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Updated: June 3, 2025
Fell to ground at speed of 160 or 180 kilometers: everything broken like matches, then the 'taxi' rebounded, turned around at 45 degrees, and came back, head down, planting itself in the ground 40 meters away like a post; they could not budge it. Nothing was left but the body, which was intact: the Spad is strong; with any other machine I should now be thinner than this sheet of paper.
When, therefore, Scootsy Mulligan, aged nine, son of a ship-caulker who worked in Martin Farguson's ship-yard, and Sandy Plummer, eldest of three, and their mother a widow plain washing and ironing, two doors from the cake-shop heard that that French "spad," Arch Cobden what lived up to Yardley, and that red-headed Irish cub, Tod Fogarty Tod's hair had turned very red had pre-empted the Black Tub, as the wreck was irreverently called, claiming it as their very own, "and-a-sayin' they wuz pirates and bloody Turks and sich," these two quarrelsome town rats organized a posse in lower Barnegat for its recapture.
They were armed with machine-guns, firing forward, and invariably connected with the direction of the machine's motion. The Spad is an extraordinary instrument of attack, but its defense lies only in its capacity for rapid displacement and the swiftness of its evolutions.
At this range I rattle through the rest of the ammunition drum, and the Hun swerves aside. We now recognise the machine as an Albatross scout or "German spad," a most successful type that only entered the lists a fortnight beforehand. Finding that they have to reckon with five de Havilands, the two Huns turn sharply and race eastward, their superior speed saving them from pursuit.
And now the Nieuport has been surpassed, and almost entirely supplanted, by the Spad of 140, 180, 200, and 230 horse-power, and we have transferred our allegiance to each in turn, marveling at the genius of the French in motor and aircraft construction. At last we were ready for acrobacy.
One threw a stone which grazed Oliver's head, the other put his hand to his mouth and yelled: "Spad, spad," at the top of his voice. Oliver understood the epithet, it meant that he wore clean linen, polished shoes, and perhaps, now and then, a pair of gloves. He had heard the same outcry in his own city, for the slang of the street-rat is Volapuk the world over. But he did not resent the assault.
"Lieutenant Larkin! Oh, Lieutenant Larkin!" he began roaring. "Oh, Bill! Where's Larkin?" "Just left a minute ago," came a voice from under the hood of a new Spad. "Went over to his quarters to wash up. Grease from head to foot." "I'll go show you his quarters," Williams said, eagerly. "Never mind, I'll find him," McGee said. "Have to check in at headquarters first. I hear Cowan is still C.O."
They could tell by looking back every now and then that the affair was going well for the Allies, including some of the American airmen, even if the Huns outnumbered them. Back and forth over the German lines swept the glass-bottomed Spad, and at a certain point Tom, who was looking down, uttered an exclamation.
Some of them obtained leave and went to the nearest town, while some put in their time going over their guns and glasses and equipment and machines. Jack and Tom elected to do the latter. There was one very fast and powerful Spad which they often used together, taking turns at piloting it and acting as observer.
It is a Morane, and they call it a 'Monocoque. Someone told me that the latest type German Fokker was modeled on this machine. It is a corker, but the trickiest thing to fly that was ever made. We have only got one here. I heard a French flyer say the other day that the Spad biplane was faster than this machine, but I don't believe it." "What is an Ace?" queried Jimmy Hill.
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