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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Once more for our bus!" exclaimed Jack delightedly, when they were outside. Their Spad had been refilled with gasoline, or "petrol," as it is called on the other side, and oil had been put in, while the machine guns had been looked to. "You seem to have spotted it all right, Tom," went on Jack, just as they were about to start, for word came that the American batteries were ready.
The walls bore lightly framed photographs of men famous in the annals of flying, from Santos-Dumont and the Wrights to Gruynemer and Nosworthy; also pictures of famous machines the Spad, Bristol Fighter, Sopwith Pup, 120-135, and others. More conspicuous than any of these was a framed copy of the International Air Commission's latest condensed rules. Signs of recent occupancy were not wanting.
"I am, am I? yer moon-faced spad! I'll show ye," and he sprang toward Oliver. "Here now, Tim Murphy," came a sharp voice, "kape yer hands off the young gintleman. He ain't a-doin' nothin', and he ain't done nothin'. Thim divils hit the dog, I seen 'em myself."
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.
He kept his angle of 45° till about 500 meters, when he adopted the vertical, and blazed up on crashing to the ground.... The Spad ravished him. It was the heyday of wonderful flights on the Somme. Yet he wanted something even better; but before pestering M. Béchereau he began with an inspiring narrative. December 28, 1916. I can't grumble; yet yesterday I missed my camera badly.
If I had been less absorbed I might have heard some distant chattering or calling, but this time it was as if a Spad had shut off its power, volplaned, kept ahead of its own sound waves, and bombed me. All that actually happened was that a band of little parrakeets flew down and alighted nearby.
While waiting, they told me that I had fallen just within the first-line trenches, at a spot where a slight rise in ground hid me from sight of the enemy. Otherwise, they might have had a bad time rescuing me. My Spad was completely wrecked. It fell squarely into a trench, the wings breaking the force of the fall.
As the officer had said, they were practically exempt now that they were about to be transferred. But they had volunteered, as he probably knew they would. Two speedy Spad machines were run out for the use of Tom and Jack, each one to have his own, for the work they were to do was dangerous and they would have need of speed.
During the next ten minutes the entire squadron, and the ferry pilots, were given an excellent opportunity to form their own conclusions about McGee's ability to fly. He took the Spad aloft, in test, and plunged through a series of acrobatics that served to convince all watchers that here was a man whose real element was the air. Ship and man were one.
Up to this time, November 28, 1917, there has been but one American killed at it in French schools. We were not all good acrobats. One must have a knack for it which many of us will never be able to acquire. The French have it in larger proportion than do we Americans. I can think of no sight more pleasing than that of a Spad in the air, under the control of a skillful French pilot.
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