en panne--the Boches were
certainly bouncing shells off its back!"
"Raoul and I found a troop of Boche cavalry on a road--in khaki, I
swear. Thought they were English till we were within one hundred
metres. Then we gave them the spray--funniest thing you ever saw!"
"Yes--I'll swear I saw some khaki, too. Saw a big column of Boche
infantry and was just going to let 'em have it when I saw horizon-blue
guards. Prisoners, of course."
You can imagine pages of this sort of thing--every night. At the bar we
have a big sign: "Ici on explique les coups." At the mess, another:
"Défense d'expliquer les coups ici." There are limits.
As mess-officer I have been going strong of late--nearly every day one
or two or three "big guns" (grosses huiles, the French call them) of
aviation drop in to lunch or dinner. Down from a patrol at 10.30, and
scarcely out of the machine, when up dashes our cook, knife in one hand
and ladle in the other, fairly boiling over with anxiety. "Commandant
X---- and his staff are coming to lunch--I can't leave the stove--what
on earth shall we do?"
An hour and a half. Just time for the cyclist to buzz down to the
nearest town for some extra hors d'oeuvres, salad, and half a dozen old
bottles. In the end everything runs off smoothly, and when the white
wine succeeds the red, the usual explication des coups begins--highly
entertaining inside stuff, from which one could cull a whole backstairs
history of French aviation. It has been my privilege to meet many famous
men in this way--great "aces" and great administrators of the flying
arm; men whose names are known wherever European aviators gather. I wish
I could tell you half the drolleries they recount, or reproduce one
quarter of the precise, ironical, story-telling manner of a cultivated
Frenchman.
A captain who lunched with us to-day, bearer of an historic name, was
recently decorated (somewhat against his will) for forcing a Boche to
land in our lines. The truth is that in the single combat high above the
lines, the captain's motor failed and he coasted for home, maneuvering
wildly to escape the pursuing Hun's bullets. A few kilometres within our
lines the German motor failed also, and down they came together--the
Boche a prisoner, the Frenchman covered with not particularly welcome
glory. Not all our guests knew the story, and one high officer asked the
captain how he maneuvered to drive down the Boche. "Oh, like this,"
erratically said the captain, illustrating with frantic motions of an
imaginary stick and rudder.
"But the Boche--?" inquired the other, puzzled, "how did you get him
down--where was he?"
"Ah, the Boche; he was _behind_ me," answered the captain.
Another officer, recently promoted to a very high position in the
aviation, is a genuine character, a "numero" as they say here. He
recently spent many hours in perfecting a trick optical sight,
guaranteed to down a Boche at any range, angle, or speed. He adored his
invention, which, he admitted, would probably end the war when fully
perfected, and grew quite testy when his friends told him the thing was
far too complicated for anything but laboratory use. At last, though he
had reached a non-flying rank and had not flown for months, he installed
the optical wonder on a single-seater and went out over the lines to try
it out. As luck would have it, he fell in with a patrol of eight
Albatrosses, and the fight that followed has become legendary. Boche
after Boche dove on him, riddling his plane with bullets, while the
inventor, in a scientific ecstasy, peered this way and that through his
sight, adjusting set-screws and making hasty mental notes. By a miracle
he was not brought down, and in the end a French patrol came to his
rescue. He had not fired a shot! At lunch the other day some one asked
what sort of a chap this inventor was, and the answer was so exceedingly
French that I will reproduce it word for word: "He detests women and
dogs; he has a wife he adores, and a dog he can't let out of his sight."
A priceless characterization, I think, of a testy yet amiable old
martinet.
One of my friends here had the luck, several months ago, to force a
Zeppelin to land. A strange and wonderful experience, he says, circling
for an hour and a half about the huge air-monster, which seemed to be
having trouble with its gas. He poured bullets into it until his supply
was exhausted, and headed it off every time it tried to make for the
German lines. All the while it was settling, almost insensibly, and
finally the Hun crew began to throw things out--machine-guns, long belts
of cartridges, provisions, furniture, a motley collection. In the end it
landed intact in our lines--a great catch. The size of the thing is
simply incredible. This one was at least ninety feet through, and I
hesitate to say how many hundred feet long.
Three more of our boys gone, one of them my most particular pal. Strange
as it seems, I am one of the oldest members of the squadron left. We
buried Harry yesterday. He was the finest type of young French
officer--an aviator since 1913; volunteer at the outbreak of war; taken
prisoner, badly wounded; fourteen months in a German fortress; escaped,
killing three guards, across Germany in the dead of winter, sick and
with an unhealed wound; back on the front, after _ten days_ with his
family, although he need never have been a combatant again. A charming,
cultivated, witty companion, one of the most finished pilots in France,
and a soldier whose only thought was of duty, his loss is a heavy one
for his friends, his family, and his country. For a day and a night he
lay in state in the church of a near-by village, buried in flowers sent
by half the squadrons of France; at his feet his tunic ablaze with
crosses and orders. It was my turn to stand guard the morning his family
arrived, and I was touched by the charming simple piety of the
countryfolk, who came in an unending stream to kneel and say a prayer
for the soul of the departed soldier. Old women with baskets of bread
and cheese on their arms brought pathetic little bouquets; tiny girls of
seven or eight came in solemnly alone, dropped a flower on Harry's
coffin, and knelt to pray on their little bare knees. The French
peasants get something from their church that most of us at home seem to
miss.
At last the family came--worn out with the long sad journey from their
château in middle France. Harry's mother, slender, aristocratic, and
courageous, had lost her other son a short time before, and I was nearer
tears at her magnificent self-control than if she had surrendered to her
grief. Her bearing throughout the long mass and at the grave-side was
one of the finest and saddest things I have ever seen in my life. Poor
old Harry--I hope he is in a paradise reserved for heroes--for he was
one in the truest sense of the word.
I got absolutely lost the other day, for the second time since I have
been on the front. I was flying at about nineteen thousand feet, half a
mile above a lovely sea of clouds. I supposed I was directly over the
front, but in reality there was a gale of wind blowing, drifting me
rapidly "chez Boche." Three thousand feet below, and miles to the
northeast, a patrol of German scouts beat back and forth, a string of
dots, appearing and disappearing among the cloudy peaks and cañons. Too
strong and too far in their lines to attack, I was alternately watching
them and my clock--very cold and bored. Suddenly, straight below me and
heading for home at top speed, I saw a big Hun two-seater, with enormous
black crosses on his wings.
At such a moment--I confess it frankly--there seem to be two individuals
in me who in a flash of time conclude a heated argument. Says one,
"You're all alone; no one will ever know it if you sail calmly on,
pretending not to see the Boche."
"See that Boche," says the other; "you're here to get Germans--go after
him."