Things are speeding up. I’m out of the hospital. Came to the school
Friday. Found I had about the best bed in our barracks and was in the
smallest class with one of the best monitors—more luck. I am an hour and
a half of flying behind the other fellows, but that is not bad.
Well, the hospital did not cure my bronchitis. That, however, is nothing
but a chronic cough which will mend here better than there. What it did
cure, however, was my distaste for my fellow-countrymen; the cure was
absolute, and of greater value than my physical cure could have been.
My, but it was good to get back with the bunch again. All my old
interest in people has revived, and I am more than content.
And I have flown! Wonderful. Oh, it was great. Saturday evening I went
up for fifteen minutes as a passenger. Then Sunday morning we went up on
my first ten minute lesson. When we were a hundred meters off the ground
and had gone a quarter of a mile, the pilot gave the controls over to me
and rested his hands over the side while I drove entirely alone. It is
more simple than driving an automobile because there is no road to
watch. A glance at this side, a glance at that, to see that the wings
are level. The throttle is set full at the outset and forgotten till you
descend. There is a speedometer to watch and that is all.
Of course this is just driving in a straight line through good air.
Ascent is dangerous; landing, an art in itself. Every curve has its
corresponding angle of bank, and the angle varies according to the
direction of the wind relative to line of flight. Perfect carburetion is
essential at all altitudes, but that all comes later. An understanding
of air currents and their effects must become instinctive; so, after
all, the statement that it is easy applies only where someone else is
there to do the worrying and look after the important details, any one
of which stands between the here and the hereafter. The pilot said I did
well on my first two sorties.
Monday I went in to paint with the doctor, but he was going to an Allied
musical fête given by the hospital for the reeducation of wounded
soldiers, and so I accompanied him. Like all charity affairs, some of it
was very boresome, but there was some very good music and one singer
from the Opéra Comique of Paris. I shall go another day to paint with
the doctor.
This letter has been written out on the field, and as it has been
continued through three classes I had better mail it. Have not heard
from home for ten days or more. Had a couple of letters from my
_marraine_.