Part 5 (2/2)
Much of our enforced leisure was spent at the bureau of the group, where the pilots gathered after each sortie to make out their reports.
There we heard accounts of exciting combats, of victories and narrow escapes, which sounded like impossible fictions. A few of them may have been, but not many. They were told simply, briefly, as a part of the day's work, by men who no longer thought of their adventures as being either very remarkable or very interesting. What, I thought, will seem interesting or remarkable to them after the war, after such a life as this? Once an American gave me a hint: ”I'm going to apply for a job as attendant in a natural-history museum.”
Only a few minutes before, these men had been taking part in aerial battles, attacking infantry in trenches, or enemy transport on roads fifteen or twenty kilometres away. And while they were talking of these things the drone of motors overhead announced the departure of other patrols to battle-lines which were only five minutes distant by the route of the air. For when weather permitted there was an interlapping series of patrols flying over the sector from daylight till dark. The number of these, and the number of _avions_ in each patrol, varied as circ.u.mstances demanded.
On one wall of the bureau hung a large-scale map of the sector, which we examined square by square with that delight which only the study of maps can give. Trench-systems, both French and German, were outlined upon it in minute detail. It contained other features of a very interesting nature. On another wall there was a yet larger map, made of aeroplane photographs taken at a uniform alt.i.tude and so pieced together that the whole was a complete picture of our sector of front. We spent hours over this one. Every trench, every sh.e.l.l hole, every splintered tree or fragment of farmhouse wall stood out clearly.
We could identify machine-gun posts and battery positions. We could see at a glance the result of months of fighting; how terribly men had suffered under a rain of high explosives at this point, how lightly they had escaped at another; and so we could follow, with a certain degree of accuracy, what must have been the infantry actions at various parts of the line.
The history of these trench campaigns will have a forbidding interest to the student of the future; for, as he reads of the battles on the Aisne, the Somme, of Verdun and Flanders, he will have spread out before him photographs of the battlefields themselves, just as they were at different phases of the struggle. With a series of these pictorial records, men will be able to find the trenches from which their fathers or grandfathers scrambled with their regiments to the attack, the wire entanglements which held up the advance at one point, the sh.e.l.l holes where they lay under machine-gun fire. And often they will see the men themselves as they advanced through the barrage fire, the sun glinting on their helmets. It will be a fascinating study, in a ghastly way; and while such records exist, the outward meanings, at least, of modern warfare will not be forgotten.
Tiffin, the messroom steward, was standing by my cot with a lighted candle in his hand. The furrows in his kindly old face were outlined in shadow. His bald head gleamed like the bottom of a yellow bowl. He said, ”Beau temps, monsieur,” put the candle on my table, and went out, closing the door softly. I looked at the window square, which was covered with oiled cloth for want of gla.s.s. It was a black patch showing not a glimmer of light.
The other pilots were gathering in the messroom, where a fire was going. Some one started the phonograph. Fritz Kreisler was playing the ”Chansons sans Paroles.” This was followed by a song, ”Oh, movin' man, don't take ma baby grand.” It was a strange combination, and to hear them, at that hour of the morning, before going out for a first sortie over the lines, gave me a ”mixed-up” feeling, which it was impossible to a.n.a.lyze.
Two patrols were to leave the field at the same time, one to cover the sector at an alt.i.tude of from two thousand to three thousand metres, the other, thirty-five hundred to five thousand metres. J. B. and I were on high patrol. Owing to our inexperience, it was to be a purely defensive one between our observation balloons and the lines. We had still many questions to ask, but having been so persistently inquisitive for three days running, we thought it best to wait for Talbott, who was leading our patrol, to volunteer his instructions.
He went to the door to look at the weather. There were clouds at about three thousand metres, but the stars were s.h.i.+ning through gaps in them. On the horizon, in the direction of the lines, there was a broad belt of blue sky. The wind was blowing into Germany. He came back yawning. ”We'll go up--ho, hum!”--tremendous yawn--”through a hole before we reach the river. It's going to be clear presently, so the higher we go the better.”
The others yawned sympathetically.
”I don't feel very pugnastic this morning.”
”It's a crime to send men out at this time of day--night, rather.”
More yawns of a.s.sent, of protest. J. B. and I were the only ones fully awake. We had finished our chocolate and were watching the clock uneasily, afraid that we should be late getting started. Ten minutes before patrol time we went out to the field. The canvas hangars billowed and flapped, and the wooden supports creaked with the quiet sound made by s.h.i.+ps at sea. And there was almost the peace of the sea there, intensified, if anything, by the distant rumble of heavy cannonading.
Our Spad biplanes were drawn up in two long rows, outside the hangars.
They were in exact alignment, wing to wing. Some of them were clean and new, others discolored with smoke and oil; among these latter were the ones which J. B. and I were to fly. Being new pilots we were given used machines to begin with, and ours had already seen much service.
_Fuselage_ and wings had many patches over the scars of old battles, but new motors had been installed, the bodies overhauled, and they were ready for further adventures.
It mattered little to us that they were old. They were to carry us out to our first air battles; they were the first _avions_ which we could call our own, and we loved them in an almost personal way. Each machine had an Indian head, the symbol of the Lafayette Corps, painted on the sides of the _fuselage_. In addition, it bore the personal mark of its pilot,--a triangle, a diamond, a straight band, or an initial,--painted large so that it could be easily seen and recognized in the air.
The mechanicians were getting the motors _en route_, arming the machine guns, and giving a final polish to the gla.s.s of the wind-s.h.i.+elds. In a moment every machine was turning over _ralenti_, with the purring sound of powerful engines which gives a voice to one's feeling of excitement just before patrol time. There was no more yawning, no languid movement.
Rodman was b.u.t.toning himself into a combination suit which appeared to add another six inches to his six feet two. Barry, who was leading the low patrol, wore a woolen helmet which left only his eyes uncovered.
I had not before noticed how they blazed and snapped. All his energy seemed to be concentrated in them. Porter wore a leather face-mask, with a lozenge-shaped breathing-hole, and slanted openings covered with yellow gla.s.s for eyes. He was the most fiendish-looking demon of them all. I was glad to turn from him to the Duke, who wore a _pa.s.se-montagne_ of white silk which fitted him like a bonnet. As he sat in his machine, adjusting his goggles, he might have pa.s.sed for a dear old lady preparing to read a chapter from the Book of Daniel. The fur of Dunham's helmet had frayed out, so that it fitted around the sides of his face and under the chin like a beard, the kind worn by old-fas.h.i.+oned sailors.
The strain of waiting patiently for the start was trying. The sudden transformation of a group of typical-looking Americans into monsters and devotional old ladies gave a moment of diversion which helped to relieve it.
I heard Talbott shouting his parting instructions and remembered that I did not know the rendezvous. I was already strapped in my machine and was about to loosen the fastenings, when he came over and climbed on the step of the car.
”Rendezvous two thousand over field!” he yelled.
I nodded.
”Know me--Big T--wings--fuselage. I'll--turning right. You and others left. When--see me start--lines, fall in behind--left. Remember stick close--patrol. If--get lost, better--home. Compa.s.s southwest. Look carefully--landmarks going out. Got--straight?”
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