The god of good fortune is still guarding your son, and touching his life with experience and romance. I am a guest at an old French château—but I must start at the beginning. For the past few days I have been too busy to write. After the altitude test, which I completed the following day, I took two petits voyages, which were pleasant and uneventful, save for the second when I arrived at the school after dark and made my landing by the light of a bonfire. It was a good landing, and gave me more confidence. The next man after me crashed to the ground so loudly that it was heard a quarter of a mile. The next morning I started upon my first triangle, which is a trip of over two hundred kilometers from Tours to Châteaudun, thence to Pontlevoy, and back again to Tours. My motor gave trouble before starting, but ran well for a time. When I had gone over three-fourths of the way the motor began to miss, and I landed in a field. Four out of the ten spark plugs had gone bad. They had given me only two spark plugs and no wrench. I borrowed a wrench from a passing motor car, and managed to clean the plugs and start up again, but as no one was there to hold the motor I could not let it warm up and it did not catch well, so I only rose twenty feet. A short turn and side landing was the only thing that kept me from landing in a stone quarry. I taxied back to the field and tried again. By that time the motor was warm and picked up pretty well. I ascended to seven hundred meters, and proceeded confidently on my way, and there is where I “done” made my mistake. For a little time I was lost. Then I found my landmarks and continued. The wind had become quite high, and it took some time for me to come back against it to my course. In fact, it took an hour. Then I continued forty-five degrees into the wind for half an hour. I should have arrived long ago and I was a little worried. The engine began to miss again. The country was spotted with woods and lakes and there were few good landing places. By now I knew I was totally lost and would have to descend, anyway, to find my way. I had no more come to this decision than the engine became hopeless, and I aimed for a field right near a little town under me; but the wind was so strong that I misjudged and overshot my landing and had to turn on my motor again. It caught but poorly, and barely raised me above a hedge of trees and telegraph wires. I had hardly speed to stay up and found myself over a wood, skimming the tree tops by no more than a meter. The slow speed made the controls very difficult, and the currents from the woods tossed me about like a cork on a choppy sea. The wind was blowing thirty miles per hour. For half a mile I staggered over and between the tree tops till I came to a little triangle of field. I made a vertical bank twenty feet from the ground and landed into the wind. It was a good landing, but the trouble was when I touched the ground I was going at thirty miles per hour, and there was a row of trees twenty feet in front of me. I hit between two trees, and when I crawled out, the wings, running gear, and braces and wires were piled around on the ground and trees, and I wasn’t even scratched. A crowd gathered to collect souvenirs, and I telegraphed and telephoned to the school to come and pick up the pieces. There was nothing to do but wait, so I went out to a bridge and talked French with a little boy.
Soon a motor car drove up, and out stepped a young French chap. He asked if I was the guy and I says “Yes,” and he “’lowed” that he was just back from Verdun for his permission and asked if I would come out and have supper and stay overnight, so we got in the car and went out to a beautiful château. I met the family and apologized for my clothes, which they said were fine for war times. Then the children came in and played until supper.
They were all charming—no formality or constraint. They all spoke English, more or less, and the dinner was jolly, with difficulties of understanding. The eldest son of the family had lost his life when a bombing plane burned over Verdun last year. That gave them and me a special bond of sympathy. The other son, of about twenty-two, is a sergeant in the First Dragoons. The eldest daughter, of about twenty-eight, mother of all the little children, sat beside me. Her husband is a captain in the First Dragoons. She was very entertaining and spoke English quite well. The other member was the little daughter, about fifteen. Later I learned that M. Duval is a viscount, of the old blood of France.
After dinner we went into the petit salon. They entertained me by showing me innumerable photographs. M. Duval is a camera enthusiast, and does all his own developing and printing. He takes these double pictures on plates, and you look at them through a stereoscope. They have traveled very extensively. They have hunted big game and small game in mountain, forest, and plain, and the pictures tell the story like an Elmendorf lecture. Meanwhile, they all contributed interesting remarks in broken English, and so we got better acquainted. Mme. Duval showed me her postcard collection of French châteaux. The Duvals owned more than twenty through Touraine and Normandy, they and their direct relatives by marriage. We all went up the old stairway together and bid each other good night in the upper hall. They asked what I wanted for my breakfast in bed, but I came down bright and early and joined them at a seven o’clock breakfast. We looked at some more pictures and then went rabbit hunting in the drizzling rain. They gave me an American repeating gun. M. Duval assigned us to our positions, not far from the château, and we waited. Three or four men set about to drive the rabbits. Off among the trees I saw the strangest looking rabbit. I pulled up, about the fire, when it struck me there was something wrong, so I looked again. There were two of the creatures gliding around from one rabbit hole to another. Their color was cream yellow. After a little guessing, I concluded they must be ferrets, so I let them live. Suddenly a man called “Oh-ee,” and a rabbit humped past right by my feet. I took a pot shot, but it had me scared and I almost hit my foot, it was so close. Two more went by and didn’t mind my shooting at them. They were so close it seemed a pity to shoot them, yet that didn’t quite explain my missing. Well, you know what an old hand I am at rabbit shooting. I was just a little out of practice, having fired a shotgun, once when I was twelve years old. The blessing was that no one was there to see. Then I got one at a good distance, and found that it was much easier to hit them at a hundred feet than twenty-five. My average began to go up, and the first fifteen shots I had three rabbits. Then we changed positions, and I found that the son had eleven. I don’t think he had fired more than ten shots. At thirty shots I had twelve rabbits, and I felt a little more respectable. It was a pipe after you got used to it. Then we took a walk about the place and went in to lunch. All the food they had was from their own place: meat, wild and tame; fish from the river near by; and chestnuts, mashed like potatoes and baked. These latter are called les marrons. There were also sweet cakes, salads, mixed and dressed by M. Duval, and—wonder of wonders—American apple pie! I ate three pieces, and they had it for every meal while I was there. I understand why menus are written in French and old novels rave on French cuisines. Never did I eat such delicious food. Every dish is served separately as a work of art. The service was fine old china, with cracks all through it. The knives, forks, and spoons were gold plated, and the daughter would get up from the table and serve the bread if the maid didn’t happen to be in the room. Everyone eats the food as he gets it hot, and one person may be a course behind the others without causing inconvenience.
My word, how I enjoyed every minute of it! It would have been a lark any time, but it was a humming, white-feathered buzzard of a time to one who has been eating in a mess for a month.
Well, that afternoon we hunted some more, and I drove the Renault down to see if the plane was still where it had fallen. That evening the mechanics came with a truck to fetch it, but it was too late, and they had to stay at the château all night. Then their machine broke, and they had to telephone for another. Well, I did not get away until after lunch, so we hunted some more and played tennis. They all came down to the gate to see me off, and truly they made me feel that they were as sorry to see me go as I was to go—and that was “some sorry.”
I’ve tried to finish this letter and send it off, but like all the great things man attempts, it is never finished.
When I left the Château du Bois, they gave me their address in Paris, where they will go in a fortnight; their address at Pau, where they go the last of December, and where I shall probably go at the same time; and the address of their cousins who have a villa a short way from Bordeaux (the place where I shall probably be perfected on the Nieuport). That opens up considerable opportunity to make some friends that are really worth while.
Gee! when things happen here they happen in bunches. I have enough more to tell to make another letter longer than this. Since I started this letter I have finished the school at Tours, gotten my brevet, and now I am down at Blois seeing a couple of the best châteaux.