Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy

by Elmer Haslett

I was born in a small town, and I’m a small town guy. A small town always gets the full advantage of propaganda, and as people in small towns do not have a great variety of subjects to talk about when they once get a good one it has a long season. The folks around the towns where I had lived in the West and Middle West had been led to believe that while the ideal environment for the ground work of stability of character was to be found in the broad, open atmosphere of the country west of the Mississippi, yet for further polish and refinement it was necessary to seek the Eastern States, or better, to sojourn a while in England or France. There was some discussion as to which was the better of these two places. However, for the final graduation in culture, it was an entirely different story—there were no two sides to the argument at all that the post graduate course in refinement could be obtained but at one place in the whole wide world. There was no alternative. It was thoroughly agreed that if one aspired to become a finished product with the proper veneer, that person must beat it to Germany and become Kultured. Perhaps this feeling was the result of well-directed German propaganda; at any rate, it was a firmly established belief where I lived, at least.

This “Kultur” bunk had never interested me, for I always had felt that the United States was good enough. A man who had good tips on the horse races was a hundred times more interesting to me than a much vaunted German Count who came from the wonderful country of Wagner, Goethe and Schiller. At that, though, I had studied German a couple of years in preparatory school, but I want to say here and now that the only reason for my doing it was because the only other choice was Latin, which was entirely beyond the possibilities of my mind. So when I finished the laborious German course at school I promptly proceeded to forget it.

Now fortune had thrust upon me the opportunity for which many Americans before the war had vainly wished—namely, a sojourn in Germany and a course in Kultur, for, indeed, was I not being entertained as a guest of the German Government—or was it the jest of the German Government?

Thus in spite of the fact that I never aspired to become Kultured, it was certain that I was going to get it whether I wished it or not. It was like the compulsory inoculations and vaccinations in the army—there was no choice in the matter for the poor guy who’s getting it.

Perhaps the condition of my appetite had something to do with the shaping of my observations as to the actual working of German Kultur, for I was hungry when I was made prisoner and that empty feeling never left me from the time I was shot down until several weeks after I was released.

All during the first day of our imprisonment we had nothing to eat, except the dainty “tea of bribery” at the session of the court of inquiry in the afternoon, and the only effect of that tea was to whet our already cutting appetites. So, having been returned from the session of court, we sat down on a rude bench in our dingy abode at the Montmedy prison camp to brood over our misfortune and to settle down for that course in Kultur. We were thoroughly blue, for the only joys in life during that day had been the facts that we had successfully lied to the German Intelligence Officer and so far we had not divulged any military information.

And here is a point that I noticed all through Germany from the officers on down—with rare exceptions. A German will promise you anything in order to appear affable and pleasant. It is commonly done, and they get off with it for a certain time. From these continued observations of unfulfilled promises I formed a definition of “Kultur.” In my mind it is that superficial and subtle form of hypocrisy practised by the German race and commonly accepted by them as justifiable and necessary in their state of affairs, which permits of the affording of temporary satisfaction in meeting the emergency in hand by giving indiscriminate promises—which promises are never fulfilled nor intended to be fulfilled at the time of making; and which further permits and justifies the explanation of nonfulfillment of promises by the giving of more and similar empty and insincere promises.

Our room was rather chilly, for in our absence the fire had gone out. With the wood we had coerced from the sergeant the orderly finally came in and built us a little fire. We used French economy, for we were quite sure that it was going to be cold before the night was over, with the limited covering they had given us.

I was getting as hungry as the snake which sleeps all winter, or summer, whichever it is. So I put it up to the orderly, who politely told us he would bring our food at once. I am sure we waited a full hour and a half for that food and I was experiencing all sorts of sensations as to whether slow starvation was about to begin. I remembered reading that starving people were sometimes sustained by chewing shoe leather, so I was wondering how long my poor shoes would last at a ration of a square inch of leather to chew each day. This hunger was getting my goat. I had heard of walking off intoxication and seasickness so I decided to try walking off hunger.

I opened the door and walked into the surrounding boneyard, which was hemmed in by several high fences of barbed wire. While most prison camps are well lighted at night in order that there will be little possibility of any one escaping without being seen by one of the many guards, this was different, in that it seemed totally dark. Perhaps the reason for this was its proximity to the lines, or it might have been that it was too early for lights. I was just milling around aimlessly when suddenly from somewhere without the darkness came a voice in German and so gruffly that it almost took me off my feet. I realized that I was being addressed individually, and while the words meant nothing to me, the tone of voice in which they were spoken convinced me that it could be nothing else than the familiar old “Halt! Who goes there?” Not being well versed in the number of times a German sentry calls his challenge before he fires, I took a chance on one of the few words I knew and quickly answered “Freund,” for, as I figured it, “Friend” is a harmless word any way you take it. The old squarehead only answered “Ja” and quite unconcernedly walked on.