Part 3
To-day I went to a new post for some sick men, and who should be waiting for me but my friend Jean, of whom I wrote you before! His company has been transferred to this place. It was great to see his grinning face and to chatter Spanish with him. As the sick men had not finished lunch, Jean asked me to his mess, and we had a jolly meal with his pals. I have had to give up wine, as it seems to blacken our teeth horribly (all of us have noticed it, and we can trace it to no other source), and the Frenchmen can't get over the joke of seeing one drink water--extraordinary stuff to drink! All right to run under bridges or for washing purposes, but as a beverage--a quaint American conceit, handed down no doubt from the red aborigines--les peaux rouges indigènes--of our continent. Jean admitted that since December, 1914, he had not tasted water, and no one else could remember the last occasion when he had tried it.
As word had just come from the trenches that a wounded man was on the way in, I got my helmet and we strolled down the boyau to meet the stretcher-bearers. It was, to me, a new section of the front and very interesting. The country is broken and hilly, and the lines zigzag about from crest to valley in the most haphazard way, which really has been painfully worked out to prevent enfilading fire. There is scarcely any fighting here, as neither side has anything to gain by an advance, which would mean giving up their present artillery positions.
In one place the boyau ran down a steep slope, badly exposed, and Jean said, "Follow me on the run!" We sprinted for twenty yards, and next moment, _tat-tat-tat-tat_ came from the Boches, and little spurts of dust shot up behind us. They can never shoot quickly enough to hurt any one at this point, Jean said, but after all, "You can't blame a fellow for trying."
At the next turn we came on a train of the little grenade donkeys--so small that they make the tiniest Mexican burro seem a huge clumsy brute. They do not show above the shallowest trench, and each one carries two panniers full of grenades. These last are vicious little things of cast iron, checkered so as to burst into uniform square fragments, and about the size and shape of lemons. They make an astonishingly loud bang when they go off, and if close enough, as in a narrow trench, are pretty bad. At a little distance, of course, they are not very dangerous. In the trench warfare--raids, infantry attacks, and so forth--they seem to have supplanted rifles, just as the knife has supplanted the bayonet.
_May 11, 1917_
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.