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Updated: June 7, 2025
That fine bunch of pilots of yours can't get off the ground until the Spads get here and maybe not then." "See here!" McGee challenged stoutly. "I'll bet you anything you like that those boys " "Will all be aces in a month," Larkin completed, knowing the extent and warmth of McGee's habitual enthusiasm. "All right, Shrimp, so be it. But what has that to do with the show? Want to go?" "Sure.
A half dozen swift Spads took the air soon after Tom and Jack ascended, but instead of flying over the German lines they went in the opposite direction, making their way to the west. They got out of sight, and then mounted to a great height. Shortly after this some heavy, double-seated planes set out for the German territory as though to make observations or take photographs.
The big Caudron type was the ideal bomber of the early days; Farman machines were excellent for reconnaissance and artillery spotting; the Bleriots proved excellent as fighting scouts and for aerial photography; the Nieuports made good fighters, as did the Spads, both being very fast craft, as were the Morane-Saulnier monoplanes, while the big Voisin biplanes rivalled the Caudron machines as bombers.
I came up here to see Paris, and I'm thirty minutes behind time now." The take-off of the five Spads was good, and in order. McGee noticed with considerable satisfaction that the flight commander knew his business, and the four planes under his direction followed his signaled orders with a precision that would have been creditable in any group of pilots. "Nice work!"
In September, 1916, Guynemer had tried at the front one of the first two Spads. On the 8th he wrote to M. Béchereau: "Well, the Spad has had her baptême du feu. The others were six: an Aviatik at 2800, an L.V.G. at 2900, and four Rumplers jostling one another with barely 25 meters in between at 3000 meters. My gun never jammed once."
The green and gold plane of von Herzmann was now a rapidly diminishing speck against the cloud bank toward la Chapelle, streaking for the Fatherland. The others, lacking a leader, and facing unequal chances with the timely and unexpected appearance of the French Spads, were withdrawing from the action with all the speed they could get out of their wonderful motors. And that was speed enough.
"Luck!" the senior officer retorted, heatedly. "You call it luck! It was luck that we did not lose you and that you got your crippled plane back across the line. But can you be sure that those Spads came upon the scene, at the right moment, by chance?" Count von Herzmann shook his head. "No, Herr Hauptmann, in this war we can be sure of only one thing death, if the war continues.
He swung around, and as he banked caught sight of seven or eight German planes coming up from the northwest. He looked aloft. The Spads had seen them, too, and were closing in. McGee began climbing, and noted with satisfaction that Larkin, on the alert, was waggling his wings as a signal that he too had seen them and was prepared.
"I can fight you with my fists if you are bigger than me," he cried, tossing the knife down the open hatchway into the sand below. "Hold my coat, Tod," and he began stripping off his little jacket. "I ain't fightin' no spads," sneered Sandy. He didn't want to fight this one. "Yer can't skeer nobody. You'll draw a pistol next. Yer better go home to yer mammy, if ye kin find her."
Above them, as a protecting layer, flew Larkin with his flight, and still above them, much higher, were the French Spads. This state of affairs could not last long, McGee knew. It was only a question of time until German planes would come up and accept the gage of battle. It was a situation, therefore, calling for the greatest effort possible in the shortest length of time.
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