While the Huns were in formation and at twelve hundred feet, I leveled the guns and fired a burst of thirty rounds in order to scatter them for I have found that the Boche is not half so bold when he knows he is seen. It had the effect I wanted; they scattered and began firing at me from about one thousand feet, hoping to get us by a chance shot, or better, of frightening us into landing. They kept this position for several minutes. I did not fire another shot; I could ill afford to waste a single cartridge and ever hope to make the lines. Seeing that we intended to fight to a finish they separated; one plane came from the left, the other three from the right, and attempted to close in all at the same time. At nine hundred feet they again began to fire, and steadily close in. Still I did not pull the triggers. At my reticence they became bolder and when the right three got to about six hundred feet from me I carefully leveled my right gun and turned loose a well-directed burst of about fifty rounds. To me the real fight had now begun for soon they would be at close range where real fatalities occur. The lad at my left required my attention so I swung the tourelle and carefully laying the bead, I pulled the trigger. It did not fire. Thinking perhaps the locking mechanism had been caught by the sudden swinging of the guns, I reached down to pull it into place. The lock was O.K. It was nothing else than a plain jam. I did not feel so bad for I still had my other gun untried and there was sufficient ammunition yet for a good fight. So, as the left plane closed in I aimed with unerring accuracy; and I was sure I had him unless something unusual happened. Something unusual did happen. The left gun fired about seven shots and stopped. It was no time for child’s play—team work was the one thing necessary to save the situation. Davis realized it, for the moment the guns stopped firing he knew something was all wrong, and he took up the fight by a series of remarkable acrobatics, in a vain effort to get his own guns into play.
After many strenuous efforts, by brute force I succeeded in clearing the jam. At least, I thought I did, although things happened so fast from then on that the gun never had a chance. Amidst the violent jerking of the plane I frantically attempted to aim, then there was no more jerking—the plane seemed to be falling on its side toward earth and glancing forward I saw flames. There was only one solution—they had not only gotten Davis and we were rapidly falling to our death, but they had also set us afire. There were but the fractions of a second, and then the crash, for I was powerless—I did not know how to fly and, furthermore, the plane was not fitted with a dual control. A multiplicity of active and concrete thoughts took form in my brain in that short space of time from the beginning of the descent to the crash. I closed my eyes—the horror of it was too much for me. It was bad enough to face certain death, but the thought of burning to death closed the picture.
The plane struck and the next thing I knew we had stopped; at least, I thought I knew it. To be perfectly frank I was so scared I did not know whether I was dead or alive. But, looking out, I saw Davis already on the ground; Davis, who I was sure had been killed. This brought me to my real senses and in a second I was out of the plane and running top-speed toward the crest of a hill which was directly in front of us. Fifty feet to my left and running in the same direction was Davis. and swooping down from the skies, at an altitude of from thirty to fifty feet, the four Fokkers continued to fire upon us. This brought me still closer to the realization that we were still very much alive, though how long we would be I did not know. I would run along about five yards and then fall on my stomach, then jump up and scramble on for another five yards and slide, the idea being that the planes, sweeping down, could very well judge our speed while running steadily, but when we stopped suddenly they could not quickly dive their planes to shoot straight down upon us, for in so doing they would crash headlong on the ground.
The hill was not steep, but at the same time it was not easy running. I think I beat Davis to the top, even at that. As I got there I will never forget the sight that met my eyes. Approaching us from the other side was the proverbial mob, coming out to get us. There were officers on horseback, officers on foot, soldiers, men, women and children with every means of conveyance, from artillery trucks on down to the antique oxen. There must have been five hundred of them. Of course, the fight had easily been followed from the ground and I suppose they were all anxious to come out to see what was left of us. Believe me, I had real stage fright when I saw that crowd, so, I turned around and as I started to run back down the hill to my surprise I saw that the airplane had not burned.
There is one hard and fast rule that all flyers are taught to follow and that is when shot down in enemy territory, their duty is to burn the plane at all costs, for otherwise the enemy not only gets the airplane itself, but also the latest designs, inventions and improvements which are a hundred times more valuable.
“Davis,” I yelled at the top of my voice, as I started running toward the plane. Instantaneously he saw and followed. It was a bad trip back—the Fokkers, surmising our mission, came down to where they practically skimmed the ground, absolutely intent upon taking our lives.
When we finally reached the plane I was puffing like a steam engine, for my lungs were raw from exhaustion as I still had on this heavy flying suit which covered my entire body. The Fokkers were able to very well judge their shots for they made it extremely unpleasant.
“A match! A match! A match!” I kept calling, running around and not knowing what to do. Davis hauled forth a box with about eight in it. We had lost our heads absolutely for we were too excited to remember that we had such a thing as gasoline on board. Jumping around like a pair of ducks on a hot stove, we blindly tried to light the fabric on the wings which through the expenditure of a million dollars on experimentation had been made practically fireproof on the surface by the application of noninflammable varnish. We were too dense to take any cognizance of the fact that they continually failed to burn, so, we went ahead making repeated attempts to light the wings. In a minute the last match was gone. There was no hope. I felt like breaking down and crying like a baby. The right side under the motor was still smoldering from the flames in the air, which had been caused by an incendiary bullet striking the carburetor, but had been extinguished by the violent side-slipping of the plane, just as a match is smothered out by being swept through the air. Then Davis had a brilliant idea.
“Hell,” he said, “We’ve got gasoline.” And he jumped up into the pilot’s pit and broke the main gasoline lead and in a second gasoline was spluttering all over the plane like a bubbling fountain.
“Look for another match!” I cried to Davis, and although he knew he had no more, he began to throw things out of his pockets right and left. Among these things there fell a smudge cigarette lighter. These instruments were devised by the French on account of their extreme shortage of matches. The gadget consists of a tiny steel wheel, which strikes a piece of flint, which in turn ignites the smudge. The only trouble with these things is that they do not always work. However, when this fell before me, it was Heaven itself, for I made a high dive and grasping it, began to strike the wheel. It would not ignite. Running back and forth, trying to get the smudge to burn, I began to strike it, pray over it, and do everything else. My kingdom, such as it was, for a light.