



Produced by Kevin Handy, Irma Spehar and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





                    The Riverside Library

                       High Adventure

            A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

                             By

                      JAMES NORMAN HALL


                       [Illustration]


                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                The Riverside Press Cambridge

  COPYRIGHT, 1917 AND 1918, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
            COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL
                     ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


                   _Published June, 1918_


                     The Riverside Press
                  CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
                    PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.


                             TO
              SERGENT-PILOTE DOUGLAS MACMONAGLE
                KILLED IN COMBAT NEAR VERDUN
                     SEPTEMBER 25, 1917


[Illustration: THE AUTHOR]




                          Contents


   I. THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS         1

  II. PENGUINS                         24

 III. BY THE ROUTE OF THE AIR          47

  IV. AT G. D. E.                      79

   V. OUR FIRST PATROL                107

  VI. A BALLOON ATTACK                144

 VII. BROUGHT DOWN                    167

VIII. ONE HUNDRED HOURS               182

  IX. "LONELY AS A CLOUD"             200

   X. "MAIS OUI, MON VIEUX!"          209

  XI. THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS            216

 XII. CAFARD                          226

LETTER FROM A GERMAN PRISON CAMP      233




                       HIGH ADVENTURE




                              I

                  THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS


It was on a cool, starlit evening, early in September, 1916, that I
first met Drew of Massachusetts, and actually began my adventures as a
prospective member of the Escadrille Americaine. We had sailed from
New York by the same boat, had made our applications for enlistment in
the Foreign Legion on the same day, without being aware of each
other's existence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, we had
gone, every evening, for dinner, to the same large and gloomy-looking
restaurant in the neighborhood of the Seine.

As for the restaurant, we frequented it, not assuredly because of the
quality of the food. We might have dined better and more cheaply
elsewhere. But there was an air of vanished splendor, of faded
magnificence, about the place which, in the capital of a warring
nation, appealed to both of us. Every evening the tables were laid
with spotless linen and shining silver. The wineglasses caught the
light from the tarnished chandeliers in little points of color. At the
dinner-hour, a half-dozen ancient serving-men silently took their
places about the room. There was not a sound to be heard except the
occasional far-off honk of a motor or the subdued clatter of dishes
from the kitchens. The serving-men, even the tables and the empty
chairs, seemed to be listening, to be waiting for the guests who never
came. Rarely were there more than a dozen diners-out during the course
of an evening. There was something mysterious in these elaborate
preparations, and something rather fine about them as well; but one
thought, not without a touch of sadness, of the old days when there
had been laughter and lights and music, sparkling wines and brilliant
talk, and how those merrymakers had gone, many of them, long ago to
the wars.

As it happened on this evening, Drew and I were sitting at adjoining
tables. Our common citizenship was our introduction, and after five
minutes of talk, we learned of our common purpose in coming to
France. I suppose that we must have eaten after making this latter
discovery. I vaguely remember seeing our old waiter hobbling down a
long vista of empty tables on his way to and from the kitchens. But if
we thought of our food at all, it must have been in a purely
mechanical way.

Drew can talk--by Jove, how the man can talk!--and he has the faculty
of throwing the glamour of romance over the most commonplace
adventures. Indeed, the difficulty which I am going to have in writing
this narrative is largely due to this romantic influence of his. I
might have succeeded in writing a plain tale, for I have kept my diary
faithfully, from day to day, and can set down our adventures, such as
they are, pretty much as they occurred. But Drew has bewitched me. He
does not realize it, but he is a weaver of spells, and I am so
enmeshed in his moonshine that I doubt if I shall be able to write of
our experiences as they must appear to those of our comrades in the
Franco-American Corps who remember them only through the medium of the
revealing light of day.

Not one of these men, I am sure, would confess to so strange an
immediate cause for joining the aviation service, as that related to
me by Drew, as we sat over our coffee and cigarettes, on the evening
of our first meeting. He had come to France, he said, with the
intention of joining the _Legion Etrangere_ as an infantryman. But he
changed his mind, a few days after his arrival in Paris, upon meeting
Jackson of the American Aviation Squadron, who was on leave after a
service of six months at the front. It was all because of the manner
in which Jackson looked at a Turkish rug. He told him of his
adventures in the most matter-of-fact way. No heroics, nothing of that
sort. He had not a glimmer of imagination, he said. But he had a way
of looking at the floor which was "irresistible," which "fascinated
him with the sense of height." He saw towns, villages, networks of
trenches, columns of toy troops moving up ribbons of road--all in the
patterns of a Turkish rug. And the next day, he was at the
headquarters of the Franco-American Corps, in the Champs Elysees,
making application for membership.

It is strange that we should both have come to France with so little
of accurate knowledge of the corps, of the possibilities for
enlistment, and of the nature of the requirements for the service. Our
knowledge of it, up to the time of sailing, had been confined to a few
brief references in the press. It was perhaps necessary that its
existence should not be officially recognized in America, or its
furtherance encouraged. But it seemed to us at that time, that there
must have been actual discouragement on the part of the Government at
Washington. However that may be, we wondered if others had followed
clues so vague or a call so dimly heard.

This led to a discussion of our individual aptitudes for the service,
and we made many comforting discoveries about each other. It is
permissible to reveal them now, for the particular encouragement of
others who, like ourselves at that time, may be conscious of
deficiencies, and who may think that they have none of the qualities
essential to the successful aviator. Drew had never been farther from
the ground than the top of the Woolworth building. I had once taken a
trip in a captive balloon. Drew knew nothing of motors, and had no
more knowledge of mechanics than would enable him to wind a watch
without breaking the mainspring. My ignorance in this respect was a
fair match for his.

We were further handicapped for the French service by our lack of the
language. Indeed, this seemed to be the most serious obstacle in the
way to success. With a good general knowledge of the language it
seemed probable that we might be able to overcome our other
deficiencies. Without it, we could see no way to mastering the
mechanical knowledge which we supposed must be required as a
foundation for the training of a military pilot. In this connection,
it may be well to say that we have both been handicapped from the
beginning. We have had to learn, through actual experience in the air,
and at risk to life and limb, what many of our comrades, both French
and American, knew before they had ever climbed into an aeroplane. But
it is equally true that scores of men become very excellent pilots
with little or no knowledge of the mechanics of the business.

In so far as Drew and I were concerned, these were matters for the
future. It was enough for us at the moment that our applications had
been approved, our papers signed, and that to-morrow we were leaving
for the _Ecole d'Aviation Militaire_ to begin our training. And so,
after a long evening of pleasant talk and pleasanter anticipation of
coming events, we left our restaurant and walked together through the
silent streets to the Place de la Concorde. The great windy square was
almost deserted. The monuments to the lost provinces bulked large in
the dim lamplight. Two disabled soldiers hobbled across the bridge and
disappeared in the deep shade of the avenue. Their service had been
rendered, their sacrifices made, months ago. They could look about
them now with a peculiar sense of isolation, and with, perhaps, a
feeling of the futility of the effort they had made. Our adventures
were all before us. Our hearts were light and our hopes high. As we
stood by the obelisk, talking over plans for the morrow, we heard,
high overhead, the faint hum of motors, and saw two lights, one green,
one red, moving rapidly across the sky. A moment later the long,
slender finger of a searchlight probed among little heaps of cloud,
then, sweeping in a wide arc, revealed in striking outline the shape
of a huge biplane circling over the sleeping city. It was one of the
night guard of Paris.

On the following morning, we were at the Gare des Invalides with our
luggage, a long half-hour before train-time. The luggage was absurdly
bulky. Drew had two enormous suitcases and a bag, and I a steamer
trunk and a family-size portmanteau. We looked so much the typical
American tourists that we felt ashamed of ourselves, not because of
our nationality, but because we revealed so plainly, to all the world
military, our non-military antecedents. We bore the hallmark of fifty
years of neutral aloofness, of fifty years of indifference to the
business of national defense. What makes the situation amusing as a
retrospect is the fact that we were traveling on third-class military
passes, as befitted our rank as _eleve-pilotes_ and soldiers of the
_deuxieme classe_.

To our great discomfiture, a couple of _poilus_ volunteered their
services in putting our belongings aboard the train. Then we crowded
into a third-class carriage filled with soldiers--_permissionnaires_,
_blesses_, _reformes_, men from all corners of France and her
colonies. Their uniforms were faded and weather-stained with long
service. The stocks of their rifles were worn smooth and bright with
constant usage, and their packs fairly stowed themselves upon their
backs.

Drew and I felt uncomfortable in our smart civilian clothing. We
looked too soft, too clean, too spick-and-span. We did not feel that
we belonged there. But in a whispered conversation we comforted
ourselves with the assurance that if ever America took her rightful
stand with the Allies, in six months after the event, hundreds of
thousands of American boys would be lugging packs and rifles with the
same familiarity of use as these French _poilus_. They would become
equally good soldiers, and soon would have the same community of
experience, of dangers and hardships shared in common, which make men
comrades and brothers in fact as well as in theory.

By the time we had reached our destination we had persuaded ourselves
into a much more comfortable frame of mind. There we piled into a
cab, and soon we were rattling over the cobblestones, down a long,
sunlit avenue in the direction of B----. It was late of a mild
afternoon when we reached the summit of a high plateau and saw before
us the barracks and hangars of the _Ecole d'Aviation_. There was not a
breath of air stirring. The sun was just sinking behind a bank of
crimson cloud. The earth was already in shadow, but high overhead the
light was caught and reflected from the wings of scores of _avions_
which shone like polished bronze and silver. We saw the long lines of
Bleriot monoplanes, like huge dragon-flies, and as pretty a sight in
the air as heart could wish. Farther to the left, we recognized Farman
biplanes, floating battleships in comparison with the Bleriots, and
twin-motor Caudrons, much more graceful and alert of movement.

But, most wonderful of all to us then, we saw a strange, new
_avion_,--a biplane, small, trim, with a body like a fish. To see it
in flight was to be convinced for all time that man has mastered the
air, and has outdone the birds in their own element. Never was swallow
more consciously joyous in swift flight, never eagle so bold to take
the heights or so quick to reach them. Drew and I gazed in silent
wonder, our bodies jammed tightly into the cab-window, and our heads
craned upward. We did not come back to earth until our ancient,
earth-creeping conveyance brought up with a jerk, and we found
ourselves in front of a gate marked "Ecole d'Aviation Militaire de
B----."

After we had paid the cabman, we stood in the road, with our mountain
of luggage heaped about us, waiting for something to happen. A moment
later a window in the administration building was thrown open and we
were greeted with a loud and not over-musical chorus of

    "Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light--"

It all came from one throat, belonging to a chap in leathers, who came
down the drive to give us welcome.

"Spotted you _toute suite_" he said. "You can tell Americans at six
hundred yards by their hats. How's things in the States? Do you think
we're coming in?"

We gave him the latest budget of home news, whereupon he offered to
take us over to the barracks. When he saw our luggage he grinned.

"Some equipment, believe me! _Attendez un peu_ while I commandeer a
battalion of Annamites to help us carry it, and we'll be on our way."

The Annamites, from Indo-China, who are quartered at the camp for
guard and fatigue duty, came back with him about twenty strong, and we
started in a long procession to the barracks. Later, we took a
vindictive pleasure in witnessing the beluggaged arrival of other
Americans, for in nine cases out of ten they came as absurdly
over-equipped as did we.

Our barracks, one of many built on the same pattern, was a long, low
wooden building, weather-stained without and whitewashed within. It
had accommodation for about forty beds. One end of the room was very
manifestly American. There was a phonograph on the table, baseball
equipment piled in one corner, and the walls were covered with
cartoons and pictures clipped from American periodicals. The other end
was as evidently French, in the frugality and the neatness of its
furnishings. The American end of the room looked more homelike, but
the French end more military. Near the center, where the two nations
joined, there was a very harmonious blending of these characteristics.

Drew and I were delighted with all this. We were glad that we were not
to live in an exclusively American barracks, for we wanted to learn
French; but more than this, we wanted to live with Frenchmen on terms
of barrack-room familiarity.

By the time we had given in our papers at the captain's office and had
passed the hasty preliminary examination of the medical officer, it
was quite dark. Flying for the day was over, and lights gleamed
cheerily from the barrack-room windows. As we came down the principal
street of the camp, we heard the strains of "Waiting for the Robert E.
Lee," to a gramophone accompaniment, issuing from the _chambre des
Americains_.

    "See them shuffle along,
    Oh, ma honey babe,
    Hear that music and song."

It gave us the home feeling at once. Frenchmen and Americans were
singing together, the Frenchmen in very quaint English, but hitting
off the syncopated time as though they had been born and brought up to
it as we Americans have.

Over in one corner, a very informal class in French-English
pronunciation was at work. Apparently, this was tongue-twisters'
night. "_Heureux_" was the challenge from the French side, and
"_Hooroo_" the nearest approach to a pronunciation on the part of the
Americans, with many more or less remote variations on this theme. An
American, realizing how difficult it is for a Frenchman to get his
tongue between his teeth, counter-challenged with "Father, you are
withered with age." The result, as might have been expected, was a
series of hissing sounds of _z_, whereupon there was an answering howl
of derision from all the Americans. Up and down the length of the room
there were little groups of two and three, chatting together in
combinations of Franco-American which must have caused all deceased
professors of modern languages to spin like midges in their graves.
And throughout all this before-supper merriment, one could catch the
feeling of good-comradeship which, so far as my experience goes, is
always prevalent whenever Frenchmen and Americans are gathered
together.

At the _ordinaire_, at supper-time, we saw all of the _eleve-pilotes_
of the school, with the exception of the non-commissioned officers,
who have their own mess. To Drew and me, but newly come from remote
America, it was a most interesting gathering. There were about one
hundred and twenty-five in all, including eighteen Americans. The
large majority of the Frenchmen had already been at the front in other
branches of army service. There were artillerymen, infantrymen,
marines,--in training for the naval air-service,--cavalrymen, all
wearing the uniforms of the arm to which they originally belonged. No
one was dressed in a uniform which distinguished him as an aviator