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Updated: June 18, 2025
"I have an idea," he said at last. "It's worth trying." He opened his bag and, taking out the wedge-shaped cap of the birdmen, set it on his head and went out. He took the same path he had followed home. On top of the cliff he stopped to look down on Squitty Cove. In a camp or two ashore the supper fires of the rowboat trollers were burning.
Always make the best of everything that is all we can do and what we must do. For another day many quiet yet suggestive movements were made in the vicinity of these headquarters where most of the activities of this tale have taken place. That night secret word went out among certain picked birdmen that they were to be ready that night for literally anything
One flotilla bombarded the railroad between Ypres and Roulers, near Passchendaele, tearing up the track for several hundred yards. German bivouacs in the region of Longueval, west of Combles, also were shelled from the air, and German organizations on the Brimont Hill, near Rheims, served as targets for French birdmen.
Completely blinded by the fire from the wounded German birdman, the Dewey now had but one alternative. The approach of other air raiders made it necessary for the submarine to dive away into the depths to safety. To linger longer on the surface was but to court the continued fire of the birdmen overhead who apparently were incensed over the wounding of their companion craft and out for revenge.
The pilot and observer were overpowered before they had time to set it afire, the usual procedure when captured. A typical day of this season with the birdmen of France was April 2, 1915. A War Office report of that day tells of forty-three reconnoitering flights and twenty others for the purpose of attacking enemy positions or ascertaining the direction of gunfire.
That exhibition of what the birdmen of to-day call real flying was a revelation to them. It held out promise of long study and careful practice far ahead before they could hope to equal or excel the cool, modest young aviator who came down so gracefully after a series of side loops that made most of the spectators hold their breath. Summer days passed rapidly.
Hidden under the branches, in order to escape the observation of the enemy's birdmen, the French cannon were scattered among the hills and hollows of the highland range. In this herd of steel, there were enormous pieces with wheels reinforced by metal plates, somewhat like the farming engines which Desnoyers had used on his ranch for plowing.
Some of the Allied birdmen paid the penalty of death for their daring, but others reported that they had dropped packages within the prison camps, though whether those for whom they were intended received them or not, was not certain. "But we aren't going to let it stop there, are we?" asked Tom of Jack one day, when they were discussing the feat which had been so successful. "Let it stop where?
To have a son or a brother flying in France meant mourning soon or late. So they spoke sometimes, in bitter pride, of their birdmen as the "Legion of Death", a gruesome phrase and apt. Carr knew the heavy casualties of aërial fighting.
"And birdmen from the United States Army to came here and show us how to do stunts!" "Well, you fellows can go in for it if you like, but automobiling is dangerous enough sport for me." "Ah, what's the matter with you? Flying is pretty nearly as safe now as walking! Not half as many birdmen have been killed as there have railroad travelers."
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