The New Arm.
"It strikes me that these fool commanders don't know what to do with us. We aviators seem to be too new to come into all their stunts. Here we've been flying over eight years, and we're still novel enough to be repeatedly fired on by our own side. Why the beggars in our own battery, when they see an aeroplane overhead in their excitement let fly. They don't bother to notice that the plane of our Bleriot hasn't claw ends like the enemy's Taube. Neither do they note we carry our own distinguishing mark. We're the circus show. We're the 'comic relief' sure."
He was about to spit his disgust on an unoffending fly, but quickly changed his mind.
He was a Yank from the U.S.A. Military School at San Diego, and "hiked over the pond as there was nothing doing."
In appearance he was tall and wiry with a thin face and hooked nose that suggested the bird-man. His name on the roll was Walter Edmund Byrne, but his bony appearance won him his nickname—Nap.
We knew nicknames would shock those who stand for the rigid rule of military discipline, but aviators clear the usual wall of demarcation between officers and subordinates. A nod supplants the "heels together and touch your cap."
The Aviation Sections seemed to be communistic concerns, in the air rank being only recognised by achievement. In fact, the new arm was too new to be brought under the iron rule of military etiquette or into most Operation Orders. I told Nap as much.
"Yes," he said, "I guess we're too new. Even when cannon first came into war it was novel enough to fire as often from the wrong end and teach things 'to the man behind the gun'; but I've a bit of dope here that ought to be pasted into every book of your field service regulations, and every officer ought to repeat it before breakfast three times a week. It's the flyers' creed."
Fumbling amongst some newspaper scraps in his note book, he produced this bit of verse.
The snake with poisoned fang defends
(And does it really very well).
The cuttle fish an inkcloud sends;
The tortoise has its fort of shell;
The tiger has its teeth and claws;
The rhino has its horns and hide;
The shark has rows of saw-set jaws;
Man—stands alone, the whole world wide
Unarmed and naked! But 'tis plain
For him to fight—God gave a brain!
Far back in this world's early mists
When man began to use his head;
He stopped from fighting with his fists
And gripped a wooden club instead.
But when the rival tribe was slain,
The first tribe then to stand alone
Had once again to work its brain
And made an axe—an axe of stone!
The stone-axe tribe would hold first place;
And ruled the rest where'er it went.
Because then—as to-day—the race
Was first that had best armament.
But human brain expanding more
(Its limits none can circumscribe);
The stone-axe crowd went down before
The more developed bronze-axe tribe.
Then shields came in to quickly show
Their party victors in the strife:
By warding off the vicious blow
And giving warriors longer life.
The tribe's wise men would urge at length,
No doubt as now, for tax on tax,
To keep the "Two tribe" fighting strength
With "super-dreadnought" shield and axe!
The bow and arrow came and won
For Death came winged from far away.
Then came the cannon and the gun;
And brought us where we are to-day.
And now we see the shield of yore
An arsenal of armour plate;
With crew a thousand men or more;
And guns a hundred tons in weight.
Beneath our seas dart submarines,
Around the world and back again.
But every marvel only means
Some greater triumph of the brain.
For while the thund'ring hammers ring;
And super-dreadnoughts swarm the sea;
There flits above, a birdlike thing,
That claims an aerial sovereignty!
A thing of canvas, stick and wheel
"The two-man fighting aeroplane."
It screams above those hulks of steel:
"Oh! human brain begin again."