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One rumor had it that they were to get American ships powered by a much-talked-of mystery motor. Very well, but where were those ships? Another rumor, equally persistent, was to the effect that they were to draw French Spads. Very well again, but where were the Spads? Still other rumors included Camels, Sopwiths, Nieuports and Pups.
We would get square with the Boches over Verdun, we thought it is impossible to chase airplanes at night, so the raiders made a safe getaway. As soon as we pilots had left in our machines, the trucks and tractors set out in convoy, carrying the men and equipment. The Nieuports carried us to our new post in a little more than an hour.
I felt ashamed of the lightness of my own thoughts, but I had to tell him of my speculations upon after-the-war developments in aviation: nurses flying Voisins, with the cars filled with babies; old men having after-dinner naps in twenty-three-metre Nieuports, fitted, for safety, with Sperry gyroscopes; family parties taking comfortable outings in gigantic biplanes of the R-6 type; mothers, as of old, gazing apprehensively at speed-dials, cautioning fathers about "driving too fast," and all of the rest.
A Lieutenant Smoot, one of the ferry pilots who had flown up one of the Nieuports, sought to ease the pain caused by his own lowly calling by taunting Tex Yancey an extremely dangerous pastime, for Tex had a ready tongue. "When you buckoes have washed out these planes," he said, "the Old Man will see the error of his way and send us up to do the real flying.
"And you don't think we'd feel like like " "We'd feel like two Americans, going home. Shake, little feller! There, I feel better already. Come on, let's go in; that's the curtain bell." Night Raiders On the following Tuesday morning a group of two Spads and several Nieuports were delivered to Major Cowan's pursuit squadron at Is Sur Tille.
The distinguishing marks of the Nieuports are various and sometimes amusing. The country below has changed into a flat surface of varicoloured figures.
He was followed by Johnson and Balsley, who had been on the air guard over Paris. Hill and Rumsey came next, and after them Masson and Pavelka. Nieuports were supplied them from the nearest depot, and as soon as they had mounted their instruments and machine guns, they were on the job with the rest of us.
The Nieuports having refilled their tanks went up to clear the air of Germans that might be hovering in wait for the returning raiders. Prince found one and promptly shot it down. Lufbery came upon three. He drove for one, making it drop below the others, then forcing a second to descend, attacked the one remaining above. The combat was short and at the end of it the German tumbled to earth.
Perhaps the gun will work now." In fact, a few days later he wrote exultingly, having discovered that the jamming was due to cold and having found an ingenious remedy. November 4, 1916. Day before yesterday I bagged a Fokker one-seater biplane. It was two meters off, but as it tumbled into a group of our Nieuports, the controlling board would not give the victory to anybody.
On days when the clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels very much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of aviation. The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like torpedo boats in an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the cloud-waves, one sights an enemy escadrille, moving as a fleet.
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