Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy

by Elmer Haslett

Several days previous to the signing of the Armistice, we heard that the people of Bavaria had revolted, and that the will of the “Soldiers and Workmen” was paramount. Although locked in the confines of a prison camp, the proverbial little bird told us that something was in the air—indeed, one felt it in the atmosphere—for, if a new republic was formed, they were certainly not the enemies of the United States, so we would indeed soon be “coming out.”

The regulation cap of the German officer and soldier is adorned by two buttons in the front center—the top and larger button having the colors of the Imperial German Government in the form of a miniature cocarde, while the lower and smaller button is made up of the colors of the German State from which the officer or soldier hails. Thus, all the soldiers at our camp had the large German button and the smaller one of green and white, the colors of the State of Bavaria.

One day, around the first of November, we noticed that all the officers and soldiers of the camp, including the hardboiled Prussian Captain, had taken off the prominent German button. Then there was a definite certainty that the revolution was on. We did not know how loyal to the new Government the soldiers were going to be, and we were rather concerned as to what the attitude of the new Bavarian Republic would be toward us, for we had heard nothing about our release. All sorts of rumors began floating around that camp—some to the effect that the soldiers and workmen were coming up to mob us for being Americans, others, more popular, that they were coming up to release us, others that we were going to die of slow starvation on account of the shortage of food, and still others that we were going to be sent to Switzerland for protection.

With all these things before us, a vigilance committee was formed, and we all got together and had a meeting. “Jimmy” Hall, being the senior officer present, automatically became chairman. So, the big question was “For whom would we declare?”—the old German régime or the new Bavarian revolutionary party. Naturally, on such a momentous subject, we had quite a number of bursts of oratory, and a lot of arguments were laid down on both sides of the question, but, at the same time, neither of us knew anything about either of them. We viewed it from an economical and military phase, but most of all, for the present at least, we looked at it from the standpoint of “things to eat.”

But judged by the solemnity and seriousness of the conference, the destiny of the world was seemingly at stake, so we asked one bird, who was sort of a jay, what he thought about it. “Mr. Chairman,” he said seriously, “I make a resolution that we declare that we are for the party that gets us out of Germany the fastest, and we don’t give a damn which one it is.” At that, the meeting almost ended in a riot, though in my mind the jay had absolutely the correct solution. Finally, it was decided that we would leave our fate to the council of three—the three most influential prisoners in camp, the controllers of the food supply, namely, the Red Cross Committee.

Shortly, conditions began to get real tense around there, and we actually didn’t know what was going to happen for, about our camp, the prison authorities had hoisted the red flag of Socialism. The few days during which that flag stayed there were the only days of my life that I have not been a Republican—I was a Socialist like all the rest of our boys, from force of circumstances.

Amid all this excitement, we were summoned together, and the official representative of the new revolutionary party came up to address us. Amid the quietness of death, the great man announced to us that he was now the great representative of the Great Revolutionary Party, and that the Great People of the Greater State of Bavaria had had a greatest revolution—not a bloody revolution like the Russians, but a quiet, orderly revolution, for realizing that the old government had failed to take care of the needs of the common people, the soldiers and the workmen of Bavaria had gotten together and had overthrown the monarchy. The outcome had been the ideal democratic form of government—a Republic—and the revolution had been entirely successful, for the soldiers and workmen were in complete authority and command and the old régime had been entirely displaced. “Indeed,” he said, “everybody realized the inevitable and made no attempt to stop the onward movement, and such a thing as mob violence or shooting has been unheard of.”

He had just started on his next sentence when, down in the town, a machine gun sputtered. We had been hearing pot shots occasionally for some time. So we all began to laugh. It was a rather embarrassing situation, and the old boy immediately modified his statement to the effect that in rare instances there had been a little shooting. Then he went on and blabbered about fifteen minutes more as to the aims of the new Government, what it had in mind, how it wished especially to be the friend of America and the good things it was going to do for the prisoners, and, as a Republic, the prisoners would, of course, be released. Here was the one thing that interested us, so, at this with one voice the prisoner colony responded, as if to a yell leader, “When!” The great man was almost taken off his feet by the anxious débutantes anticipating the “coming out.”

“Of course,” he went on graciously, “those are details that will have to be arranged later.” Our release may have been simply regarded as a detail to him, but we held it much more important. In fact, the situation looked so serious to us that only the continual talk of the general armistice kept the bunch from attempting a wholesale “coming out.”

Finally, the armistice came, and that day was the greatest of my whole life—not so much for the reason that I would soon be released, but because I was in a position to observe the Germans in absolute misery. I have heard a lot of people say that their arrogance was not affected by the armistice, but that is all bunk. They were humiliated to the extreme—they whined around like a pen of stuck pigs—they thought the terms of the armistice were terrible, inhumane, and impossible. As usual, they blamed it all on England. I could have stayed there for months just enjoying their misery in crying over the terrible terms laid down.