An hour before sundown all is ready; so the American climbs into his seat for a spin, fully aware that many appraising eyes will watch his maiden performance. Off she goes with a roar, skimming low, over the field, until her full speed is attained, when the pilot pulls her up in a beautiful "zoom," banking at the same time to make her climb in a spiral. Up and up and up, her motor snarling almost musically—and suddenly she stops, quivers, and plunges downward, spinning. A hundred yards off the ground she straightens out magically, banks stiffly to the left, skims the hangars, and disappears. The mechanicians watching, hands on hips, below, nod to one another in the French way. "Il marche pas mal, celui-là," they say—high praise from them.
Wilkins, meanwhile, has flown down the river, to where a target is anchored in a broad shallow. Over it he tilts up and dives until the cross hairs in his telescopic sight center on the mark. "Tut-tut-tut," says the Vickers, and white dashes of foam spring out close to the canvas. He nods to himself as he turns back toward the aerodrome.
At dinner there is much talk, as the weather has been good. A—— and L—— had a stiff fight with a two-place Hun, who escaped miraculously, leaving their machines riddled with holes. M—— had a landing cable cut by a bullet; J——had a panne, and was forced to land uncomfortably close to the lines. At eight o'clock an orderly comes in with the next day's schedule: "Wilkins: protection patrol at 8 A.M."
The French have not the English objection to "talking shop," and over the coffee the conversation turns to the difficulties of bringing down Huns and getting them officially counted—"homologue" the French call it. The great airmen, of course,—men like Bishop, Ball, Nungesser, and Guynemer,—get their thirty, forty, or fifty Boches; but nevertheless it is a very considerable feat to get even one, and growing harder every day. Nearly all the German hack-work—photography, reglage of artillery, observation, and so forth—is now done by their new two-seaters, very fast and handy machines and formidable to attack, as they carry four machine-guns and can shoot in almost any direction. Most of the fighting must be done in their lines; and far above, their squadrons of Albatross single-seaters watch ceaselessly for a chance to pounce unseen.
Add to this the fact that, to get an official count, the falling Hun must be checked by two independent observers, such as observation-balloon men, and you can see that it is no easy trick.
Just before bedtime, the leader of the morning's patrol explains the matter to Wilkins. The rendezvous is over a near-by village at three thousand feet. Wilkins is to be last in line on the right wing of the V, a hundred yards behind the machine ahead of him. Signals are: a wriggle of the leader's tail means, "Open throttles, we're off"; a sideways waving of his wings means, "I'm going to attack; stand by"; or, "Easy, I see a Boche."
After a not entirely dreamless sleep and a cup of coffee, our hero is at the hangars at 7.30, helping his mechanic give the "taxi" a final looking over. At 8 he takes the air and circles over the meeting-place till the V is formed. Just as he falls into his allotted station the leader, who has been flying in great circles, throttled down, wriggles his tail, opens the throttle wide, and heads for the lines, climbing at a hundred miles an hour.
Wilkins is so busy keeping his position that he has scarcely time to feel a thrill or to look about him. Suddenly, from below comes a vicious growling thud, another, and another: Hrrrump, hrrrump, hrrrump. He strains his head over the side of the fuselage. There below him, and horribly close, he thinks, dense black balls are springing out—little spurts of crimson at their hearts. The patrol leader begins to weave about to avoid the "Archies," banking almost vertically this way and that in hairpin turns, and poor Wilkins, at the tail end, is working frantically to keep his place. He has never seen such turns, and makes the common mistake of not pulling back hard enough when past forty-five degrees. The result is that he loses height in a side-slip each time, and gets farther and farther behind his man.
Meanwhile, far up in the blue, their shark-like bodies and broad short wings glimmering faintly in the upper sunlight, a patrol of Albatross monoplaces is watching. Thousands of feet below, close to the trenches, they see the clumsy photographic biplaces puffing back and forth about their business. Above these, they see the V of Spads turning and twisting as they strive to stay above the photographers they are protecting. But wait, what is wrong with the Spad on the right end of the V—a beginner surely, for at this rate he will soon lose his patrol? As if a silent signal had been given, five Albatrosses detach themselves from the flock, and reducing their motors still more, point their sharp noses downward, and begin to drift insensibly nearer.