The strain of waiting patiently for the start was trying. The sudden transformation of a group of typical-looking Americans into monsters and devotional old ladies gave a moment of diversion which helped to relieve it.
I heard Talbott shouting his parting instructions and remembered that I did not know the rendezvous. I was already strapped in my machine and was about to loosen the fastenings, when he came over and climbed on the step of the car.
“Rendezvous two thousand over field!” he yelled.
I nodded.
“Know me—Big T—wings—fuselage. I'll—turning right. You and others left. When—see me start—lines, fall in behind—left. Remember stick close—patrol. If—get lost, better—home. Compass southwest. Look carefully—landmarks going out. Got—straight?”
I nodded again to show that I understood. Machines of both patrols were rolling across the field, a mechanician running along beside each one. I joined the long line, and taxied over to the starting-point, where the captain was superintending the send-off, and turned into the wind in my turn. As though conscious of his critical eye, my old veteran Spad lifted its tail and gathered flying speed with all the vigor of its youth, and we were soon high above the hangars, climbing to the rendezvous.
When we had all assembled, Talbott headed northeast, the rest of us falling into our places behind him. Then I found that, despite the new motor, my machine was not a rapid climber. Talbott noticed this and kept me well in the group, he and the others losing height in renversements and retournements, diving under me and climbing up again. It was fascinating to watch them doing stunts, to observe the constant changing of positions. Sometimes we seemed, all of us, to be hanging motionless, then rising and falling like small boats riding a heavy swell. Another glance would show one of them suspended bottom up, falling sidewise, tipped vertically on a wing, standing on its tail, as though being blown about by the wind, out of all control. It is only in the air, when moving with them, that one can really appreciate the variety and grace of movement of a flock of high-powered avions de chasse.
I was close to Talbott as we reached the cloud-bank. I saw him in dim silhouette as the mist, sunlight-filtered, closed around us. Emerging into the clear, fine air above it, we might have been looking at early morning from the casement
“opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.”
The sun was just rising, and the floor of cloud glowed with delicate shades of rose and amethyst and gold. I saw the others rising through it at widely scattered points. It was a glorious sight.