High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

by James Norman Hall

one for each stage of my journey, including the forced landing when I had lost my way. But having started the mechanism going upon leaving A——, I had then forgotten all about it, so that it had gone on running while my machine was on the ground as well as during the time it was in the air. The result was a sketch of a magnificent mountain range which might have been drawn by the futurist son, aged five, of a futurist artist. Silently I handed over the instrument. The monitor looked at it, and then at me without comment. But there is an international language of facial expression, and his said, unmistakably, “You poor, simple prune! You choice sample of mouldy American cheese!”

J. B. didn't return until the following afternoon. After leaving me over C——, he had blown out two spark-plugs. For a while he limped along on six cylinders, and then landed in a field three kilometres from the nearest town. His French, which is worse, if that is possible, than mine, aroused the suspicions of a patriot farmer, who collared him as a possible German spy. Under a bodyguard of two peasants, armed with hoes, he was marched to a neighboring château. And then, I should have thought, he would have had another historical illusion,—this time with a French Revolutionary setting. He says not, however. All his faculties were concentrated in enjoying this unusual adventure; and he was wondering what the outcome of it would be. At the château he met a fine old gentleman who spoke English with that nicety of utterance which only a cultivated Frenchman can achieve. He had no difficulty in clearing himself. Then he had dinner in a hall hung with armor and hunting trophies, was shown to a chamber half as large as the lounge at the Harvard Club, and slept in a bed which he got into by means of a ladder of carved oak. This is a mere outline. Out of regard for J. B.'s opinions about the sanctities of his own personal adventures, I refrain from giving further details.

These were the usual experiences which every American pilot has had while on his brevet flights. As I write I think of scores of others, for they were of almost daily occurrence.

Jackson landed—unintentionally, of course—in a town square and was banqueted by the Mayor, although he had nearly run him down a few hours earlier, and had ruined forever his reputation as a man of dignified bearing. But the Mayor was not alone in his forced display of unseemly haste. Many other townspeople, long past the nimbleness of youth, rushed for shelter; and pride goeth before a collision with a wayward aeroplane. Jackson said the sky rained hats, market baskets, and wooden shoes for five minutes after his Blériot had come to rest on the steps of the bureau de poste. And no one was hurt.

Murphy's defective motor provided him with the names and addresses of every possible and impossible marraine in the town of Y——, near which he was compelled to land. While waiting for the arrival of his mechanician with a new supply of spark-plugs, he left his monoplane in a field close by. A path to the place was worn by the feet of the young women of the town, whose dearest wish appeared to be to have an aviator as a filleul. They covered the wings of his avion with messages in pencil. The least pointed of these hints were, “Écrivez le plus tôt possible”; and, “Je voudrais bien un filleul américain, très gentil, comme vous.”

Matthews' biplane crashed through the roof of a camp bakery. If he had practiced this unusual atterrissage a thousand times he could not have done it so neatly as at the first attempt. He followed the motor through to the kitchen and finally hung suspended a few feet from the ceiling. The army bread-bakers stared up at him with faces as white as fear and flour could make them. The commandant of the camp rushed in. He asked, “What have you done with the corpse?” The bread-bakers pointed to Matthews, who apologized for his bad choice of landing-ground. He was hardly scratched.

Mac lost his way in the clouds and landed near a small village for gasoline and information. The information he had easily, but gasoline was scarce. After laborious search through several neighboring villages he found a supply and had it carried to the field where his machine was waiting. Some farmer lads agreed to hold on to the tail while Mac started the engine. At the first roar of the rotary motor they all let loose. The Blériot pushed Mac contemptuously aside, lifted its tail and rushed away. He followed it over a level tract of country miles in extent, and found it at last in a ditch, nose down, tail in air, like a duck hunting bugs in the mud. This story loses nine tenths of its interest for want of Mac's pungent method of telling it.

One of the bona-fide godchildren of Chance was Millard. The circumstances leading to his engagement in the French service as a member of the Franco-American Corps proves this. Millard was a real human being,—he had no grammar, no polish, no razor, safety or otherwise, but likewise no pretense, no “swank.” He was persona non grata to a few, but the great majority liked him very much, although they wondered how in the name of all that is curious he had ever decided to join the French air service. Once he told us his history at great length. He had been a scout in the Philippine service of the American army. He had been a roustabout on cattle boats. He had boiled his coffee down by the stockyards in every sizable town on every transcontinental railroad in America. In the spring of 1916 he had employment with a roofing company which had contracted for a job in Richmond, Virginia, I think it was. But Richmond went “dry” in the State elections; the roofing job fell through, owing, so Millard insisted, to the natural and inevitable depression which follows a dry election. Having lost his prospective employment as a roofer, what more natural than that he should turn to this other high calling?

He was game. He tried hard and at last reached his brevet tests. Three times he started off on triangles. No one expected to see him return, but he surprised them every time. He could never find the towns where he was supposed to land, so he would keep on going till his gas gave out. Then his machine would come down of itself, and Millard would crawl out from under the wreckage and come back by train.