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Some one was counting the turns of the vrille. Six, seven, eight; then the airman came out of it on an even keel, and, nosing down to gather speed, looped twice in quick succession.
The German had lost sight of me for a moment in the swiftness of his dive, but evidently he saw me just before I pulled out of the vrille. He was turning up for another shot, in exactly the same position in which I had last seen him. And he was very close, not more than fifty metres distant. I believed, of course, that I was lost; and why that German didn't bag me remains a mystery.
It will be a welcome relief if camouflage, as popular five years ago as fin-de-siècle twenty-five years ago, shall follow that now unfashionable vocable into what an American president once described as 'innocuous desuetude'. Perhaps we may liken mitrailleuse and franc-tireur, vrille and escadrille, brisance and rafale, to the foreign labourers who cross the frontier to aid in the harvest and who return to their own country when the demand for their service is over.
Putt!" past my ear he came, so I dove, went into a "vrille" with him on top, came out and squared off, and he let me have it again. All I could do was to maneuver, for I had no shells left and I did not want to beat it, so I stuck. We both came head on again and I said a little prayer, but the next time I looked Mr. Boche was going home.
Loss of speed "perte de vitesse," as the French call it is the aviator's most common peril in landing. If it occurs after his engine is cut off and he has not the time to start it again, the machine tilts and slides down sideways. If it occurs higher up a vrille is the probable result. In this the plane plunges toward the ground spinning round and round with the corner of one wing as a pivot.
It was the vrille, the prettiest piece of aerial acrobatics that one could wish to see. It was a wonderful, an incredible sight. Only seven years ago Blériot crossed the English Channel, and a year earlier the world was astonished at the exploits of the Wright brothers, who were making flights, straight-line flights, of from fifteen to twenty minutes' duration!
We talk of this battery, which is east of Rheims and not far distant from Nogent l'Abbesse, and take professional pride in keeping its gunners in ignorance of their fine marksmanship. We signal them their bad shots which are better than the good ones of most of the batteries on the sector by doing stunts, a barrel turn, a loop, two or three turns of a vrille.
First he dove with the sun in his face, when he might have had it at his back. Then he came all the way in full view, instead of getting under his tail. Good thing the mitrailleur was firing at us. After that, when he had the chance of a lifetime, he fell into a vrille and scared the life out of the rest of us. I thought the gunner had turned on him.
Finally, I did have one clear thought, "Am I on fire?" This cut right through the fog, brought me up broad awake. I was falling almost vertically, in a sort of half vrille. No machine but a Spad could have stood the strain. The Huns were following me and were not far away, judging by the sound of their guns. I fully expected to feel another bullet or two boring its way through.
While the war correspondents were actually in France, and while they were often forced to write at topmost speed, there was excuse for avion and camion, vrille and escadrille, and all the other French words which bespattered the columns of British and American, Canadian and Australian newspapers.
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