September 1, 1917.
The wild man in the Nieuport was out again this morning giving some one
a joy ride. There is a long straight stretch of road in front of our
_piste_ and he came down that several times, a nasty puffy wind blowing
which bothered him not at all, flying only two or three feet off the
ground. In front of the _piste_ is a telephone wire crossing the road.
He came along the road 100 miles an hour until almost on top of the
wire and jumped up just in time to clear it by a few feet--really
beautiful work. He goes all over the surrounding country flying low,
hopping over trees and houses, sometimes turning up sideways to slip
between two trees a bit too close together to fly through; sometimes
dragging a wing through the space between a couple of hangars or doing
vertical _virages_ just in front of them. It doesn’t seem possible that
any man can be so much a part of his machine, can be so consistently
accurate that he never misses. For this chap, Lumière, has never had a
smash....
A chap named Loughran started off on one of his brevet voyages a few
days before I got ready for brevet. He got quite a ways along, ran into
a storm, went above it, got caught in a cloud, kept on for quite a long
way being drifted by a strong wind, then came down through the clouds
and found that they were only 400 feet above the ground. After a while
he found a place to land and came down safely. He went to a farmhouse,
got his machine guarded and tied down. In the meantime word had spread
over the countryside that an aviator had come down there and the entire
population came out to look him over. A grand equipage drove up with
a Count who lived in a nearby château. He insisted that Eddie come to
the château and accept their hospitality. There the fortunate Ed stayed
five days; the Countess talked English, and also some house guests. He
hadn’t brought a trunk so borrowed razor, etc., from the Count; went
down to see the machine every day in the baronial barouche. Whenever
he went to the little town in the vicinity all the kids followed him
around the streets and when at last he left, he was presented with a
multitude of bouquets and had to kiss each and every donor. He brought
back pictures of the château--a delightful looking old place--and
numerous addresses.
[Illustration: STUART WALCOTT AT THE FRONT]