But we can converse with them, after a fashion, even though we do not know their exact position. It will be long before this chapter of my journal is in print. Having given no indication of the date of writing, I may say, without indiscretion, that we are again on the Champagne front. We have a wholesome respect for one battery here, a respect it has justly earned by shooting which is really remarkable. We talk of this battery, which is east of Rheims and not far distant from Nogent l'Abbesse, and take professional pride in keeping its gunners in ignorance of their fine marksmanship. We signal them their bad shots—which are better than the good ones of most of the batteries on the sector—by doing stunts, a barrel turn, a loop, two or three turns of a vrille.
As for their good shots, they are often so very good that we are forced into acrobacy of a wholly individual kind. Our avions have received many scars from their shells. Between forty-five hundred and five thousand metres, their bursts have been so close under us that we have been lifted by the concussions and set down violently again at the bottom of the vacuum; and this on a clear day when a chasse machine is almost invisible at that height, and despite its speed of two hundred kilometres an hour. On a gray day, when we are flying between twenty-five hundred and three thousand metres beneath a film of cloud, they repay the honor we do them by our acrobatic turns. They bracket us, put barrages between us and our own lines, give us more trouble than all the other batteries on the sector combined.
For this reason it is all the more humiliating to be forced to land with motor trouble, just at the moment when they are paying off some old scores. This happened to Drew while I have been writing up my journal. Coming out of a tonneau in answer to three coups from the battery, his propeller stopped dead. By planing flatly (the wind was dead ahead, and the area back of the first lines there is a wide one, crossed by many intersecting lines of trenches) he got well over them and chose a field as level as a billiard table for landing-ground. In the very center of it, however, there was one post, a small worm-eaten thing, of the color of the dead grass around it. He hit it, just as he was setting his Spad on the ground, the only post in a field acres wide, and it tore a piece of fabric from one of his lower wings. No doubt the crack battery has been given credit for disabling an enemy plane. The honor, such as it is, belongs to our aerial godfather, among whose lesser vices may be included that of practical joking.
The remnants of the post were immediately confiscated for firewood by some poilus who were living in a dugout near by.
IX
“LONELY AS A CLOUD”
The French attack which has been in preparation for the past month is to begin at dawn to-morrow. It has been hard, waiting, but it must have been a great deal worse for the infantrymen who are billeted in all of the surrounding villages. They are moving up to-night to the first lines, for these are the shock troops who are to lead the attack. They are chiefly regiments of Chasseurs—small men in stature, but clean, hard, well-knit—splendid types. They talk of the attack confidently. It is an inspiration to listen to them. Hundreds of them have visited our aerodrome during the past week, mainly, I think, for a glimpse of Whiskey and Soda, our lions, who are known to French soldiers from one end of the line to the other. Whiskey is almost full-grown, and Soda about the size of a wild cat. They have the freedom of the camp and run about everywhere.
The guns are thundering at a terrific rate, the concussions shaking our barracks and rattling the dishes on the table. In the messroom the gramophone is playing, “I'm going 'way back home and have a wonderful time.” Music at the front is sometimes a doubtful blessing.
We are keyed up, some of us, rather nervous in anticipation of to-morrow. Porter is trying to give Irving a light from his own cigarette. Irving, who doesn't know the meaning of nerves, asks him who in hell he is waving at. Poor old Porter! His usefulness as a combat pilot has long past, but he hangs on, doing the best he can. He should have been sent to the rear months ago.
The first phase of the battle is over. The French have taken eleven thousand prisoners, and have driven the enemy from all the hills down to the low ground along the canal. For the most part, we have been too high above them to see the infantry actions; but knowing the plans and the objectives beforehand, we have been able to follow, quite closely, the progress of the battle.