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There was a silence, then a very young airman inquired whether Von Dresslin knew of any authentic reports of an American eagle being seen in Europe. "Authentic? That is somewhat difficult to answer," replied Von Dresslin, with the true caution of a real naturalist.
First, anti-aircraft guns -'Archies, we call them -have improved enormously. In the first of the show the airman merely had to keep five thousand feet up and no Archie could touch him. A French friend of mine told me the other day that one of their anti-aircraft guns hit a flier at a height of fifteen thousand feet. The gun was firing from an even greater distance than that across country, too.
But up here on this ridge, all a spy has to do is to flash a signal, any night, that a boche airman can pick up or that can even be seen with good glasses from some high point where it can be relayed to the German lines. The guy who laid out this burg was sure thoughtless. He might have known there'd be a war some day. He might even have strained his mind and guessed that we'd be stuck here. Gee!"
Then I heard some one say, "Ich glaube " losing the rest of it in the sound of tramping feet and an undercurrent of low, guttural murmurs. In a moment my Spad was surrounded by a widening circle of round hats, German infantrymen's hats. Here was the ignoble end to my career as an airman.
With the lurking craft thus located the airman can either signal to watching destroyers or may bide his time and follow the submarine until it rises to the surface, when a well placed bomb will destroy it. Both of these methods have been adopted with success.
I think it must have occurred to every captured airman how splendid it would be to steal an enemy aeroplane and fly back, then after a graceful landing report to the C.O. that you had returned. These flights are not infrequently pleasurably accomplished in imagination, but such opportunities do not often, if ever, present themselves.
Nothing else was quite real to him in the scene, when everybody pressed round Carleton, congratulating him on his machine and the exploit of which the airman seemed to think little. It was not real when Schuyler invited Hannaford and his two companions to crowd into the big car, and be spun up the hill to Monte Carlo.
Perhaps it was Drew's sense of loneliness and helplessness so far from earth, which made me think of winds and clouds in friendly human terms. However that may be, these reveries, hardly worthy of a military airman, were abruptly broken into. All at once, I realized that, while my biplane was headed due north, I was drifting north and west. This seemed strange.
"He’s all shot to pieces, but they say he’ll pull through." The airman turned to Maryette: "Jack will get well," he translated bluntly. The girl, who had just refused the money offered by the American muleteer, turned sharply, became deadly white for a second, then her face flamed with a hot and splendid colour. One of the muleteers said: "Is this here his girl?" "Yes," nodded the airman.
One did cut the skin of my right leg, although I didn't know this until I reached the hospital. Perhaps it was well that I did fall out of control, for the firing soon stopped, the Germans thinking, and with reason, that they had bagged me. Some proud Boche airman is wearing an iron cross on my account. Perhaps the whole crew of dare-devils has been decorated. However, no unseemly sarcasm.
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