With the French Flying Corps

by Carroll Dana Winslow

As we turned into the main road to Verdun the traffic was so heavy that we had to move at a snail's pace. Ahead of us rumbled a steady stream of "camions" with ammunition and supplies. Alongside of the road were the columns of troops going to the trenches. Their heavy coats were already soaked, and the probability was that they would remain so for a week, but nothing daunted them. They just plodded along gayly, singing their marching songs, utterly unmindful of the rain-drops that were hourly weighting down their equipment more and more.

From the opposite direction came the empty supply-trains. Sandwiched in with these were ambulances and motor-buses, bearing the men returning from their "stage" in the trenches. The poor fellows looked hardly human, for they were brown with mud from head to foot. Their faces were caked with dirt, and a week's growth of beard gave them a still more uninviting appearance. They seemed to gaze at us with a far-away, half-conscious expression, so utterly stupefied were they by the terrible bombardment to which they had been subjected.

The farther we went the more numerous were the evidences of war. The roar of the cannonade became louder. On both sides of the roads the villages were in ruins. Not a farmhouse was inhabited, and the fields were dotted everywhere with soldiers' graves; on each cross hung the "képi" of the dead hero. In some of the military cemeteries there were graves without little wooden crosses—only a small fence marked them off from the rest. These, I was told, were the graves of the Mohammedan African troops, whose comrades claimed for them a plot apart from the "unsacred ground" used by their Christian allies.

It was almost dark by the time we reached our new camping-site. The fields were soaked with the heavy rain, and we splashed about in the mud for hours before the task of pitching camp was completed. By nine o'clock, however, all was ready and we sat down to a good, warm supper. Then we turned in. It was so cold and chilly that I went to bed in my fur-lined clothes. But tired as I was I could not get to sleep. The roar of the artillery was frightful. On every side of us it crashed and thundered, unceasingly, uninterruptedly. An attack was in process at the Mort-Homme, and every little while there would be a "tir de barrage," or curtain fire as we call it. The small 75's would sound like the rat-tat of a snare-drum accompanying the louder beats of the deep-bass drums.

I got out of bed and gazed toward the battle-field. The earth was brilliantly illuminated by the rockets and flares that were being sent up everywhere. The sky seemed full of fire-flies—in reality exploding shells. On all sides the guns flashed angrily. Search-lights played about in every direction. It was a most superb spectacle, but it was terrible. It was hell.

MY FIRST FLIGHT OVER THE LINES

Unfavorable weather conditions kept us inactive for several days, but as soon as the skies cleared our escadrille immediately went to work again. For some reason my own machine was delayed "en route," and did not arrive for a week. This was time I could ill afford to lose, so the "chef pilote" took me as a passenger in his biplane to familiarize me with the ground in our sector.

We started late one afternoon. The atmosphere was extraordinarily clear. Every detail in the landscape stood out boldly, and as we rose the dozens of camps in the immediate vicinity spread out below us like models set in a painted scenery. The valleys, the tents, the guns, the troops, all were visible to the naked eye. On all sides were aviation-camps, which were easily distinguished from the others—there must have been at least twenty of them within a radius of five miles.

As soon as we reached a height of three thousand feet my pilot headed the machine toward the lines. At our feet lay the terrain of the "Verdun sector." From the forest of the Argonne on our left to the plains of the Woëvre on our right stretched one of the bloodiest battle-fields of history. At regular intervals along the front the French captive balloons—there were eighteen in sight at this moment—swung lazily in the breeze. They looked for all the world like the "saucisses" they are named after. Day and night they are kept aloft, maintaining ceaseless vigil over the movements of the enemy.

Passing the balloons, we could see the various important points of the defense at closer range. The city of Verdun nestled close to the banks of the Meuse, which wound like a silver band through that now desolate land. Far off to the right were the forts of Vaux and Douaumont. A trifle nearer was Fleury. To the left, in the distance, I could make out the "Mort-Homme" and Hill 304, while directly before us lay Cumières and Chattancourt. The entire Verdun sector was spread out like a relief-map.