There are several escadrilles in the group, a groupe de combat—it is called—all have Spads which makes it very nice. The Lafayette, 124, is of our group and have adjoining barracks, which makes it very nice (I seem to repeat) for us lone Americans in French escadrilles. We drop in there far too often and the first few nights I used the bed of the famous Bill Thaw’s roommate, away on permission. Did I write you that one morning he brought in Whiskey to wake me up, and my eye no sooner opened than my head was buried under the covers. Whiskey is a pet—a very large lion cub, which has unfortunately outgrown its utility as a pet and was sent yesterday, with its running mate, Soda, to the Zoo at Paris, to be a regular lion.
They are a very odd crowd—the members of the Lafayette Escadrille, a few nice ones and a bunch of rather roughnecks. Their conversation is an eye opener for a new arrival. Mostly about Paris, permissions, and the rue de Braye, but occasionally about work and that is interesting. Nonchalant doesn’t express it. When Bridgy got shot up as mentioned above, they all kidded the life out of him and when he got the Croix de Guerre, they had him almost in tears—just because he’s the kiddable kind.
But in talking about the work—for instance, Jim Hall: “I piquéd on him with full motor and got so darn close to him that when I wanted to open fire I was so scared of running into him that I had to yank out of the way and so never fired a single shot.” Or Lufberry just mentions in passing that he got another Boche this morning, but those —— observer people won’t give him credit for it. He has fourteen official now and probably twice as many more never allowed him. Some days ago during the attack he had seven fights in one day, brought down six of them and got credit for one. Which must be discouraging.
XIV
November 5, 1917.
Well ——[E]:
Here I find myself writing to you without waiting for the usual two or three months to elapse. Do you realize that it was over five and a half months ago that I left my native land? It doesn’t seem near so long to me. Just at present I have about thirteen hours a day to write, read the Washington Star and New York Times, eat an occasional meal (we only get two over here, worse luck), build fires in the stove and stroll for exercise. The rest of the time is devoted to sleep. A terribly hard life that of an aviator on the western front! No appels (meaning roll calls), discipline or inspections. Only, if there should happen to be a good day, one might be wanted to fly a bit. So far (I have only been out here a week) we have had perfectly ideal aviators’ weather—nice low misty clouds about 300 or 400 feet up, which quite prevent aerial activity and yet one is not bothered by mud or depressed by rain. In the morning, one awakes, pokes his head out the window, says “What lo! more luck, a nice light brouillard” and closes the window for a few hours more of sleep. Really I have done more resting the past week than most people do in a lifetime!
To get statistical, I finished up at Pau (from where I sent to you a letter, n’est-ce-pas?) a month ago, and then spent two very unpleasant weeks at Plessis-Belleville near Paris, at the big dépôt for the front, waiting to be sent to an escadrille, with nothing to do but a little desultory flying, nurse the system, food, weather, lodging, discipline, etc. Eventually my turn came and, with another American, I was dispatched to Esc. SPA 84, where we arrived after the usual delay passing through Paris. That’s one nice thing about this country: all roads lead to Paris. Sent from one place to another, it is a safe wager that one goes via Paris, and always takes forty-eight hours there and gets permission for it if he can. There are a few Frenchmen there still, but on the streets one sees almost entirely American, British or British Colonial officers—occasionally a French aviator and of course clouds of sweet and innocent young things—yes? Nearly all of my classmates are over here and get to Paris every once in a while, so all I have to do is to sit at the Café de la Paix and if I wait long enough, some one I know will surely come along.