Category: Biographies

Cavalry of the Clouds

After months of training the twelvetieth battalion, battery, or squadron is almost ready for a plunge into active service. Then comes, from a source which cannot be trailed, a mysterious Date. The orderly-room whispers: "June the fifteenth"; the senior officers' quarters murmu...

Chapters

8. Chapter 8

During a bout of active service one happens upon experiences that, though they make no immediate impression, become more prominent than the most dramatic events, when the period...

7. Chapter 7

As a highly irresponsible prophet I am convinced that towards the end of the war hostilities in the air will become as decisive as hostilities on land or sea. An obvious corolla...

5. Chapter 5

An inhuman philosopher or a strong, silent poseur might affect to treat with indifference his leave from the Front. Personally I have never met a philosopher inhuman enough or a...

6. Chapter 6

Clouds, say the text-books of meteorology, are collections of partly condensed water vapour or of fine ice crystals. Clouds, mentioned in terms of the newspaper and the club, ar...

1. Chapter 1

After months of training the twelvetieth battalion, battery, or squadron is almost ready for a plunge into active service. Then comes, from a source which cannot be trailed, a m...

2. Chapter 2

For weeks we had talked guardedly of "it" and "them"--of the greatest day of the Push and the latest form of warfare. Details of the twin mysteries had been rightly kept secret...

3. Chapter 3

It happened late in the afternoon, one August dog-day. No wind leavened the languid air, and hut, hangar, tent, and workshop were oppressive with a heavy heat, so that we wanted...

4. Chapter 4

For thirty hours the flight had "stood by" for a long reconnaissance. We were dragged from bed at 4.30 of dawn, only to return gratefully beneath the blankets three-quarters of...