An air pilot and the field of broken wings
THE LUCKY LITTLE STIFF
By H. P. S. Greene
France. Mud. A khaki-clad column of fours slogging along to the rhythm of their own muttered but heart-felt blasphemy—a common enough sight in the winter of 1917-1918.
But in one particular this procession of sufferers was unique. On the shoulders of each performer shone bright silver bars, and their more or less manly chests were spanned by Sam Browne belts. A casual observer would have taken them for officers. But no, on each breast was a pair of silver wings, and their uniforms were of well-fitting but variously designed whipcord. The pot-bellied little person in the indecently short yellow serge blouse who led them was an officer; his followers were flying lieutenants.
They were a part of the personnel-in-training of the great American aviation field of Issy-la-Boue, the advance guard of the ten thousand American bombing planes which publicity agents said were going to blast the Huns out of Berlin.
The column passed between two long barracks, one of which, filled to capacity with double-decker bunks, yawned thru an unfinished open end.
“Squads right!” shrilled the pot-bellied one with the captain’s bars in a startling tremolo. “Heh!”
The men behind squads-righted in a dispirited fashion and came to a halt in straggling lines. The squawky voice continued: