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The tinker sings with a noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and station in life "My bonnie lass, I work in brass, A tinker is my station; I've travell'd round all Christian ground In this my occupation. I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron; But vain they search'd when off I march'd To go an' clout the caudron." It was his ruling passion.
Those which received official approval included the Caudron, Henry, and Maurice Farman, Morane-Saulnier, and Voisin machines. This drastic order came somewhat as a thunderbolt, and the reason for the decree has not been satisfactorily revealed. Suffice to say that in one stroke the efficiency and numerical strength of the French aerial navy were reduced very appreciably.
My Caudron barely missed colliding with a hedge of fruit trees, rolled down a long incline, and stopped not ten feet short of a small stream. The experience taught me the folly of choosing landing-ground from high altitudes. I needn't have landed, of course, but I was then so much an amateur that the buffeting of cross-currents of air near the ground awed me into it, come what might.
The most interesting paper of all was our Ordre de Service, the text of which was as follows: It is commanded that the bearer of this Order report himself at the cities of C and R , by the route of the air, flying an avion Caudron, and leaving the École Militaire d'Aviation at A on the 21st of April, 1917, without passenger on board. Signed, LE CAPITAINE B Commandant de l'École.
At that time the Caudron had almost passed its period of usefulness at the front, and there was a prospect of our being transferred to the yet larger and more powerful Letord, a three-passenger biplane carrying two machine gunners besides the pilot, and from three to five machine guns. This appealed to us mightily.
No doubt this deficiency will be remedied as the war proceeds by extension of the works or by allotting orders to other establishments, but at the time of the decree the manufacturing capacity was scarcely sufficient to make good the wastage, which was somewhat heavy. As far as biplanes are concerned the Caudron is the fastest in flight and is likewise extremely quick in manoeuvring.
On the outbreak of war, and until the end of 1914, of the ten types in use Avro, B.E., Bristol, Sopwith, Vickers, M. Farman, H. Farman, Caudron, Morane, and Voisin five were British and five were French and all were fitted with French engines. The average horse-power was still about 83, but the average maximum speed had risen to 74, and the minimum had fallen to 41 miles per hour.
One usually pays for a fine mood by a sudden and unaccountable change of feeling which shades off into a kind of dull, colorless depression. I passed a twin-motor Caudron going in the opposite direction. It was fantastically painted, the wings a bright yellow and the circular hoods, over the two motors, a fiery red. As it approached, it looked like some prehistoric bird with great ravenous eyes.
The English also use what was known as the "D. H. 5," a machine carrying a motor of very high horse-power, while the Sopwith and Bristol biplane were popular as fighting craft. The French pinned their faith mainly to the Farman, the Caudron, the Voisin, and the Moraine-Saulnier machines.
Preliminary to our work there, we had a six weeks' course of instruction, first on the twin-motor Caudron and then on various types of the Nieuport biplane. We thought the Caudron a magnificent machine. We liked the steady throb of its powerful motors, the enormous spread of its wings, the slow, ponderous way it had of answering to the controls.
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