Two patrols were to leave the field at the same time, one to cover the sector at an altitude of from two thousand to three thousand metres, the other, thirty-five hundred to five thousand metres. J. B. and I were on high patrol. Owing to our inexperience, it was to be a purely defensive one between our observation balloons and the lines. We had still many questions to ask, but having been so persistently inquisitive for three days running, we thought it best to wait for Talbott, who was leading our patrol, to volunteer his instructions.
He went to the door to look at the weather. There were clouds at about three thousand metres, but the stars were shining through gaps in them. On the horizon, in the direction of the lines, there was a broad belt of blue sky. The wind was blowing into Germany. He came back yawning. “We'll go up—ho, hum!”—tremendous yawn—“through a hole before we reach the river. It's going to be clear presently, so the higher we go the better.”
The others yawned sympathetically.
“I don't feel very pugnastic this morning.”
“It's a crime to send men out at this time of day—night, rather.”
More yawns of assent, of protest. J. B. and I were the only ones fully awake. We had finished our chocolate and were watching the clock uneasily, afraid that we should be late getting started. Ten minutes before patrol time we went out to the field. The canvas hangars billowed and flapped, and the wooden supports creaked with the quiet sound made by ships at sea. And there was almost the peace of the sea there, intensified, if anything, by the distant rumble of heavy cannonading.
Our Spad biplanes were drawn up in two long rows, outside the hangars. They were in exact alignment, wing to wing. Some of them were clean and new, others discolored with smoke and oil; among these latter were the ones which J. B. and I were to fly. Being new pilots we were given used machines to begin with, and ours had already seen much service. Fuselage and wings had many patches over the scars of old battles, but new motors had been installed, the bodies overhauled, and they were ready for further adventures.
It mattered little to us that they were old. They were to carry us out to our first air battles; they were the first avions which we could call our own, and we loved them in an almost personal way. Each machine had an Indian head, the symbol of the Lafayette Corps, painted on the sides of the fuselage. In addition, it bore the personal mark of its pilot,—a triangle, a diamond, a straight band, or an initial,—painted large so that it could be easily seen and recognized in the air.
The mechanicians were getting the motors en route, arming the machine guns, and giving a final polish to the glass of the wind-shields. In a moment every machine was turning over ralenti, with the purring sound of powerful engines which gives a voice to one's feeling of excitement just before patrol time. There was no more yawning, no languid movement.
Rodman was buttoning himself into a combination suit which appeared to add another six inches to his six feet two. Barry, who was leading the low patrol, wore a woolen helmet which left only his eyes uncovered. I had not before noticed how they blazed and snapped. All his energy seemed to be concentrated in them. Porter wore a leather face-mask, with a lozenge-shaped breathing-hole, and slanted openings covered with yellow glass for eyes. He was the most fiendish-looking demon of them all. I was glad to turn from him to the Duke, who wore a passe-montagne of white silk which fitted him like a bonnet. As he sat in his machine, adjusting his goggles, he might have passed for a dear old lady preparing to read a chapter from the Book of Daniel. The fur of Dunham's helmet had frayed out, so that it fitted around the sides of his face and under the chin like a beard, the kind worn by old-fashioned sailors.