“I’ll get the C.O.’s permission to turn you loose, Sergeant,” an instructor said. “You can fly rings round any bird in this group. I’ll get papers through for you too; no reason why you shouldn’t get a brevet. I understand that they’ve handed commissions to a few 31st men.”
The sergeant said that they had.
For a night, life couldn’t be improved upon.
Next morning, February 12, headquarters “washed out” all flying and called in the Avros. They say that the sergeant took a lieutenant of M.P’s apart at high noon of the same day in the public square at Issoudun. After that, for him, the world fused.
The sergeant’s outfit came back to the States. Air Service wanted to hold some of its best mechanics. At Mitchel Field they promised the sergeant and some of his gang that, were they to reenlist for another stretch, flying would be their dish for sure.
The sergeant took his discharge. Then he was tempted—and fell. He put up his hand for another hitch. And headquarters shipped him to Carlstrom Field, Florida.
New classes of cadets came to that field. Even one of the cooks from the sergeant’s overseas squadron was among them. They were the worst cadets the sergeant ever saw. But he worked planes for them; and in turn, headquarters never did put the sergeant on flying status. But the much abused one continued to mooch some unofficial airwork. So the months of his one year enlistment dragged by and he came toward the happy end, the end which was going to be so welcome because he did not give a good, bad or indifferent damn. And he told his C.O. as much when that worthy asked him whether he intended to sign up for a third cruise.
“You’re not talking to me, Lieutenant,” the sergeant said. “For three years I’ve lived on hope. When I took on this reenlistment, they promised me, on a stack of Bibles, that I’d fly. And have I?”
Any number of ex-overseas men could answer this.