My Christmas was spent in Paris with my _marraine_. There was snow on
the ground. On Christmas Eve I went to the great Paris Grand Opera
House. It is a monument to the artistic appreciation of the French
public, and as a piece of architecture it is a masterpiece. As you
ascend its grand stairway and pass through the foyer and grand balconies
into the gorgeous theater, you feel the power of the master designers
and builders and artists who contributed to its conception. The opera
was _Faust_. The French singers are no better musically but they are
splendid actors, which is not the case in American opera. The love scene
in _Faust_ was done with the taste of Sothern’s and Marlowe’s _Romeo and
Juliet_. The _Faust_ ballet was splendid. Oh, how I enjoyed that
evening. On Christmas day I went twice to see David Reed, whom I liked
so well in the Ambulance Unit, and who has been sick in the hospital
with grip and a broken arm. He is one of those the war cannot soil.
My _marraine’s_ grandchildren gave me a big box of candied fruit, which
I found in my shoes on Christmas morning. I gave the little girl a doll,
dressed in “Old Glory,” and the boy an American pocket flashlight. The
train left at eight on Christmas evening. My four comrades and I met in
our reserved compartment and had a very pleasant journey back to Cazaux,
arriving at ten-thirty in the morning. We all had a good time telling of
our merry Christmas. The cakes and chocolate which my _marraine_ gave me
helped to fill five empty stomachs at five in the morning.
My worst experience in the air was awaiting me. We flew in the
afternoon. I took a machine and a parachute and climbed to 1,800 meters.
We were only supposed to climb to 1,400, but I disobeyed and it probably
saved my life. I threw out the parachute and took a couple of turns at
it. After diving at the thing and mounting again, I started into a
“roundversment” with my eyes on the parachute. Unconsciously, I went
into a loop and stopped in the upside-down position, where I hung by my
belt. I cut the motor, and grabbed a strut to hold myself in my seat.
The machine fell in its upside-down position till it gained terrific
speed, then it slowly turned over into a nose dive, and I came out in a
tight spiral which slowly widened into a circle at _ligne de vol_, but
the controls were almost useless, and it took all my strength to keep
from diving into the ground. You know what skidding is, so you can
imagine what loss of control in an automobile going at high speed would
be, but you cannot imagine what loss of control of an aeroplane is any
more than a lumberjack can imagine a million dollars.
When a machine is upside down, the stress comes on the wrong side of the
wings and is apt to spring them. My plane had fallen a thousand meters,
and the wings had been thrown out of adjustment so that the controls
were barely able to correct the change. I did not regain control of any
sort until I was 400 meters from the ground, and then I could do nothing
but spiral to the left. In that fall, when I found I could not control
the machine, I believed it was my last flight. It was the first time I
ever had been conscious of looking death squarely in the face. After the
first hundred meters of fall, I was perfectly aware of the danger. I was
wholly possessed in turn by doubt, fear, resignation (it was just there
that I was almost fool enough to give up), anger (that I should think of
such a thing), and, finally realization that only cool thinking would
bring me out alive—and it did! From 400 meters I spiraled down with
barely enough motor to keep me from falling, in order that the strain on
the control would be minimum. The old brain was working clearly then,
for I made a fine adjustment of the throttle and gasoline—just enough to
counteract the resistance of controls, crossed in order to counteract
the bent wings, and just enough to let the plane sink fast enough so
that it would hit the ground into the wind in the next turn of the
spiral, which I could not avoid. Allowing for the wind, I managed to
control the spiral just enough to land on the only available landing
ground in the vicinity. The landing was perfect, but the machine rolled
into a ditch and tipped up on its nose. As I had cut the motor just
before landing, the propeller was stopped and not a thing was broken. If
the wing had been bent a quarter of an inch more, they would have
carried me home. The machines they use here are old ones, and that was
probably responsible for the accident. This weak spot of the Nieuport
caused many deaths before anyone ever survived to tell what had
happened. Again the gods were with me, and I lived to be the wiser.
When I undid my belt and climbed out of the machine my hands were never
steadier nor my mind more tranquil. Many Russians from the detention
camp near by swarmed around, and I set them to work righting the plane
and wheeling it over to a post, where an American was on guard.
Leaving the machine in his care, I hit cross-country for the aviation
field. As I walked through the brushwood, the beauties of nature were
possessed with renewed charm, the sea breeze laden with the scent of
pine seemed a sweeter incense, the clouds were more billowy, my steps
were wondrously buoyant, for I felt like one whom the gods had given
special privilege to return among the treasures of his childhood. The
passing of death’s shadow is a stimulus to the charm of living.
Today I had an hour and a half of flying, and engaged in a sham combat
of half an hour with another pilot. We both killed each other several
times.
It is rumored that a plot was discovered in the Russian camp. They were
to attack the camp here today at two o’clock and seize the armory. They
had all the machine guns and armored planes ready and a guard around the
school and camp, but nothing came of it. It would have furnished good
target practice.
We get another _permission_ New Years, but the trip to Paris is a long
one, so I shall stay in Bordeaux. An invitation from Countess Duval for
Christmas dinner at Arcachon was too late to reach me. I shall pay a
call, as it is only an hour on the train from here.
_Villa St. Jean, Arcachon, January 1, 1918._