It is bad enough for a pilot, but it must be much worse for those very gallant fellows who come up as observers and photographers, because they know that if their pilot is killed there is very little hope of their ever getting down alive themselves. I never believe those fellows who say they are not afraid. Anybody who has imagination must be frightened at times, and it has often been shown that anyone without imagination can never hope to fly at all well. However, all this makes no difference and we go up cheerily all the same, in fact I think that a Flying Corps mess is about the cheeriest place that I have ever been in. The work is extraordinarily interesting and at times very exciting, although we have our bad spells of dulness, when we have to come down after a long and tiring patrol in the bitter cold and report to our chief ‘nothing doing.’
I have given you rather a long description of one particular job of work, out of many that we are constantly doing. This sort of work is going on more or less incessantly over the whole front, while other machines are employed in reconnaissance—that is, searching for enemy movements and new enemy positions, and photographing them when found; or in directing the fire of our artillery by observing the fall of their shells, and then signalling back by wireless or other means, so that the gunners are enabled in practice to drop their shells on any spot they like about the size of a tennis court, within the entire range of their weapons.
The other work which some of us do, and which is better known to the public, consists in dropping bombs and engaging the enemy aeroplanes in the air. We nearly always come off top dog on these occasions, but of course there are, I am sorry to say, times when a machine does not come home.
I am writing this letter while my machine is being mended and the engines overhauled, after the last few strenuous days.
Some of us are members of the local ‘Frog Club.’ There are two classes of members in the Frog Club: one class shoots the frogs—not with ammunition, for it is too precious, but with catapults, home-made out of local fences, while the rubber is provided, I regret to say, at the national expense, out of ‘absorbers, shock, rubber part-worn’ (as we say in our lists of spare parts) from smashed aeroplane under-carriages. It is contended that shrapnel in the form of fine gravel is the best for frogs; but the expert shot, who, when he is not flying, is a Captain in the Royal Garrison Artillery, thinks that a single bullet about the size of half a brick—or perhaps a shade less—is better. He says he gets quite close, but he has never yet hit one. He is now designing a highly elaborate telescopic sight for use with his catapult, and we encourage this industry on his part, as it keeps him away from disturbing the waters. Personally, I belong to the fishing section, and our implement consists of a rod, made of broken parts of our machine, which have been shot through and joined together in the most approved split-cane-rod fashion, while for bait we use a piece of red flannel mounted on a bent pin.
We have quite learned from the French the advantage of Frog as an article of diet, although we find it necessary to persuade our guests to eat them, by calling them quail, or similar reminiscences of a London dance at the Ritz. The demand for game has been more than the supply, so our mess cook solves the problem by catching them with, I think, a net and a bucket. He is no sportsman, but withal an excellent cook.
Another early morning; up at daybreak, looking for Huns in the air. One German up, an L.V.G. two-seater—obviously very sleepy, and even more annoyed at being turned out of his bed than we were. We met him coming up towards our lines while we were at 9000 feet. He didn’t apparently see us, so we dived 5000 feet on top of him and loosed off our machine gun. He was badly hit and his engine smashed, but we could not manage to kill the pilot, who pluckily dived his machine steadily down, with our own close behind him, over some well-concealed anti-aircraft guns.
They hit us all right, as they usually do nowadays, but not vitally; and Brother Boche was crumpled up when he landed—quite good fun, but they are too scarce and shy for one to be at all certain of a hunt on any given morning. They know our fighting machines by sight, and nearly always bolt and dive for home, unless one can catch them unbeknownst, which is not very often.