Chapter II: Part 2

Sunday, another lovely day. It is 7 A.M., and already the indefinable Sunday atmosphere has come over the camp. The shower-baths are open and strings of men are coming and going with towels on their arms. Under the trees little groups are shaving and cutting one another's hair, amid much practical joking and raillery.

One becomes very fond of the French soldier. Large floods of rhetoric have been poured out in describing him, and yet nearly every day one discovers in him new and interesting traits. Let me try to sketch for you a composite picture of the French infantryman--the fantassin who is winning the war for France. On the whole, I do not see him as a boy, but as a sturdy middle-aged man--the father of a family. He is short and solidly built, with thick calves and heavy shoulders. His round head, on which the hair is short, crisp, and black, is surmounted by a battered blue helmet. He wears a long overcoat, looped up and buttoned at the sides, showing evidence, in several places, of home-made patching. It was once horizon blue, but has now faded to an ideally protective shade of blue-green-gray. About his middle is a worn cartridge-belt, and from either shoulder, their straps crossing on breast and back, hang his musettes--bags of brown canvas for carrying extra odds and ends, including everything from a bottle of wine to a dictionary. On his back is his square pack, an affair of formidable weight, to which he has lashed his rolled blanket in the form of a horseshoe, points down. Perched on top of this, he carries his gamelle and quart--the saucepan and cup which serve for both cooking and eating; and beside them you perceive with astonishment that he has strapped a large German trench torpedo--a souvenir for the home folks. From his belt hangs the tin box, painted horizon-blue, which contains his gasmask, and on the other side his long slender bayonet rattles against his thigh.

A large calloused hand, not too clean, holds his shouldered rifle at a most unmilitary angle. The gun has seen hard service, the wood is battered, and in places bright steel shows through the bluing; but look closely and you will see that it is carefully greased, and in the muzzle a little plug of cloth keeps out dust and moisture. In spite of a load which would make a burro groan, he walks sturdily, whistling a march between puffs of a cigarette. Glance at his face. The eyes are dark gray, deep-set, and twinkling with good humor; they are the clear decisive eyes of a man who knows what he wants and has set about getting it. The nose is aquiline, the mouth strong and ironically humorous, the unshaven chin positive and shapely. It is the face of a breed that has been settling to type for many centuries, a race old in cultivation and philosophy.

What is he in civil life? That is hard to say. A lawyer, a farmer, a customhouse clerk, a cook--probably a cook; most of them seem to be cooks, and mighty good ones. Ours at the mess was assistant chef at the Savoy, in London, and when he has the material (for example a hind-quarter of mule, a few potatoes, some dandelions, a tin of lobster, and an egg) he can turn out a dinner hard to equal anywhere--delicious hors d'oeuvres, superb soup, roast, sauté potatoes, salad, and so on.

The French soldier's one great joy and privilege is to grumble. Back in billets where he goes to rest, he spends the whole day at it--hour after hour, over a bock or a litre of wine, he complains of everything: the food, the uniforms, the trenches, the artillery, the war itself. To hear him, one would suppose that France was on the verge of ruin and disintegration. Let some unwise stranger make the slightest criticism of France, and watch the change. The poilu takes the floor with a bound. There is no country like France--no better citizens or braver soldiers than the French.

"Dis donc, mon vieux," he ends triumphantly, "where would Europe be now if it were not for us?"

To be a French general is a terrible responsibility. Their ears must burn continually, for every act is criticized, picked to pieces, and proved a fatal mistake, daily, in a thousand roadside wine-shops. Some celebrity once remarked, that every French soldier was a potential general. He knew them; he was right. They are no carping destructive critics who tear things down but suggest no method of building up. On the contrary, any chance-met poilu will tell you exactly how any maneuver or bit of strategy should be carried out--from a trench-raid to an enveloping movement, which will--he is sure of it!--net fifty thousand prisoners. In last night's coup de main they caught only three Germans. "Do you know why, my friend? I will tell you. Our artillery cut the wires all right, and tapped on the front trench. Good. After that they raised their guns for the barrage, but pouf! the Boches had already run back to their dugouts in the second or third lines. Had the gunners made a barrage on the second line from the beginning, the Germans would have been forced to remain in the first line, and instead of three, we would have bagged thirty. Oh, well, we get our extra leave anyhow, and you should have heard them squeal when we dropped grenades down their stove-pipes!"

The French infantryman would drive a foreign officer mad until he began to understand him and appreciate his splendid hidden qualities. The only thing he does without grumbling is fight; and, after all, when you come to think of it, that is a rather important part of a soldier's duty.

An officer wants a new boyau dug--you never _heard_ such grumbling and groaning and kicking. Finally, a bit put out, he says,--

"All right, don't dig it, if you are all sick and tired, and think I make you work simply to keep you busy. It was only a whim of mine anyhow--the Boches put up a new machine-gun last night, which enfilades the old boyau, and when day breaks and you go back to the third lines, they will doubtless put a dozen of us out of our misery."

As if by magic the new zigzag trench is dug, and the chances are that the officer finds a supply of extra-good firewood in his abri next day.

In an army like France's, one finds many odd birds among the simple soldiers. I was playing "shinny" (we introduced it and it has become very popular in our section) the other evening, and, when a soldier took off his coat, four thousand francs in bills dropped out of the breast pocket. Another evening, in a café, a roughly dressed soldier stood up to give us a bit of music--and for an hour the world seemed to stand still while one of the greatest violinists of France (two years at the front, twice wounded, Croix de Guerre, with several citations) made us forget that anything existed except a flood of clear throbbing sound. It was a rough, drinking crowd--a moment before there had been a pandemonium of loud voices and clattering plates; but for an hour the listeners were still as death--not a whisper, not even a hand-clap of applause. It was, I think, the finest tribute I ever saw paid a musician. And so it goes: one never knows what variety of man is hidden beneath the uniform of faded horizon-blue.

_June 17, 1917_

At last I am free to sit down quietly for a letter to you. It has been a week of rather frenzied running about--passing examinations, and the like. I arrived here in the expectation of taking the first boat, crossing the continent, and seeing you.

A talk with some American officers changed the whole aspect of affairs and showed me that, if I was to be of any use, my job was to remain here. At home, it seems, men are a drug on the market--the rub is to train them and fit them in. Here, on the other hand, they fairly welcome healthy young men--and will train us and put us where we will do the most good, with the least possible delay. Don't let yourself think that flying over here is unduly hazardous--a skillful pilot (as I hope to be) has as good a chance of living to a ripe old age as his comrades in the infantry. Numbers of them have been at it since 1914. The school where I hope to be is the finest in the world, and the machines are beyond praise.

Since writing the above, I have received my papers of acceptance in the Foreign Legion, conditional on passing the French physical tests. I have already passed the tests of the Franco-American Committee. Before cabling I took all the tests.

_Later_

I have passed the French examination and am to leave for the school in a day or two. I have been lucky!

It was interesting at the Paris recruiting office. I stood in line with dozens of other recruits for the Foreign Legion--all of us naked as so many fish, in the dirty corridor, waiting our turns. Each man had a number: mine was seven--lucky, I think! Finally the orderly shouted, "Numéro sept," and I separated myself from my jolly polyglot neighbors, marched to the door, did a demi-tour à gauche, and came to attention before a colonel, two captains, and a sergeant.

"Name, Nordhoff, Charles Bernard--born at London, 1887--American citizen--unmarried--no children--desires to enlist in Foreign Legion for duration of war--to be detached to the navigating personnel of the Aviation," read the sergeant, monotonously. In two minutes I had been weighed, measured, stethoscoped, ears and eyes tested, and passed.

The colonel looked at me coldly and turned to the captain.

"Not so bad, this one, hein? He has not the head of a beast."

I bowed with all the dignity a naked man can muster, and said respectfully, "Merci, mon colonel."

"Ah, you speak French," he rejoined with a smile; "good luck, then, my American."

II

THE FLEDGLING

Here at Avord there are about seventy-five Americans of every imaginable sort--sailors, prize-fighters, men of the Foreign Legion, and a good scattering of University men. As good a fellow as any is H----, formerly a chauffeur in San Francisco. He is pleasant, jolly, and hard-working, with an absurdly amiable weakness for "crap-shooting," in which he indulges at all times, seconded by an American darky who is a pilot here--and a good one.

I can hear them as I write, snapping their fingers as the dice roll: "Come on 'leben--little seben, be good to me! Fifty days--little Phoebe--fever in the South! Read 'em and weep! Ten francs--let 'er ride. I'll fade you!" The crap-shooting circle is always either stuffed with banknotes or reduced to a few sous--which latter predicament is a bit serious here, where we have to pay eight to ten francs a day to get sufficient nourishing food.

We sleep in barracks, about twenty to the room, on cots with straw mattresses. All days are pretty much alike. At 3 A.M. a funny little Annamite Chinaman, with betel-blackened teeth, comes softly in and shakes you by the shoulder in an absurdly deprecating way. You reach for your tin cup, and he pours out a quarter-litre of fearful but hot liquid, somewhat resembling coffee. Then a cigarette in bed, amid drowsy yawns and curses; a pulling on of breeches, golf-stockings, and leather coats; a picking up of helmets, and a sleepy march to the bureau, under the wind-gauges, barometers, and the great red balls that show the passing side (right or left) for the day.

"Rassemblement! Mettez-vous sur quatre!" barks the adjutant, and off we go to the field. There till nine, or till the wind becomes too strong--each man taking his sortie of ten minutes as his name is called. Back about ten; then a lecture till eleven, a discussion after that, and the first meal of the day. Sleep afterwards till three or three-thirty; then a bath, a shave, brush teeth, and clean up in general. At five, assembly again, the same march, the same lessons till nine; then a meal, a smoke, and to bed at eleven.

It has been a bit strenuous this past month, getting accustomed to this life, which is easy, but absurdly irregular. Up at 3.30 A.M., and never to bed before 11 P.M. Meals snatched wherever and whenever possible. Some sleep by day is indispensable, but difficult in a barrack-room with twenty other men, not all of whom are sleepy. This, together with fleas and even more unwelcome little nocturnal visitors, has made me rather irregular in my habits, but now I have got into a sort of régime--four and a half hours of sleep at night, some sleep every afternoon, and decent meals. Also I have discovered a sort of chrysanthemum powder, which, with one of the "anti" lotions, fairly ruins my small attackers. Baths, thank Heaven! I can get every day--with a sponge and soap. There is no real hardship about this life--it is simply a matter of readjusting one's self to new conditions and learning where and what to eat, how to sleep, how to get laundry done, and so forth.

This school is superb. I shall have the honor of being one of the last men in the world trained on the famous Blériot monoplane--obsolete as a military plane, but the best of all for training, because the most difficult. In spite of the fact that from the beginning to the end one is alone, it is said to be the safest of all training, because you practically learn to fly in the "Penguins" before leaving the ground; and also because you can fall incredible distances without getting a bruise.

In practically all of the French planes the system of control is the same. You sit on cushions in a comfortable little chair--well strapped in, clothed in leathers and helmet. At your left hand are two little levers, one the mixture, the other the throttle. Your right controls the manche-à-balai, or cloche--a push forward causes the machine to point downward (pique) and a pull back makes it rise. Moving it sideways controls the ailerons, or warps the wings--if you tip left, you move the cloche right. Your feet rest on a pivoted bar which controls the rudder.

To rise, you head into the wind, open the throttle (steering with great care, as a little carelessness here may mean a wrecked wing or a turn over), and press forward the cloche: you roll easily off; next moment, as the machine gathers speed, the tail rises, and you pull back the stick into the position of ligne de vol. Faster and faster you buzz along,--thirty, thirty-five, forty miles an hour,--until you have flying speed. Then a slight backward pull on the cloche, and you are in the air.

I made my first flight in a small two-place machine of the fighting type--a Nieuport. It is a new sensation,--one which only a handful of Americans have experienced,--to take the air at seventy-five or eighty miles an hour, in one of these little hornets. The handling of them is incredibly delicate, all the movements of the stick could be covered by a three-inch circle. A special training is required to pilot them, but once the knack is acquired they are superb, except for the necessity of landing at sixty or seventy miles an hour. In the air you can do anything with them--they will come out of any known evolution or position.

Lately I have been making short low flights in a Blériot, and enjoying it keenly. All I know (a mere beginning) I have learned entirely alone, and the first time I left the ground, I left it alone. They simply put you in the successive types of machines, with a brief word of instruction, and tell you to fly--if you haven't the instinct, you are soon put out of the school. After your month of preparation in "Penguins" and "grass-cutters," the first short flight is a great experience.

My name was at the end of the list, so for two hours of increasing tension I watched my mates make their débuts. We were about a dozen, and there were some bad "crashes" before my turn came. At last the monitor called me and I was strapped in behind the whirling stick. The monitor waved his arm, the men holding the tail jumped away, and I opened the throttle wide, with the manche-à-balai pushed all the way forward. Up came the tail; I eased back the control bit by bit, until I had her in ligne de vol, tearing down the field at top speed. Now came the big moment, mentally rehearsed a hundred times. With a final gulp I gingerly pulled back the control, half an inch, an inch, an inch and a half. From a buoyant bounding rush the machine seemed to steady to a glide, swaying ever so little from side to side. A second later, the rushing green of grass seemed to cease, and I was horrified to find myself looking down at the landscape from a vast height whence one could see distant fields and hangars as if on a map. A gentle push forward on the manche brought her to ligne de vol again; a little forward, a reduction of gas, a pull back at the last moment, and I had made my first landing--a beauty, without a bounce. To-night I may crash, but I have always the memory of my beginner's luck--landing faultlessly from fully twelve feet!

Lack of sleep is our main foe--a hard one to combat, as all sorts of other things develop as its followers; one has simply to learn to sleep in any odd moments of the day or night.

I may still "fall down" and be "radiated" to an observation or bombing plane (which is of course no disgrace); but on the whole I have good hopes of making a fighting pilot. Flying (on a Blériot monoplane) is by no means as easy as I had supposed. It took us four weeks to learn to run one at full speed, _in a straight line_, on the ground. The steering and handling of the elevators (which regulate height of tail) are extremely tricky, and many men are thrown out or sent to other schools (Caudron, Farman, or Voisin) for inaptitude or "crashes" at this stage.

Then comes the stage of low straightaway flights, when you leave the ground fast and in correct line of flight, and have to land smoothly. Make no mistake--landing any kind of an aeroplane is hard, and to land the fast fighting machines is a very great art, which forty per cent of picked young men never acquire. They are so heavy for their supporting area, that the moment they slow down to less than seventy-five or eighty miles an hour they simply fall off on a wing (or "pancake"). Even a Blériot requires a good eye and a steady delicate touch and judgment to land in decent style. You are flying, say, three hundred feet up, and wish to land. Forward goes your stick, the machine noses down as you cut the motor. The ground comes rushing up at you until the moment comes when you think you should "redress"--precisely as a plunging duck levels before settling among the decoys. If you have gauged it to a nicety, you skim over the ground a few yards up, gradually losing speed, and settling at last without a jar or break in the forward motion. If you redress too late, you turn over (capoter), or else bounce and fall off on a wing. (I have seen men bounce fifty feet!) If you redress too high, you lose speed too far above the ground, and either pique into the ground and turn over, fall flat, or crash on one wing.

The secret of the whole game of learning to fly is, I believe, never to get excited. I have seen beginner after beginner smash when he was first sent up to fly. They run along the ground, pull back the stick, as told, and a moment later are so astounded to find themselves twenty or thirty feet off the ground that they can think of nothing but shutting off the throttle. Many crash down tail first, with controls in climbing position to the last. If they would simply think,--

"Ha, old boy, you're in the air at last--some thrill, but the main thing now is to stay here a bit and then ease down without a crash. Ease the stick forward--now we have stopped climbing. Feel that puff--she's tipping, but a little stick or rudder will stop that. Now pique her down, and reduce the gas a notch or two. Here comes the ground--straighten her out; too much, she's climbing again; there, cut the gas--a little more--there--not a bad landing for the first try."

Really there is no system in the world like learning alone, but it costs the Government, I am told, from $30,000 to $40,000 to turn out a fighting pilot. Three, six, ten machines--costly, delicate things--are smashed daily in the school. Never a word is said, until a man smashes one too many, when he is quietly sent to the easier double-command school of bombardment or observation flying.

Some of the fellows are in bad shape nervously. Any night in our barracks you can see a man, sound asleep, sitting up in bed with hands on a set of imaginary controls, warding off puffs, doing spirals, landings, and the like. It is odd that it should take such a hold on their mental lives.

I enjoy hugely flying the old monoplane, especially when I fly home and nose her down almost straight for a gorgeous rush at the ground. As you straighten out, a few yards up, lightly as a seagull, and settle on the grass, it is a real thrill.

I have purchased, for twenty-five francs, a beautiful soft Russia-leather head-and-shoulder gear, lined with splendid silky fur. It covers everything but one's eyes,--leaving a crack to breathe through,--and is wonderfully warm and comfortable.

I have finally finished the Monoplane School, which is the end of preliminary training. There remain spirals, etc., an altitude, and a few hundred miles of cross-country flying, before I can obtain my brevet militaire and have the glory of a pair of small gold wings, one on each side of my collar. After that I shall have seven days' leave (if I am lucky), followed by two or three weeks perfectionnement on the type of machine I shall fly at the front. If I smash nothing from now on, I shall have practically my choice of "zincs"--a monoplace de chasse, or anything in the bombing or observation lines. If I break once, I lose my chasse machine, and so on, down to the most prosaic type of heavy bomber. Only one compensation in this very wise but severe system--the worse the pilot, the safer the machine he finally flies.

In spite of all my hopes, I had the inevitable crash--and in the very last class of the school. Landing our Blériots is a rather delicate matter (especially to a beginner), and last week I had the relapse in landings which so few beginners escape, with the result that I crashed on my last flight of the morning. I felt pretty low about it, of course, but on the whole I was not sorry for the experience, which blew up a lot of false confidence and substituted therefor a new respect for my job and a renewed keenness to succeed. After that I did better than ever before, and made a more consistent type of landing.

Guynemer, the great French "Ace," has disappeared, and from accounts of the fight one fears that he is dead. What a loss to France and to the Allies! the end of a career of unparalleled romantic brilliancy. I shall never forget one evening in Paris last spring. I was sitting in the Café de la Paix, under the long awning that fronts the Boulevard des Capucines. All Paris was buzzing with Guynemer's mighty exploit of the day before--four German planes in one fight, two of them sent hurtling down in flames within sixty seconds. It took one back to the old days, and one foresaw that Guynemer would take his place with the legendary heroes of France, with Roland and Oliver, Archbishop Turpin, Saint Louis, and Charles Martel.

Presently I looked up. A man was standing in the aisle before me--a slender youth, rather, dressed in the black and silver uniform of a captain in the French Aviation. Delicately built, of middle height, with dark tired eyes set in a pale face, he had the look of a haggard boy who had crowded the experience of a lifetime into a score of years. The mouth was remarkable in so young a man--mobile and thin-lipped, expressing dauntless resolution. On his breast the particolored ribbons of his decorations formed three lines: Croix de Guerre, Médaille Militaire, Officer of the Legion of Honor, Cross of St. George, English Military Cross, and others too rare for recognition.

All about me there arose a murmur of excited interest; chairs were pushed back and tables moved as the crowd rose to its feet. Cynical Swiss waiters, with armloads of pink and green drinks, halted agape. A whisper, collective and distinct, passed along the terrace: "It is Guynemer!"

The day before, over the fiery lines, he had done battle for his life; and this evening, in the gay security of Paris, he received the homage of the people who adored him.

He had been looking for a table, but when it became no longer possible to ignore the stir, he raised his right hand in embarrassed salute and walked quickly into the café.

I spent my ten days' leave in a trip to Nice, and used up about half of it in getting there.

The trip south was a martyrdom--a long stifling ride to Paris, three days' wait there for a reserved place to Marseilles, a day and a night standing up in a corridor from Paris to Marseilles (had to give up my seat to an unfortunate woman with two youngsters), and twenty-three hours more in a corridor to get to Cannes. On the whole, the worst journey I recollect. No stops for meals, so we all nearly starved, till I finally obtained an armful of bottled beer and some sandwiches.

I sat down on a trunk in the corridor and nodded off to sleep, only to be awakened half an hour later by H---- F---- (S----'s cousin), who stole up with a gesture for silence, and pointed at me with a shake of his head and a broad grin. It must have been rather a rakish tableau. On the floor to my left were half a dozen empty bottles; on one end of the trunk I sat, heavy-eyed and half awake, and beside me, sound asleep, with her head on my shoulder, was a respectable, very attractive, and utterly unknown young woman! C'est la guerre! I motioned H---- away and promptly went to sleep again.

In Marseilles I had time for the Corniche, to see Monte Cristo's castle, and eat a bouillabaisse, which I cannot recommend without reserve. With an enormous floating population of sailors, shipping booming, and streets ablaze at night, Marseilles seems far away from the war, after the hushed gloom of nocturnal Paris.

The trials for my military brevet were by far the most interesting thing I have done in aviation. On finishing the sixty horse-power Blériot class, I was told that I would have to do my brevet work on a small Caudron biplane, as there were no Blériots available. A few short flights in the Caudron gave me confidence that I could handle it; so one rather cloudy morning the officer told me to make my official altitude--which is merely one hour's stay at heights of over seven thousand feet. I pulled on my great fur combination and fur-lined boots, adjusted mittens, helmet, and goggles, and stepped into my machine, number 2887, which the mechanic had been tuning up. "Coupe, plein gaz," he shouted, above the roar of a score of motors, and gave the stick half a dozen turns. Then, "Contact reduit"; and as I yelled back, "Contact reduit," after the old starting formula, he gave a quick half turn to the blades. Off she went with a roar, all ten cylinders hitting perfectly, so I motioned him to pull out the blocks from before the wheels. A quick rush and a turn headed me into the wind, and the next moment the starter's arm shot forward.

Old 2887 is a bully 'bus. I was off the ground and heading up in forty yards. It was rather an occasion for a beginner who had never before flown over twenty-five hundred feet. The little Caudrons, of course, are not high-powered, but she climbed splendidly. In ten minutes I was circling over the camp at thirty-eight hundred feet, and in twenty, I had reached six thousand, just under the roof of the clouds. There was only one blue hole through, so up this funnel I climbed in decreasing circles, till I finally burst out into the gorgeous upper sunlight. At eight thousand feet I began to float about in a world of utter celestial loneliness--dazzlingly pure sun, air like the water of a coral atoll, and beneath me a billowy sea of clouds, stretching away to infinity. Here and there, from the cloudy prairies, great fantastic mountain ranges reared themselves; foothills and long divides, vast snowy peaks, impalpable sisters of Orizaba or Chimborazo, and deep gorges, ever narrowing, widening, or deepening, across whose shadowy depths drove ribbons of thin gray mist.

Once, as I was sailing over a broad cañon, I saw, far off in the south, a dark moving dot, and knew with a sudden thrill that another man like myself, astride his gaunt buzzing bird, was exploring and marveling at this upper dream-world.

At last the hour was up. I shut off the motor and drove downward in a series of long easy glides. Going through the clouds, one loses all sense of balance and direction. It is bizarre and sometimes dangerous. You plunge out into the old gray world beneath, to find yourself in a nose-dive, or off on a wing, or upside down--it is all the same in a cloud.

The balance of the military trials consists in spirals, and so forth, and a lot of cross-country flying by map and compass. First you make two round trips to a place fifty miles away, and then two triangular trips of about one hundred and fifty miles each. It is very easy, if you keep your wits about you and have no hard luck. Roads, railroads, rivers, woods, and canals are the principal guides to follow; towns and cities you can only recognize by having counted their predecessors, unless there is some very prominent building, cathedral or factory. A road, from three thousand feet, shows as a very straight white line, occasionally making angular turns. A railroad is a dark gray line, always curving gently when it turns. Canals are ribbons of water, very straight, between twin lines of trees. And so on. You watch your compass, to check up the tend of roads and railroads, watch your altimeter and tachometer (which tells the speed of your engine), and above all watch always ahead for suitable landing fields, in case of motor trouble. The wind also must be borne in mind; its direction can be told from smoke. I was lucky and had no trouble at all.

At Nice I ran into many Americans, and there were a good many Britishers about, recovering from the recent severe fighting around Passchendaele. They are a quiet and agreeable lot--very interesting when they talk about their work, which is seldom.

One captain had strolled into some heavy fighting with no weapon but a heavy cane, and with this, walking astride of a deep narrow enemy trench, he had killed eight Germans! An Australian captain, with the rare ribbon of the V.C. on his breast, had gone into a crowded German dugout with one companion, who was wounded at the first exchange of bombs. Single-handed, he had bombed out the Boches, taken forty prisoners back single-handed, and returned to bring out his wounded brother officer. An epic feat!

III

FULL-FLEDGED

Soon after my stay at Nice I went for a month to the Combat and Acrobatic School of Pau, which completes the most dangerous of all the flying training. A wonderful experience--somersaults, barrel-turns, corkscrew dives, every conceivable aerial caper, and long flights daily: skimming the highest peaks of the Pyrenees at three hundred feet above the snow--trips to Biarritz and along the coast, flying ten feet above the waves, etc.

It is hard to say enough in praise of the school at Pau--the hundreds of splendid machines, the perfect discipline and efficiency, the food, the barracks, the courteous treatment of pilots by officers and instructors. We were twenty Americans, in a clean airy barrack, with an Annamite to make the beds and sweep up. The school covers an enormous area in the valley of the Gave, just under the Pyrenees, and is ideal for an aviation center so far as weather conditions go, its one drawback being that motor-trouble, out of range of the aerodromes, means almost inevitably a smash. All along the Gave they have the smallest fields and the highest hedges I ever saw. The climate is superb--like the foothill climate of California: cool nights, delicious days, wonderful dawns and sunsets.

They started us on the eighteen-metre machine, doing vertical spirals, which are quite a thrill at first. You go to a height of about three thousand feet, shut off the motor, tilt the machine till the wings are absolutely vertical, and pull the stick all the way back. When an aeroplane inclines laterally to over forty-five degrees, the controls become reversed--the rudder is then the elevator, and the elevator the rudder, so that, in a vertical spiral, the farther back you pull the stick, the tighter the spiral becomes. You are at the same time dropping and whirling in short circles. I once did five turns in losing a thousand feet of altitude--an unusual number, the monitor told me with satisfaction. Usually, one loses about three hundred feet to each turn, but on my first attempt, I lost twenty-one hundred feet in three fourths of a turn, because I did not pull back enough on the stick.

After the eighteen-metre spirals we were given a few rides on the fifteen-metre machine--very small, fast and powerful, but a delicious thing to handle in the air; and after left and right vertical spirals on this type, we went to the class of formation-flying, where one is supposed to learn flying in squadron formation, like wild geese. This is extremely valuable, but most men take this chance for joy-riding, as they have petrol for three hours, and are responsible to no one.

On my first day in this class I found no one at the rendezvous, so I rose to about four thousand feet, and headed at a hundred miles an hour for the coast. In thirty-five minutes I was over Biarritz, where my eyes fairly feasted on the salt water, sparkling blue, and foam-crested. I do not see how men can live long away from the sea and the mountains. My motor was running like a clock and as I was beginning to have perfect confidence in its performance, I came down in a long coast to the ground, and went rushing across country toward the mountains, skimming a yard up, across pastures, leaping vertically over high hedges of poplar trees, booming down the main streets of villages, and behaving like an idiot generally, from sheer intoxication of limitless speed and power.

In a few moments I was at the entrance of one of the huge gorges that pierce the Pyrenees--the sort of place up which the hosts of Charlemagne were guided by the White Stag: deep and black and winding, with an icy stream rushing down its depths. Why not? I gave her full gas and whizzed up between black walls of rock that magnified enormously the motor's snarl, up and up until there was snow beneath me and ahead I could see the sun gleaming on the gorgeous ragged peaks. Up and up, nine, ten, eleven thousand feet, and I was skimming the highest ridges that separate France and Spain. Imagine rising from a field in Los Angeles, and twenty-five minutes later flying over the two-mile-high ridges of Baldy and Sheep Mountain, swooping down to graze the snow, or bounding into the air with more speed and ease than any bird.

At last, as my time was nearly up, I headed back for Pau. A few minutes later, just as I sighted the pygmy groups of hangars, my motor gave forth a loud bang and a sheet of flame, and several chunks of metal tore whizzing through the aluminum hood. Automatically, I pulled at the lever which closes the gasoline flow and tilted the machine forward to keep my speed. Another bang, accompanied by black smoke. "Holy mackerel!" I thought; "this is the end of me! Let's see--in case of fire, shut off petrol, open throttle, and leave the spark on. Then go into a nose-dive."

Somehow you can't seem to get very excited at such moments,--everything seems inevitable,--good or bad luck. I nose-dived, came out at five thousand feet, killed my propeller, and was gratified to see, on looking behind, that there was no more smoke. Starting the motor was of course out of the question, as it would have promptly taken fire; so I shut off throttle and spark, struck an easy glide, and began an anxious search for a field. Most of them were no larger than postage-stamps, and I knew they were hedged by the beastly poplars, but at last I spotted a long one, in the direction of the wind, though not long enough to afford more than a bare chance of avoiding a crash. It was the only hope, at any rate; so down I coasted in glides and serpentines, jockeying to lose height just over the trees. As luck would have it, I was a few feet low and had to chance jumping the trees with none too much speed. The splendid stability of the Nieuport saved me from a wing-slip, and a moment later I landed with a bang in a ditch, breaking one wheel and stopping within ten yards of a formidable line of willows.

I crawled out of my seat and lay down in the long grass to rest, as my head ached villainously from the too rapid descent. Somehow I dozed off and was awakened by the friendly tongue of a huge Basque shepherd dog. His mistress, a pretty Spanish-speaking peasant girl, appeared a minute later, and her family were very decent to me. After some hot coffee with brandy, and a piece of goat cheese, I attended to the formalities and went back to camp.

After formation-flying we went to the acrobatic class or "Haute École du Ciel," where you are taught to put a machine through the wildest kinds of maneuvers. This is the most dangerous class in any aviation training in France--many excellent pilots, whose nerves or stomachs would not stand the acrobatics, rest in the little cemetery at Pau. Wonderful sport, though, if nature intended one for that sort of thing! The most dreaded thing one does is the spinning nose-dive, or vrille (gimlet), which formerly was thought invariably fatal. They have now discovered that the small, very strong machines will come out of it safely, if the rudder is put exactly in the middle and the stick pushed forward.

The instructor in this class was a very dandified lieutenant, in a Bond Street uniform, and wearing a monocle, who lay in a steamer-chair all day, gazing up into the sky at the antics of his pupils. Around him stood assistants with field-glasses, who watched the heavens anxiously, and would suddenly bark out, "Regardez, mon lieutenant--l'Américain Thompson en vrille." The lieutenant would then languidly look up at the machine pointed out (they are distinguished by broad stripes, or checker-boards, or colors), and, if the "type" up above had done well, would remark, "Pas mal, celui-là." If some unfortunate plunged into the ground and killed himself, the officer would rise gracefully from his chair, flick the dust from his sleeve, and call for the "Black Cat," his special "taxi." Jumping in with remarkable speed, he rose in a series of the most breakneck evolutions, and flew to the scene of the accident. In reality, his pose is the best in the world, as it keeps the pilots gonflés, that is, courageous and confident, as opposed to dégonflés, or scared and nervous.

I was watching all this from the ground, when a monitor unexpectedly called out, "Nordhoff, Nordhoff!"

"Present!" I yelled, as I ran toward him.

"You will take the checker-board," he ordered, "rise to twelve hundred metres, and do one vrille and two upside-down turns."

I admit that I had a slight sinking spell as I walked to the machine, a little thirteen-metre beauty. (Think of it, only thirteen square yards of supporting surface!) It was all right as soon as I was strapped in and had the motor going. Up we went, the "Bébé" climbing like a cat, at incredible speed, while I anxiously repeated, again and again, the instructions. Two turns of the field gave me my thirty-six hundred feet. This was no time to hesitate, so, as I reached the required spot, away from the sun, I shut off the motor, took a long breath, and pulled back a bit on the stick. Slower and slower she went, until I felt the rather sickening swaying that comes with a dangerous loss of speed. The moment had come. Gritting my teeth, I gave her all the left rudder and left stick, at the same moment pulling the stick all the way back. For an instant she seemed to hang motionless--then with unbelievable swiftness plunged whirling downwards. "Remember, keep your eyes inside--don't look out, whatever happens," I thought, while a great wind tore at my clothing and whistled through the wires. In a wink of time I had dropped six hundred feet: so I carefully put the rudder in the exact center, centered the stick, and pushed it gently forward. At once the motion grew steadier, the wind seemed to abate, and the next moment I dared to look out. It was over--I was in a steep glide, right side up, safe and sound. I had done a vrille and come out of it! A gorgeous sensation! I loved it, and queerly enough my first bewildered thought was, "M---- would adore that!"

Just to show the lieutenant that I was having a good time, I buzzed up again and did two more vrilles, looking out the whole time at the panorama of Pyrenees, villages, and river, whirling around with the most amazing rapidity. Not a thing for bilious or easily dizzy people though, as it means horses at the walk if you fail to do the right thing at exactly the right moment.

After the acrobatics, we went to classes in machine-gun shooting and combat-flying--very interesting and practical, but not to be talked about.

After Pau, I had forty-eight hours' leave in Paris, bought a few things I needed for the front, and was then sent to a place it is forbidden to mention, expecting soon to get to flying over the lines.

On New Year's morning, as it was snowing hard and there was no flying, I sat by a cozy fire, in the house of some English people. Curious thing, running into them here. They are of the tribe of English who wander over the face of the earth, and make England what she is. The man of the house is an expert on ----, and has pursued his unusual vocation in Cuba, Jamaica, Honduras, Guiana, "Portuguese East" and other parts of Africa, as well as in Ceylon and a few other places I forget. Here he is now, as expert for the French. His wife and seven children, who speak French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Zulu, I think, follow him everywhere, and are everywhere equally at home. I have tea with them after work, and, needless to say, they are a Godsend in this desolate place. Let us all pray that next New Year's day we shall be thanking God for a victorious peace and returning to civilian life, never to put on uniforms again. The finest uniform of all is the old civilian suit--brass buttons and gold braid to the contrary.

For this winter air-work, which is the coldest known occupation, I think, this is the way we dress. First, heavy flannels and woolen socks. Over that, a flannel shirt with sleeveless sweater on top, and uniform breeches and tunic. Boots and spiral puttees (very warm things, if not put on too tightly) go on next, and over all we pull on a great combination, or fur-lined "teddy-bear" suit--waterproof canvas outside. Over our boots we pull fur-lined leather flying boots, reaching half-way up to our knees. For head-gear, a fur-lined leather cap, and around the neck, several turns of gray muffler. A variety of mask and a pair of "triplex" goggles to protect one's face from the icy breeze. With all this, and heavy fur gloves, one can keep reasonably warm.

As the 16th of January was the first good flying day for some time, there was much activity. After lunch I went to the aerodrome just in time to see the combat patrol come swooping down. An excited crowd was gathered about the first machine in, and I learned that one of our best pilots had just been brought down by a German two-seater, and that H----, a nineteen-year-old American in our sister escadrille here, had promptly brought the Hun down. I was proud to think that an American had revenged our comrade. This makes H----'s second German within a week--a phenomenal record for a beginner. He is an unusual youngster, and handles a machine beautifully. He seems to have the mixture of dash, cold nerve, and caution which makes an "ace."

The German fell ten thousand feet directly over the trenches, but at the last moment managed to straighten out a bit and crashed two hundred yards inside his lines. H---- followed him down, and gliding over the trenches at one hundred feet, saw one German limp out of the wreck and wave a hand up at the victor.

Another American boy had quite an exciting time lately when his motor went dead far inside the enemy lines. Luckily he was high at the time; so he flattened his glide to the danger-point, praying to be able to cross into friendly country. Down he came, his "stick" dead, the wind whistling through the cables, until close ahead he saw a broad belt of shell-marked desolation, crisscrossed by a maze of meaningless trenches. The ground was close; automatically he straightened out, avoiding a pair of huge craters, touched, bumped, crashed into a thicket of wire, and turned over. A jab at the catch of his belt set him free; but the really important thing was whether or not he had succeeded in crossing the German lines. Wisely enough, he crawled to a shell-hole, and from its shelter began to reconnoiter warily. Muddy figures began to appear from various holes and ditches, and at length a soldier who, so far as appearances went, might have belonged to any army, leaned over the edge of the hole and said something in _French_. Young S---- at that began to breathe for the first time in at least a quarter of an hour. His discoverer led him to a spacious dugout where two generals were at lunch--a wonderful lunch, washed down with beverages forbidden to any but generals. The great ones made the corporal welcome, laughed themselves ill over his voluble but wonderful French, plied him with food and good Scotch whiskey, and sent him home in one of their superb closed cars.

Now that so many young Americans are beginning to fly in France, I fancy that the people at home must wonder what sort of a time their sons or brothers are having--how they live, what their work is, and their play. Most people who have an immediate interest in the war must by now possess a very fair idea of the military aviation training; but of the pilot's life at the front I have seen little in print.

I can speak, of course, only of conditions in the French aviation service; but when our American squadrons take their places at the front, the life is bound to be very similar, because experience has taught all the armies that, to get the best results, pilots should be given a maximum of liberty and a minimum of routine, outside of their duty, which consists in but one thing--flying.

Let us suppose, for example, that an American boy--we will call him Wilkins, because I never heard of a man named Wilkins flying--has passed through the schools, done his acrobatics and combat-work, and is waiting at the great dépôt near Paris for his call to the front. Every day he scans the list as it is posted, and at last, hurrah! his name is there, followed by mysterious letters and numbers--G.C. 17, or S.P.A. 501, or N. 358. He knows, of course, that he will have a single-seater scout, but the symbols above tell him whether it will be a Spad or a Nieuport and whether he is to be in a groupe de combat ("traveling circus," the British call them) or in a permanent fighting unit.

Wilkins is overjoyed to find he has been given a Spad, and hastens to pack up, in readiness for his train, which leaves at 6 P.M. When his order of transport is given him, he finds that his escadrille is stationed at Robinet d'Essence, in a fairly quiet, though imaginary, sector. Before leaving the dépôt he has issued to him a fur-lined teddy-bear suit, fur boots, sweater, fur gloves, and a huge cork safety helmet, which Wisdom tells him to wear and Common Sense pronounces impossible. Common Sense wins; so Wilkins gives the thing to the keeper of the "effets chauds pour pilotes," and retires.

His flying things stuffed into a duffle-bag, which he has checked directly through to far-off Robinet, our hero boards the train with nothing but a light suitcase. He is delirious with joy, for it is long since he has been to Paris, and at the dépôt discipline has been severe and luxury scant. Every journey to the front is via Paris, and the authorities wink a wise and kindly eye at a few hours' stopover. Outside the station, an hour later, Wilkins is conscious of a sudden odd feeling of calm, almost of content, which puzzles him until he thinks a bit. Finally he has it--_this_ is what he is going to fight for, what all the Allies are fighting for: this pleasant, crowded civilian life; the dainty Frenchwomen going by on the arms of their permissionnaires, the fine old buildings, the hum of peaceful pursuits. In the schools and at the waiting dépôt he had nearly lost sight of real issues; but now it all comes back.

At his hotel he calls up Captain X---- of the American Aviation,--an old friend, who is in Paris on duty,--and is lucky enough to catch him at his apartment. They dine at the Cercle des Alliés--the old Rothschild palace, now made into a great military club, where one can see many interesting men of all the Allied armies lunching and dining together. Dinner over, they drop in at the Olympia, watch the show a bit, and greet a multitude of friends who stroll about among the tables. A great deal of air-gossip goes on: A---- has just bagged another Boche; B----, poor chap, was shot down two days ago; C---- is a prisoner, badly wounded. At a table near by, Wilkins, for the first time, sets eyes on Lufbery, the famous American "ace," his breast a mass of ribbons, his rather worn face lit up by a pleasant smile as he talks to a French officer beside him.

At eleven our young pilot says good-bye to his friend and walks through the darkened streets to his hotel. What a joy, to sleep in a real bed again! The train leaves at noon, which will give him time for a late breakfast and a little shopping in the morning. After the first real night's sleep in a month, and a light war-time breakfast of omelet, bacon, broiled kidneys, and coffee, he is on the boulevards again, searching for a really good pair of goggles, a fur-lined flying cap to replace the hopeless helmet, and a pair of heavy mittens. Old friends, in the uniforms of American subalterns, are everywhere; many wear the stiff-looking wings of the American Flying Corps on their breasts. All are filled with envy to hear that he is leaving for the front; their turn will come before long, but meanwhile the wait grows tiresome.