bullet-plugged

Updated: May 21, 2025

A few examples of the sub-conscious impressions gathered during my last year's term at the Front are the curious smile of a dead observer as we lifted his body from a bullet-plugged machine; the shrieking of the wires whenever we dived on Hun aircraft; a tree trunk falling on a howitzer; a line of narrow-nosed buses, with heavy bombs fitted under the lower planes, ready to leave for their objective; the ghostliness of Ypres as we hovered seven thousand feet above its ruins; a certain riotous evening when eight of the party of fourteen ate their last dinner on earth; a severe reprimand delivered to me by a meticulous colonel, after I returned from a long reconnaissance that included four air flights, for the crime of not having fastened my collar before arrival on the aerodrome at 5 A.M.; a broken Boche aeroplane falling in two segments at a height of ten thousand feet; the breathless moments at a Base hospital when the surgeon-in-charge examined new casualties to decide which of them were to be sent across the Channel; and clearest of all, the brown-faced infantry marching back to the trenches from our village.

Alan Bott - Cavalry of the Clouds