James R. Driscoll

“ The big wasp turned a beautiful arc, swiftly, neatly, as if it had known the game and was eager to take part in it. No machine could have performed a more perfect loop; and, as he had hoped, it brought him in the rear of the group of assailants. The center one of the three enemy planes was nearest to him. Straight at it Jimmy dashed, and when close, started firing. It was the first time in his life that Jimmy had tried to take a human life, but he did not give that fact a thought. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE FIGHT IN THE AIR The morning on which the Brighton boys left the base airdrome with their squadron saw the first sunshine that that part of France had known for several days. The line of light motor trucks which served as their transport skimmed along the long, straight roads as if aware that they carried the cavalry of the air.
"France is a pretty country. I had no idea it would look so much like home. Those fields and the hills beyond might be right back where we come from, boys," said Archie Fox. ”

“ The general view of the flying men at the front was that the man who did the prosaic work of daily reconnaissance and got back safe and sound, without frequent spectacular combats and hair-breadth escapes that made good telling, was just as much of a hero and took his life in his hands just as surely, as did the man who went out to individual duel with an adversary, and accomplished some stunt that had a spice of novelty in it. ”

“ Just as Bob and Dicky were circling around the spot they were bent on photographing, and Richardson and the major were loosing off their messengers of destruction toward the munition dump they had set out to destroy, the four men in the hunters, at twenty thousand feet, were beginning to feel the cold. Parker, whose job it was to give the signals for action to his little fleet, dipped his plane slightly and peered downward to see what was taking place below. His face felt as if it was pressed to a block of ice. Surely some enemy scouts would be on hand soon. ”

“ Once Harry had seen a fascinating duel between Richardson and a Boche plane, in which the latter retired before a decision was reached. Once the two American pilots had been compelled to run from a squadron of hunters, who gave up the chase as soon as they drew near to the Allied territory. But Jimmy Hill's exploit, and the fact that he had not only been the hero of a fight against big odds, but had actually brought down a flier and smashed up a hunter machine, loomed so large with the Brighton boys that the more ordinary experiences of the others paled into insignificance in their eyes. ”

“ While Joe was not far up, he had never flown a machine before at that height, and consequently his volplane seemed to occupy a longer time than it should have done. His fingers itched to start the engine again and raise the elevator just enough to arrest the downward swoop, and transform it into a soft glide, nicely calculated so that it would bring the wheels of the chassis into contact with the ground without any shock. He was over-keen on that landing, realizing that so many pairs of eyes were on him.
The earth came up toward him just a shade too fast to suit him. ”

“ The German plan, Parker had told him, was to swoop down from a great height and catch the unwary Allied flier unawares.
Stopping his engine, he side-slipped out of the path of the newcomer, rolled over once or twice to befog the enemy as to his intentions, and then sailed aside still further on one of his "upside-down stunts," which had caught the eye of the flight commander. He thus escaped the swoop of the diving Gotha, and as the other three Germans turned to the right to demolish him, he swung half round, righted himself, and climbed for dear life. ”

“ I had been interested for some time in flying; had learned to fly a machine myself, and had watched most of the big international flying meets. I knew some of the rudimentary points about aircraft, and as I had a cousin who was in the motor manufacturing business in England, I had been put fairly into touch with aeroplane engines. I don't know how much is known at home about what the French and British flying corps have done out here, but to get a fair idea of what they have accomplished one has to know something of the way both France and England were caught napping. ”

“ An airdrome near the town! What wonders would be worked under his very eyes, thought Jimmy. Flying was a thing that no one could hide behind a tall fence. Besides, there were no high fences around the Frisbie place. Well Jimmy knew it. Its broad acres and wide open spaces were well known to every boy at Brighton Academy, for within its boundaries was the finest hill for coasting that could be found for miles. ”

“ One afternoon a pilot from the front line told of a captured German Albatros, which he spun yarns about for an hour. A single-seater, armed with three machine-guns which, being controlled by the motor, or engine, shot automatically and at the same time through the propeller in front of the pilot, with the highest speed of any aeroplane then evolved on the fighting front, with a reputation of being able to climb to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet in less than fifteen minutes—-some said in so short a time as ten minutes—-the crack German machine had attracted much attention. ”

“ You are one of those boys from Brighton Academy, are you not? Are you in the same bunch that Hill and Little came from? If you are, I guess I can use you in the way I am using them. Would you like to get some practical experience round the hangars? You youngsters seem to be under the chief's eye, from what I hear, and I understand he wants to see you all get a chance to push on."
"We all want to get into the hangars when we can be spared from our regular work," answered Harry. "There are four of us left, at the headquarters' offices, and whether or not they want us to stay there I don't know." ”

“ The airman was about to start the engine when Harry noticed that the elevator control wires were crossed. Whoever had attached them had done so mistakenly. Harry could hardly believe the evidence of his eyes, yet there it was, undeniable. Stepping forward, he said to the airman: "Excuse me, but your control wires are not right."
The flying man was little more than a novice, and sufficiently young to resent interference on the part of one obviously younger than himself. ”

“ 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.
"That term started with the French," answered the mechanic. "We use it here now, sometimes. It means a superior aviator, who has brought down five adversaries, in fair air-fight. The bringing-down business, at least so far as the exact number is concerned, is not always applied, I guess. They just call a man an Ace when he is a real graduate flyer, and gets the habit of bringing down his Boche when he goes after him." ”

“ It keeps a fellow busy to see all the new things here, and no mistake."
"Your talk is so much Greek to me sometimes, Joe," said Bob Haines. "You use so much technical language when you get going that you fog me. I can make a plane do what it is supposed to do, most of the time, but some of these special ideas floor me, and I am not ashamed to admit it."
"What is worrying you specially?" asked Jimmy Hill, smiling.
Bob was one of the soundest fliers of the six of them, but he was forever making hard work out of anything he did not understand from the ground up. ”

“ In the airdrome they had left behind, the eyes that had followed their first moments of flight were turned to other sights nearer at hand. The men who had seen the plane well away started for other jobs, forgetting the departed machine.
Both Archie and Carleton, neither novices at the game, settled themselves snugly in their seats as the needle crept round the altimeter. Cold awaited them in the higher levels. That they knew. A persistent, penetrating cold, driven by a keen wind right through some great-coats. Leather is the best protection from that sort of wind. ”

“ To see Joe, in a wasp of a plane, swift and agile, start it whirling like a pinwheel with the tip of its own wing as an axis, and fall for thousands of feet as it whirled, only to catch himself and right the speedy plane when lees than a thousand feet from the earth, was indeed a sight to make one hold one's breath. ”

“ A council of war immediately ensued.
"A lot of good it will have done us to have watched the thing get this far if, when the machines and the flying men come, we can't get beyond the gates," said Harry Corwin.
"I don't see what is going to get us inside any quicker than any other fellows that want to see the flying," commented Archie Fox dolefully.
"What we have got to get is some excuse to be in the thing some way," declared Bob Haines. "If we could only think of some kind of job we could get inside there—-some sort of use we could be put to, it would be a start in the right direction." ”

“ The face feels it the most, however. The cheeks become cold as ice. Far below, the snakelike windings of trenches—-trenches of friend and foe—-can be followed from high altitudes. Some parts of the line seem mile-deep systems of trenches, section on section, transverse here, approach line there, support line behind, ever joining one with another in wondrous fashion. Shell-torn areas between the trench lines, the yellow earth showing its wounds plainly from well above, caught the eyes of the fliers. ”

“ I believe that most all the best motor factories in England have learned to turn out good flying engines by now. It means a lot of difference to produce a machine that can do sixty miles an hour and one that can do two miles a minute. Yet at the start mighty few aeroplanes could beat sixty miles an hour, and to-day I can show you plenty of planes right here in this 'drome which can do one hundred and twenty. If a plane cannot do two miles a minute nowadays it is pretty sure to meet something in enemy hands that can do so. ”

“ Accidents tell us lots of things. Between studying accidents and watching for Boche ideas, especially when we get hold of one of their late machines, we are never standing still at this game, I can tell you."
"Do you get many German planes?" asked Jimmy Hill.
"We down lots of 'em, but we don't get many—-which is different," and the aviator smiled. "You see the Boche fliers stay their side, mostly, and when we drop one he goes down among his own lot. Now the hostile hunters for instance, rarely go over our lines. Their business apparently is to remain over their own territory. ”

“ The state of the atmosphere plays a bigger part in aerial battles than one might think. Calm days, without the least wind, when the sky is covered by large gray clouds, are, as you all probably know, very favorable for surprise attacks. The clouds act as a screen and allow the aviator to hide himself until the very moment he thinks he can drop on his enemy and take him by surprise. ”

“ Joe Little, as they paused before a new-type French machine.
"Yes," cheerily commented an aviator—-a clean-cut young Englishman—-who was grooming the graceful plane. "This very one crashed into the ground two weeks ago while going at over sixty miles an hour. She is so strongly built that she was not hurt much and the pilot escaped without a scratch. This is what we call a 'hunter.' She has an unbeaten record for speed—-can show a clean pair of heels to anything in the air. She has tremendous power; and the way she can climb into the clouds—-my word!"
"Is she easy to fly?" asked Dicky Mann. ”