There was a small army of women doing work of many kinds.
They were quite apt at it, particularly in the department where the fine strong
linen cloth which covers the wings was being sewn together and stretched over
the framework. There were great husky peasant- women doing the hardest kind of
manual labor. In these latter days of the great world-war, women are doing
everything, surely, with the one exception of fighting. It is not a pleasant
thing to see them, however strong they may be, doing the rough, coarse work of
men, bearing great burdens on their backs as though they were oxen. There must
be many now whose muscles are as hard and whose hands as horny as those of a
stevedore. Several months after this time, when we were transferred to another
school of aviation, one of the largest in Europe, we saw women employed on a
much larger scale. They lived in barracks which were no better than our own,
not so good, in fact, and roughed it like common soldiers.
Toward evening the wind freshened and flying was brought to
a halt. Then the Penguins were brought from their hangars, and Drew and I,
properly dressed this time, and accompanied by some of the Americans, went out
to the field for our first sortie. As is usual on such occasions, there was no
dearth of advice. Every graduate of the Penguin class had a method of his own
for keeping that unmanageable bird traveling in a direct line, and everyone was
only too willing to give us the benefit of his experience. Finally, out of the
welter of suggestions, 36 one or two points became clear: it was important that
one should give the machine full gas, and get the tail off the ground. Then, by
skillful handling of the rudder, it might be kept traveling in the same general
direction. But if, as usually happened, it showed willful tendencies, and
started to turn within its own length, it was necessary to cut the contact, to
prevent it from whirling so rapidly as to overturn.
Never have I seen a stranger sight than that of a swarm of
Penguins at work. They looked like a brood of prehistoric birds of enormous
size, with wings too short for flight. Most unwieldy birds they were, driven
by, or more accurately, driving beginners in the art of flying; but they ran
along the ground at an amazing speed, zigzagged this way and that, and whirled
about as if trying to catch their own tails. As we stood watching them, an
accident occurred which would have been laughable had we not been too nervous
to enjoy it. In a distant part of the field two machines were rushing wildly
about. There were acres of room in which they might pass, but after a moment of
uncertainty, they rushed headlong for each other as though driven by- the hand
of fate, and met head-on, with a great rending of propellers. The onlookers
along the side of the field howled and pounded each other in an ecstasy of
delight, but Drew and I walked apart for a hasty consulta tion, for it was our
turn next. We kept rehearsing the points which we were to remember in driving a
Penguin: full gas and tail up at once. Through the interpreter, our moniteur
explained very carefully what we were to do, and mounted the step, to show us,
in turn, the proper handling of the gas manet and of the
coupe-contact button. Then he stepped down and shouted, "Allez! en
route!" with a smile meant to be reassuring.
I buckled myself in, fastened my helmet, and nodded to my
mechanic.
"Coupe, plein gaz," he said.
"Coupe, plein gaz," I repeated.
He gave the propeller a few spins to suck in the mixture.
"Contact, reduisez."
"Contact, reduisez."
Again he spun the propeller, and the motor took. I pulled
back my manet, full gas, and off I went at what seemed to me then breakneck
speed. Remembering instructions," I pushed forward on the lever which governs
the elevating planes, and up went my tail so quickly and at such an angle that
almost instinctively I cut off my contact. Down dropped my tail again, and I
whirled round in a circlemy first cheval de bois, as this
absurd-looking manoeuvre is called. I had forgotten that I had a rudder. I was
like a man learning to swim, and could not yet coordinate the movements of my
hands and feet. My bird was purring gently, with the propeller turning slowly.
It seemed thoroughly domesticated, but I knew that I had but to pull back on
that manet to transform it into a rampant bird of prey. Before starting again I
looked about me, and there was Drew racing all over the field. Suddenly he
started in my direction as if the whole force of his will was turned to the
business of running me down. Luckily he shut off his motor, and by the grace of
the law of inertia came to a halt when he was within a dozen paces of me.
We turned our machines tail to tail and started off in
opposite directions, but in a moment I was following hard after him. Almost it
seemed that those evil birds had wills of their own. Drew's turned as though it
were angry at the indignity of being pursued. We missed each other, but it was
a near thing, and, not being able to think fast enough, I stalled my motor, and
had to await helplessly the assistance of a mechanic. Far away, at our
starting- point, I could see the Americans waving their arms and embracing each
other in huge delight, and then I realized why they had all been so eager to
come with us to the field. They had been through all this. Now they were having
their innings. I could hear them shouting, although their voices sounded very
thin and faint. "Why don't you come back?" they yelled. "This way! Here we are!
Here's your class!" They were having the time of their vindictive lives, and
knew very well that we would go back if we could.
Finally we began to get the hang of it, and we did go back,
although by circuitous routes. But we got there, and the moniteur explained
again what we were to do. We were to anticipate the turn of the machine with
the rudder, Just as in sailing a boat. Then we understood the difficulty. In my
next sortie, I fixed my eye upon the flag at the opposite side of the field,
and reached it without a single cheval de bois. I could have kissed the
Annamite who was stationed there to turn the machines which rarely came. I had
mastered the Penguin! I had forced my will upon it, compelled it to do my
bidding! Back across the field I went, keeping a direct course, and thinking
how they were all watching, the moniteur, doubtless, making approving comments.
I reduced the gas at the proper time, and taxied triumphantly up to the
starting-point.
But no one had seen my splendid sortie. Now that I had
arrived, no one paid the least attention to me. All eyes were turned upward,
and following them with my own, I saw an airplane outlined against a heaped-up
pile of snow-white cloud. It was moving at tremendous speed, when suddenly it
darted straight upward, wavered for a second or two, turned slowly on one wing
and fell, nose-down, turning round and round as it fell, like a scrap of paper.
It was the vrille, the prettiest piece of aerial acrobatics that one could wish
to see. It was a wonderful, an incredible sight. Only seven years ago Bleriot
crossed the English Channel, and a year earlier the world was astonished at the
exploits of the Wright brothers, who were making flights, straight-line
flights, of from "fifteen to twenty minutes' duration!
Some one was counting the turns of the vrille. Six, seven,
eight; then the airman came out of it on an even keel, and, nosing down to
gather speed, looped twice in quick succession. Afterward he did the
retournement, turning completely over in the air and going back in the opposite
direction; then spiraled down and passed over our heads at about fifty metres,
landing at the opposite side of the field so beautifully that it was impossible
to know when the machine touched the ground. The airman taxied back to the
hangars and stopped just in front of us, while we gathered round to hear the
latest news from the front.
For he had left the front, this birdman, only an hour
before! I was incredulous at first, for I still thought of distances in the old
way. But I was soon convinced. Mounted on the hood was the competent-looking
Vickers machine gun, with a long belt of cartridges in place, and on the side
of the fuselage were painted the insignia of an escadrille.
The pilot was recognized as soon as he removed his helmet
and goggles. He had been a moniteur at the school in former days, and
was well known to some of the older Americans. He greeted us all very
cordially, in excellent English, and told us how, on the strength of a hard
morning's work over the lines, he had asked his captain for an afternoon off
that he might visit his old friends at B.
As soon as he had climbed down, those of us who had never
before seen this latest type of French avion de chasse, crowded round,
examining and admiring with feelings of awe and reverence. It was a marvelous
piece of aero-craftsmanship, the result of more than two years of accumulating
experience in military aviation. It was hard to think of it as an inanimate
thing, once having seen it in the air. It seemed living, intelligent, almost
human. I could readily understand how it is that airmen become attached to
their machines and speak of their fine paints, their little peculiarities of
individuality, with a kind of loving interest, as one might speak of a
fine-spirited horse.
While the mechanicians were grooming this one, and
replenishing the fuel-tanks. Drew and I examined it line by line, talking in
low tones which seemed fitting in so splendid a presence. We climbed the step
and looked down into the compact little car, where the pilot sat in a
luxuriously upholstered seat. There were his compass, his altimetre, his
revolution-counter, his map in its roller case, with a course pricked out on it
in a red line. Attached to the machine gun, there was an ingenious contrivance
by means of which he fired it while still keeping a steady hand on his
controls. The gun itself was fired directly through the propeller by means of a
device which timed the shots. The necessity for accuracy in this timing device
is clear, when one remembers that the propeller turns over at a normal rate of
between fifteen hundred and nineteen hundred revolutions per minute.
It was with a chastened spirit that I looked from this
splendid fighting 'plane, back to my little three-cylinder Penguin, with its
absurd clipped wings and its impudent tail. A moment ago it had seemed a thing
of speed, and the mastery of it a glorious achievement. I told Drew what my
feeling was as I came racing back to the starting-point, and how brief my
moment of triumph had been. He answered me at first in grunts and nods, so that
I knew he was not listening. Presently he began to talk about romance again,
the "romance of high adventure," as he called it. "All this" moving his
arm in a wide gesture was but an evidence of man's unconquerable craving
for romance. War itself was a manifestation of it, gave it scope, relieved the
pent-up longings for it which could not find sufficient outlet in times of
peace. Romance would always be one of the minor, and sometimes one of the major
causes for war, indirectly of course, but none the less really; for the craving
for it was one reason why millions of men so readily accepted war at the hands
of the little groups of diplomats who ruled their destinies.
Half an hour later, as we stood watching the little biplane
again climbing into the evening sky, I understood, in a way, what he was
driving at, and with what keen anticipation he was looking forward to the time
when we too would know all that there was to know of the joy of flight. Higher
and higher it mounted, now and then catching the sun on its silver wings in a
flash of light, growing smaller and smaller, until it vanished in a golden
haze, far to the north. It was then four o'clock. In an hour's time the pilot
would be circling down over his aerodrome on the Champagne front.
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