XIII
Escadrille Spa-84,
Secteur Postal 181,
Par A. C. M.—Paris.
November 1, 1917.
Well, I’m here—in sight of the front at last. To date I haven’t been out there yet and won’t for a few days more as they take lots of care of new pilots and don’t feed them to the Boche right away. Probably day after tomorrow the lieutenant in command will take me out to show me around the lines and after that I’ll take my place in patrols with the others. The work is exclusively patrolling, establishing as it were a barrage against German machines and preventing as far as possible any incursions of the French lines. As the big attack is over, there is comparatively little activity. Sometimes one goes for a whole patrol without being fired on and without seeing an enemy machine anywhere near the lines. During the three days I’ve been here, the group has accounted for several Boches without any losses whatever. Young Bridgeman of the Lafayette Escadrille had a bullet through his fuselage just in front of his chest, but suffered no damage except from fright.
There are several escadrilles in the group, a groupe de combat—it is called—all have Spads which makes it very nice. The Lafayette, 124, is of our group and have adjoining barracks, which makes it very nice (I seem to repeat) for us lone Americans in French escadrilles. We drop in there far too often and the first few nights I used the bed of the famous Bill Thaw’s roommate, away on permission. Did I write you that one morning he brought in Whiskey to wake me up, and my eye no sooner opened than my head was buried under the covers. Whiskey is a pet—a very large lion cub, which has unfortunately outgrown its utility as a pet and was sent yesterday, with its running mate, Soda, to the Zoo at Paris, to be a regular lion.
They are a very odd crowd—the members of the Lafayette Escadrille, a few nice ones and a bunch of rather roughnecks. Their conversation is an eye opener for a new arrival. Mostly about Paris, permissions, and the rue de Braye, but occasionally about work and that is interesting. Nonchalant doesn’t express it. When Bridgy got shot up as mentioned above, they all kidded the life out of him and when he got the Croix de Guerre, they had him almost in tears—just because he’s the kiddable kind.
But in talking about the work—for instance, Jim Hall: “I piquéd on him with full motor and got so darn close to him that when I wanted to open fire I was so scared of running into him that I had to yank out of the way and so never fired a single shot.” Or Lufberry just mentions in passing that he got another Boche this morning, but those —— observer people won’t give him credit for it. He has fourteen official now and probably twice as many more never allowed him. Some days ago during the attack he had seven fights in one day, brought down six of them and got credit for one. Which must be discouraging.