The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pursuit

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Title: Pursuit

Author: Andrew A. Caffrey

Release date: May 13, 2025 [eBook #76083]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1929

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PURSUIT ***

PURSUIT

By Andrew A. Caffrey

A tale of the American “Balloon Strafers”

When headquarters separated Jack Langdon from his pursuit group and sent him to fly two-seaters, headquarters came very close to breaking a stout flying heart. For Langdon, there was nothing to do but pack and go; anything in the way of protest would have netted him nothing, besides being very bad taste. Nevertheless, between high dudgeon and low spirits, the boy hovered and suffered for days.

Flying chasse—pursuit—was the holding of all that war could give. But piloting a two-seater—any two-seater was just plain hell. You would not ask an Oldfield or a De Palma to drive a ten ton truck, and expect him to like it, would you? Nor would you detail Sande to ride a mechanical nag. Well, Langdon was to air what these others are, or were, to track and turf; and that, thoughtless headquarters should have known. But this same headquarters—Air Service, S.O.S. Tours—was no respecter of individuals. If the observation outfits were short of men, there was only one place to get them—from pursuit.

Langdon, when the ax fell, was at Issoudun’s last instruction field—the combat school—Field No. 8. Another day or two and he would have been safe.

“Now, look here, Langdon,” the officer in charge of flying at No. 8 had said, when the boy was called upon the carpet and assigned to report at Romorantin for De Havilland training. “We don’t want you to go out of this field tonight feeling rocky against us. We’re not discriminating. Tours called for five. There were only five of you ready to shove off. It’s tough; it’s rough; it’s rotten. You’ve put everything on the ball. You’re an A-1 chasse flyer, and the best hand with a machine gun we’ve ever turned out. The game was made for you, and nobody hates worse than we do to see you leaving pursuit.”

“That’s all right, Captain,” Langdon had said. “You’ve been white to me here at No. 8; she’s a bon school. But—and pin this in your hat—I’m not quitting pursuit. They can send me to the two-place hacks, but they can’t make me do two-place missions.

“I’m a pursuit man, and no matter where they sink me, I’ll still be a pursuit flyer. They can anchor me to an observation balloon’s cable, or put me on the business end of a shovel, but as long as I have life in me, I’ll fight this war a la chasse—right on the other guy’s tail.”

Late that night Langdon and his four fellow travelers detrained at Romorantin. Romo’, along with its many other things of air, was the first European home of the American made De Havilland plane. Langdon had only seen one of these big ships before—big to scout flyers. That was when Lieutenant Rube Williamson had flown the first DH from Romo’ to Field 8.

“Oh, these big crates are all right, I guess,” Rube had told the gang. “But a DH is a DH, and can never be a chasse machine, you know. No matter how you figure, bunch, a ten ton truck is a ten ton truck and, if the truth must be known, that’s how these DH babies handle—like heavy duty trucks on old rubber. They’ve got lotsa power, but little pep; and less of that old maneuverability stuff than an Otis elevator. But let me tell you, cadets, when the nose of this hack gets away from you, it’d shame an elevator with the cables cut. Whew! They’re planting them every day at Romo’.”

At Romo’, Langdon and his mates reported for DH instruction.

“Are these DH’s bad?”

The instructor was fast on retort.

“Boy, I’ll say they’re bad! These here culls just ain’t got no conscience a-tall, nohow. For my own part, I’m going to quit air for the Tank Corps. As a rule, when these crocks hit the sod, nothing’s above ground but the rudder, waving like a flag over a hole in the ice. I came here with ten friends. Four of them are up there on the hill—boxed.”

“Ten friends?” Langdon mused, as though this had something to do with the business at hand. “Nobody in the world has ten friends.”

“That’s how it looks to you,” the instructor answered. “Any guys that are sent up here to fly DH’s sure have no friends! And that’s why you won’t mind being bumped off ... Anyway, let’s see what you boys can do with these arks. Who’s who here? Let’s get a look at your monikers. When I call your name, step stiffly to the front, stand at rigid attention and answer—‘Here, kind sir.’ Lieutenant John J. Langdon!”

“On the job, kind sir,” the new arrival answered. “And I’m a guy as ain’t got no friends.”

“Langdon?” the instructor repeated. “I’ve heard of you, Lieutenant—never mind the salute. Weren’t you the bird who flew Major Greene from Mitchel Field clean to Hazelhurst, upside down, and told him that you were trying to get a look at your landing gear—that you thought you had blown a tire on the takeoff?”

“The same dizzy guy,” Langdon said. “And wasn’t it strange? I couldn’t get a look at those wheels; and that was why I flew the major all the way back to Mitchel in the same way, upside down. Till I’d tried it, you couldn’t tell me that a pilot wouldn’t see the bottom of his plane by turning the bottom up. Is it not all strange, kind sir?”

“It sure is,” the instructor agreed. “But lend an ear, Lieutenant. We have a commanding officer here who likes to ride in DH’s. One of these days I’ll manage to get you and him in the air in the same ship. Do you begin to see light?”

“That’s one of my worst troubles, kind sir. My eyes take in too much light. The docs have a fancy name for it. But, anyway, it causes me to see—or think I see—fun in things that strike others as being drab. For instance, after that flight at Mitchel, Major Greene said that it was his first trip in the air.”

“And the records,” the instructor smiled, “prove that it was his last. Now, ten years later, the record still stands.”

After one turn of the field with Langdon on the controls, the instructor gave him an O.K. He simply said, as he stepped from the plane:

“You’re jake, Lieutenant, but if I were you, I wouldn’t land these DH’s out of a loop like that. Hell, Langdon, life’s sweet, even at an observation school. Come on now, go on living. Maybe you’ll get a shipment back to chasse. Others have done it, and the war is young. You know your air, and that’s no small item. But the good ones, Langdon, are the ones we pack in large boxes. And the other kind, damn ’em, we can’t get rid of. You know, there are observers here, Langdon, who just won’t qualify. They’re afraid of the Front and won’t leave Romo’. And just so long as their observation work is below grade, we can’t ship them out. What’s the use? They wouldn’t be worth a damn to any squadron....

“Now, just a minute. A mighty thought strikes me. Langdon, I’m going to put some of these dumb johns behind you. Maybe you can show them their objective. If you’ll fly ’em the way you just flew me, the Front will look like an old ladies’ home to the most timid of these goldbricks. Oh, just one more word before you take off. Don’t fly as close to other planes as you flew to that one a little while ago. That was Colonel Kingsley. He’s from Tours. Man, you were too near.”

“That was all right,” Langdon assured the instructor. “I wasn’t trying to pull anything fast. I just wanted to learn something. You see, I’m accustomed to flying rotary motors with propellers turning at about 1400 revs. Well, this Liberty was doing about 1700 revs per minute and I just wanted to get a peek at that other bird’s instrument board. It was all right; his was turning the same. But 1700 r.p.m. seemed mighty fast.”

“Hell!” the instructor said. “I hope your clock never stops, or you might try to get a peek at some other pilot’s wrist watch. But go ahead, take off. See you later ... We’re going to like each other, Langdon.”

With a full tank, good for four hours’ flight, the new DH pilot went back into the sky. Off toward Vierzon, at sunset, he spotted something that made his heart glad. There, with about twenty thousand feet under them, was a Nieuport “27” patrol, from Field 8. He knew that they were from No. 8 because, coming in close, all five Nieuports revealed ship numbers with which he was familiar. All of them were students; not an instructor’s ship was among the lot.

Langdon felt fine. He climbed on the front man’s tail, broke the formation and tried to induce the bird to go “round and round”. The lead man was not looking for combat with a DH. He went into a dive and waved Langdon away. But the merry one followed. Then, with his power running wild, the retreating Nieuport flyer burned out his rotary engine. Langdon saw the propeller stop. Then he leveled off and started to climb back to the rest of the flight. A man with a dead engine is no man at all.

One of the remaining four, when Langdon closed down on their rear again, deliberately killed his motor and went into a spin. The other three, somewhat bewildered, remained to mill a bit. But when Langdon’s propeller came near to biting chips out of one of their rudders, that Nieuport also called it a day. Enough is enough. Langdon saw the machine start down for a landing.

Jack Langdon had discovered something. What had started as fun, took on the magnitude of worthwhile research. He had learned that a DH, rightly flown, could combat—could go round and round—with a chasse plane.

The remaining two Field No. 8 ships had followed their disabled mates to earth. Jack Langdon hung around to make sure that five safe landings had been made; then he laughed, sang a bit and looked about for new worlds to conquer.

West of Bourges, he found a Farman “pusher” from the French school at Châteauroux. It was drifting along at eight thousand feet. Langdon came up from the rear and had his left wingtip nestled in close to the Frenchman’s outriggers, before the Châteauroux flyer noticed that he was not alone. Then a badly frightened face under a large crash helmet stared, wild eyed, across that short space. Langdon’s heart skipped a beat with the shock. The face under the helmet was a boy’s.

“You damn’ bully,” Jack Langdon said to himself. “Get t’hell gone from here before you scare this game little frog to death.”

He throttled his power, dropped his right wing and slipped away from the Farman. Then he turned back, headed into the last rays of the sun and cut for Romo’. There was joy in his heart, and he was making himself all kinds of fine promises.

These DH’s, he decided, were not the poorest things in the air, and if a young fellow were to apply his best talents— Well, chances were, he could manage to make himself felt.

“Yes, sir,” he said, talking aloud. “I’ll talk with the riggers. See what they think about washing some of the incidence out of these wings. Bet with the outer wing bays washed flat, there’d be no drag and the old crate would swing around on a dollar. And that will speed her up a lot, too. No question at all. If we flatten these surfaces out, we’ll add eight to ten miles per hour. What can be done, is going to be done, or I’m a wet bird. In the meantime, unless they put the screws on me, I’ll combat everything that flies in this neck of the tall timber.”

Early the next day, though, they did climb Langdon’s frame. They climbed him twice. Once on account of the complaint that Field No. 8 sent through from Issoudun; again because of a wail that came up from Châteauroux.

“I don’t blame the French kid in the hayrack Farman,” Langdon told the officer in charge of flying, upon whose carpet he was arraigned. “But those dudes from No. 8 should hang their heads in shame. The idea of refusing combat with a DH! Those five birds should be forced to stand a court-martial, sir. Why not make this an issue, sir?”

“By hell, Lieutenant, there’s food for thought there! But look here, Langdon—be careful not to climb any of these two-place Sopwiths that you see fluttering around here; any Sops, Avros or Caudrons. They’re always full of fat majors and lean colonels, to say nothing of a few supernumerary generals of sundry ranks. And if you ride any of them, the war ends for you. We have one cadet in the guard house now. He dared to come in with a dead stick when a major was trying to take off.”

“Well, what the hell should he have done?” Langdon asked. “Stay up there with a dead motor till the major decided to take off?”

“That was the cadet’s problem,” the officer in charge of flying stated. “And he didn’t get the right answer. The major gave his own ship the gun and crashed into the cadet’s plane. Don’t you work up any problems here, Langdon, unless you can see the solution beforehand. A pilot in the guardhouse is no flyer at all.”

“I’m immune, sir. You know how blacksmiths and guardhouse keepers laugh at love, or something like that? Well, I’ve fallen in love with DH’s. That’s strange, I know; but it’s a fact. Me and the DH’s are getting together, and we’re going some place.”

“I’ll give you a push toward the Front, Langdon, as soon as I see a chance. Now get into the air and pile up as many hours as you can. That’s what counts. These forty and fifty hour pilots are not lasting long on the Front.”

“I’ve had two hundred hours, sir, and I’m ripe for the bow. All my old bunch are fighting the Battle of Paris right now, and here am I poling DH’s for the everlasting glory of the S.O.S. The thing ain’t right, sir, no matter how you figure.”

During the day he flew different missions with two of the instructor’s worst goldbricking observers. Each time Langdon arrived over the practice objective—Neung, Orleans, Chinon, Blois—he would yell back—

“Do you get it?”

“Too high,” the student observer would invariably sing out. And, as a rule, the approach altitude would be above fifteen thousand feet. “Too high, Lieutenant.”

“Hold everything! We’ll fix that all right,” Langdon would assure the victim. Then he would put the rambling DH into a tight power spin and cut down the altitude so fast that no rear seat observer would care to be present a second time. Or, if he did not spin, he would execute a vertical sideslip that, by rights, belonged to much smaller and trimmer craft. At any rate, each man he took up finished his observation class in one quick lesson. The unfortunate goldbrick would come back to Romo’, pea green and dead eyed.

“Can he fly?” these boys who had liked Romo’ so well would say. “Can he! Oh, hell, give me air.”

But no more air with Langdon. Within the week, he had every goldbrick off the instructor’s hands.

“But I don’t want you to get too good, Langdon,” the instructor would warn. “They’ll keep you right here for the duration if you do. Then you’ll have to pull something raw to get moved. For instance, stop rolling your wheels across the shop roofs. You think they don’t see it, but the headquarters gang have been watching you. You know how they like to be entertained. Don’t show ’em anything. But here’s good news:

“I’ve got you lined up for a mission to Paris. You’re going to lead a ferrying group close to the big town and deliver ten DH’s for Front line squadrons. No, you don’t get a smell of the Front. Your mission ends when you deliver the ferry at Orly. But you’re going to get a chance to oo-la-la, kid.”

“Strange, but that leaves me cold,” Langdon replied. “I don’t want to fight that Guerre de Paree till after I’ve won the right to spread my line on the boulevards. Then I’ll strut. And don’t think that I don’t want to. Boy, I’m saving up for the biggest pair of chest wings that’s ever been worn on a Yank blouse. And that’s some big. And I’ve got me a swagger stick, too. It has a spark plug in the end of it, and a machine gun cartridge on the tip. You see, I’m a regulation Yank. All set and a-rarin’ to go—when the right time comes. Yes, sir, Paris is going to sit up and rub a pair of bleary eyes. Yankee Doodle’s going to ride right into town and on the make, too.

“But how about giving me a final lâche and kicking one bon pilote toward the Promised Land?”

“No can do right now, Langdon. But I’ll tell you what might be done. If a call for DH men comes down the line while you’re up Orly way, I’ll get a wire to you there and have your orders sent along. If you’re traveling light, take your personal junk by air on the ferry trip.”

“I’ll do that,” Langdon said. “The other pair of socks won’t be any kind of a load for a DH’s observation pit. When do I head this ferry?”

“Tomorrow. That is, if the new planes are all assembled by that time. They’re all on the floor in final assembly now. In the meantime, be a good guy, Langdon. Watch your step. And if you run across any Issoudun Nieuports, Spads or Morane Saulniers—well, snub the whole gang. What’s a bunch of chasse pilots to a guy who can do his chasse in a DH? Stick to your class, kid.”

“Damn’ tootin’!” Langdon said, and went out to fly—and snub everything on wings.

At 2 p.m, the next day, Langdon stood in the cockpit of the point DH of a grounded V of ten such planes. The nine who were to follow him were, to a man, of Langdon’s type, eager for anything, and anxious to get under way on this cross country hop. Cross country flying, at that time, rated high among the glories that went to make the romance of air. It was all adventure. Impatiently, the waiting nine goosed their motors and watched for the second when Langdon’s hand should fall. At 2:05, the leader slid into his seat, cracked his throttle, lifted his tail and took off. Two by two, in an ever mounting cloud of dust, the others took up the slack, filled in on Langdon’s rear and roared into flight. A turn of the field, and the shabby V formation went into the north. All ten did not get to Orly that day. Langdon watched three of the boys make safe landings with dead, or dying, motors, at Neuville, Etampes and Juvisy.

“Guess that’s all right by me,” he mused, after he and the others had circled about the unfortunate each time. “Those boys either had motor trouble or they know chickens in these towns. If it’s motor trouble, it’s common and unavoidable; and if it’s chicken, it’s class and pour d’honneur d’Air Service d’Ame-rique. And either way, or both, I’m for ’em. Just three little jobs for Field Service; and Field Service must have something to do.”

Through benefit of Field Service they were all at Orly next noon.

“I’m going to hold you boys here for a few days,” the commanding officer said when they reported for return railroad transportation. “We expect to have a flock of ships going back to Romo’ for repair. And you’re the men to ferry them. Enjoy yourselves.

“How’re you boys fixed for francs?” And the commanding officer, who was young himself once, smiled.

On the second day of their lay-over, orders for the Front came through for Langdon and two of his ferry mates. A Roman holiday was held, and the three borrowed scout planes to celebrate. Langdon flew his through the Arche de Triomphe at high noon, wearing a high hat. He got away with it, and nothing much was said.

“But,” the Orly flying officer reminded him, “you’d have rotted in Prison Camp No. 2 had things been messed up in the Place de l’Arche de Triomphe.”

“Ain’t it the truth, sir?” Langdon had agreed. “Nowadays failure doesn’t pay. Yes, sir, a guy’s crazy to slip up.”

“Tomorrow, Lieutenant Langdon, “the Orly official went on, “you three transfers, with you in charge, will ferry three of these new DH’s up to the Trente-Neuf squadron’s ’drome. You’ll get their location last thing before taking off. It’s an American group in an American sector—a sector all bought and paid for. Major John Mack’s in charge up there. Boy, you’re in luck—drawing a C O. like Mack. He’s one of the gang and actually flies. Pilots from the front seat too, and without a second lieutenant hidden away on the rear controls. Give the major a hello for me, Lieutenant. Get the numbers on those three ships and look ’em over. If you want anything around here, ask for it—and see if you get it! Or if you want anything, take it—and see if we care!”

The next day was fine. It was life’s rosiest for three willing Yanks. Birds were singing, poppies blowing and the skies were high and clear.

“Follow me,” Langdon said.

The ferry up was without event; and the Trente-Neuf’s ’drome was where a blind man could find it. Later, Langdon and his mates were to learn that German airmen also located the place without much trouble.

“You boys,” Major Mack said, “can see the highway commissioner and take out registration papers on those machines you ferried up. We’ve lost a few men in the past week—flu, you know—and it won’t be many hours before you’re out on your own. The Trente-Neuf welcomes you. It isn’t much of a name, but the outfit’s top-notch. Also, remember it’s your home; and a home’s what you make it—between drinks. And right now and here—no drinking, boys, except at mess and between meals.

“Look around now. Get to know the mechanics. Treat ’em right—the mechanics—and they’ll treat you right. Don’t ever forget to remember that air battles are won on the ground. You know, they say a celebrity is only a dub to his valet. That’s the way up here. A cocky pilot finishes fast and quick on these strange airways. I know because I’ve lost several pilots in battle who were never game enough to get out of the weeds. Why, to get them, an enemy pilot would have to use telepathy.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, boys, and report for mess in clothes. That’s all the orders we have here. If you salute me, I’ll credit you with a gold star. If you don’t salute me, I’ll never hold it against you. This old uniform of mine is a disgraceful affair and by all rights does not rate a salaam. Go; come when you’re in trouble.”

The three saluted us though it were a pleasure, and went out.

“If the Trente-Neuf is like its C.O,” Langdon said to his flying mates, “this dump’s going to be a home. Guess we can work here.”

For anybody looking for work, the place could supply the limit. Having heard that the air branch was the eyes of the Army, the Artillery, Infantry—and even the Medical Corps, through force of bad habit—were incessantly asking for observations. They did not care much what was observed, but they liked to keep the Air Service in hot water. These old line branches know how easy it is to loaf when it rains, or the fog gets too heavy; so they figure that, being the highest branch of the Service, aviation should do its stuff while others sleep. And the young branch, extending itself to the limit, made those observations; flew when flying was out of the question, and sacrificed men when men were scarce.

That evening, by low candles in the Trente-Neuf’s mess, Langdon and his two mates met the outfit. Except for one, it was easy to know. That one, Lieutenant Charles Mudd, F.F.V., A.S., U.S.R., was hard for Langdon to meet because he had met him before.

F.F.V. Mudd and Langdon had both been assigned to the 10th Aero Squadron for shipment overseas. Together, at Mitchel Field, they had reported in to the 10th’s old topkick, Sergeant Benton; and upon reporting, when the 10th’s C.O. was absent, the Old Man had had them sign the register. Langdon had signed first, and in a self-conscious way.

“Put down your rank, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Dad Benton had said. “There’s no misters in this man’s Army. Put down your ‘Lieutenant, First’, and your ‘A.S., U.S.R’.”

Next, Lieutenant Mudd signed. But first he found a resting place for his swagger stick, and deposited his gold tipped cigaret on the edge of Dad’s blotter. And when that baby signed, he signed—and how!

“First Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd, F.F.V., A.S., U.S.R.”

“What the hell’s all this ‘F.F.V.’ stuff?” the old sergeant quizzed.

“That, suh, is, First Families of Virginia,” Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd answered.

Of course, his tone of voice was the tone that should be used when a lieutenant speaks to an enlisted man. And it went just about as far as the talk of a lieutenant usually goes with an enlisted man. The old sergeant, with a stroke of the broad pen, struck out the F.F.V.

“There are no F.F.V’s in this man’s Army, Lieutenant Mudd.”

Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd stepped back. His pale face grew even paler. The sensitive lips and chin quivered, and the flesh above his knees prickled within their well tailored confines. His breath came hard, his eyes flooded, then the proud youth fell to chewing his lower lip. The Army, uncouth thing that it is, had taken him for another ride.

Finally, deciding against mixing with a lowly sergeant, Lieutenant Mudd retrieved his swagger stick and cigaret, and strode to the door. He hesitated upon the threshold long enough to say—

“I’ll report this, Sawgent.”

“Report and be damned,” the old topkick mused, and closed the register.

More than a quarter of a century in the service of Uncle Sam had placed Sergeant Dad Benton in a position where lieutenants, and even higher rankers, were of no more importance than the most lowly 10th Aero buck. With the ever expanding bubble that was the war of T7, wise heads of Dad’s caliber were only too few. Newly made captains, suddenly advanced majors and dizzy colonels came hurriedly into the old man’s council to ascertain just what gentlemen of their rank should do under this, that and the other condition. And they got their answers.

“You’ll find the answer to that, sir,” the old man would say, after twisting his long mustaches for maybe as much as ten seconds, “on page so and so, paragraph this or that in your Blue Book.”

And how any man, even in twenty-seven years, could memorize—page and paragraph—as large a volume as Army Regulations, is beyond the understanding of one who could never remember which of two was the right foot.

So you can see, First Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd’s report, if made, caused no ripple on the already troubled waters of Mitchel Field. And Mudd’s report, very likely, was turned in because, in the several weeks of his stay with the 10th, the lieutenant was hard to get along with. He wanted salutes from the enlisted men. Enlisted men, though, seldom salute those who fail to command their spontaneous respect; and Mudd was out of luck.

Shortly after the 10th’s arrival upon an active field in France, a plane crew sent Mudd into the air with an almost empty gasoline tank, two flying-wire turnbuckles unsafetied and a landing gear wheel loosed and ready to fall off. When the motor died at five thousand feet, Mudd came down for a landing. When he hit the ground, the right wheel bounced through his lower off-side wing and went places. The small pursuit plane, a Nieuport 27, with one wheel missing, somersaulted three times, by the count, and Mudd came up from the wreckage like an angry hen from a messed up nest. Shades of Southern hospitality and gentility! What a yell went up!

However, the 10th Aero was a good outfit. It was also a mighty useful outfit and had an important top sergeant in its orderly room.

“The whole damn’ affair must have been just an accident,” Dad Benton convinced the benzine board appointed to smell into Mudd’s rotten charges. “Why, these 10th boys are worked to death. Sixty-odd pursuit planes in the air for five periods a day. Of course now and then something is going to go wrong.”

The benzine board made its report. Headquarters made a move. Mudd was the pawn. And because the 10th gang ran with every other gang at Issoudun’s many fields, headquarters made the move big enough to put Mudd out of danger for all time. He, First Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd, F.F.V., was sent to observation, away from Issoudun.

Now, with the Trente-Neuf, Langdon and Mudd were in the same outfit once again.

“How are they breaking, F.F.V?” Langdon asked.

Mudd gazed through Langdon and went to his place at table. A quiver of anticipation went through the room. And that told Langdon that Lieutenant Mudd had not changed one whit.

“You’ll remember, Lieutenant Langdon,” Mudd said, when he was seated, “my Army salutation is Lieutenant Mudd.”

“The hell you tell!” Langdon smiled. “Where at is your F.F.V., Charles?”

Mudd gave his attention to the meal. The table tried hard to smother its mirth, and Langdon explained—

“Lieutenant Mudd and I made our transport with the same outfit, attached to the 10th Aero—”

“The swine!” Mudd snarled.

“The best damn’ air unit in France,” Langdon said. “That is, with the exception of the Trente-Neuf.”

“That’s the spirit, Lieutenant Langdon!” Major Mack cheered from his end of the long table. “The old outfit is always good, but the new outfit, to be an outfit, must always be the outfit ... stand, devils— To the Trente-Neuf!”

“This Trente-Neuf,” a man at Langdon’s right said, after the toast, “is a jake outfit, Langdon. There’s only one thing wrong with it.”

He stopped talking and stared at Mudd.

“There was only one thing wrong with the 10th,” Langdon told the man, “and it was the same thing. An outfit’s mistakes are its own, and the unpardonable mistake is the mistake made when an outfit makes the mistake of not rectifying its mistakes. Am I right?”

“No mistake,” the other agreed.

Next morning, Langdon went out on his first mission behind Mudd. That is, because of seniority, F.F.V. was in the front plane of a three ship flight. Now, this thing of following F.F.V. Mudd was not the worst medicine on earth, and Langdon had no kick coming. Mudd was a flying man, and that seems strange. None, no matter what his idea of manhood, could ever deny Mudd his place in air, and for more than two months now, he had been taking missions out and, what was more important, he was bringing them back. Maybe that was why the Trente-Neuf had not taken steps to clean up this one mistake.

Mudd was one of those conscientious flight leaders who gave flying orders like a pedagogue and then expected every man to do his duty. There was no fun to be found behind him. The objective was the objective, and not fun. His unit took no long chances. If enemy planes were above, Mudd toured all France on their four hour DH tanks, then came back. Came back, got the pictures or observations, and went hell bent for home. A pilot might just as well have been touring France with the “Y”. And on more than one occasion, he had been told so; but not by Major Mack. No matter what the major might have thought personally, he stood firmly behind Mudd because of results shown. The business of an observation squadron is observation. Let the pursuit groups do the combat stuff.

This first Front line flight of Langdon’s was the quietest thing imaginable. Not an enemy craft crossed their skies. He wondered where these comebacks from the Front got all their stuff about dog fights, painted circuses and German infested ceilings. And as he followed Mudd, above territory that should have been bad, he recalled what Rube Williamson had told them, back at Issoudun.

“Hun planes! Never saw a single Hun plane in two weeks’ flying. Maybe they’re there for some, but they were not there for me.” And now they were not there for Langdon.

At the end of the eastward mission, Mudd, with the observations on the cuff, signaled for a turn and back home push. Then, for about ten minutes, Langdon kept the other two planes close in where they belonged and began to look about to see what he could see. They came above a road that was jammed with the properties of Germany’s late summer try. Without a great deal of thought, Langdon parted company, dropped down from Mudd’s six thousand feet elevation and went to strafing the enemy activities.

It was fun. It was war. It was more like it. He turned to his observer—a Lieutenant Akeley—and winked. Akeley stood up on his stool, bent over Langdon’s shoulder, and yelled:

“Go back and give ’em hell! When you come in above that little burg where they were eating—where all the smoke was—sideslip and let me get a crack at ’em with my gun. Hop to it!”

Langdon looked for his two companion planes. Mudd and the other had gone ahead. For a moment he might have hesitated. This thing of pulling a private strafe while detailed on a mission would not be considered exactly good. But being a strong youth, Langdon weakened. He flew a turn and went back along the German supply road.

Where he found the field kitchens smoking, Langdon climbed to about five hundred feet. From that altitude, with the nose of his plane high, he slipped right and gave Akeley his chance with the rear gun. At the same time, watching his slip, he also watched Akeley and cheered the gunner above the roar of slipping struts and wires. At a hundred feet or less, he kicked out of the slip, redressed his ship, whaled full motor to the craft and flew across the concentration of troops—and through a hail of rifle fire ... Akeley went back to the Trente-Neuf a corpse in Langdon’s rear pit.

At sunset, Jack Langdon sat upon his heels before a hangar, smoked, and tried to figure out the whole thing. Within the hangar at his back, under a tarpaulin, was the quiet Akeley. A short distance away, where the sun’s light was yet available, Trente-Neuf mechanics worked at patching thirty-seven holes in Langdon’s DH. The mechanics talked and wondered why that new bird, Langdon, did not get bumped too.

Within his quarters, till the evening’s dusk gave way to dark, Lieutenant Mudd, martinet at heart, worked assiduously upon his report. He missed supper in its completion; then with the several pages in hand, the conscientious one straightened his blouse, put a rag to his boots, strapped on his Sam Browne and went toward Major Mack’s room. On the way, Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd detoured only once, and this detour sent him past the enlisted men’s quarters where the loungers were forced to snap into it and deliver the salute.

“Too bad, Lieutenant Mudd,” Mack said as he received the report. “Hell, I liked Akeley. We’ll miss him. The whole Trente-Neuf will miss his mandolin of evenings.”

“It was murder!” Mudd snarled. “This man Langdon— It was murder, sir!”

“But Sergeant Rictor—” the armorer of the Trente-Neuf—“reported that Bob had fired several hundred rounds. His gun was still warm when Lieutenant Langdon returned,” Major Mack protested. “And you know Bob Akeley, Lieutenant. If he had a chance to go out like that, in action, why, the boy was at a feast with a fork in each hand.”

This glorification of personal thrill was not for Mudd. Wordless, white and a-tremble, he weaved on the threshold and tried again and again for words. In the end, he said:

“You have my full report, sir. A flight leader must have unbending discipline, sir.”

Major Mack walked toward the window. Then, because there was nothing else he could do, he walked back.

“Lieutenant Mudd,” he said. “Send Lieutenant Langdon to me.”

Major Mack was still pacing when Langdon knocked, came in and reported. The Major eyed the pilot and paced once more to the east window, then he paced back and eyed Langdon once more.

“What have you got to say, Lieutenant?” the superior finally asked.

“Not a word, sir.” Langdon fought hard to swallow his grief. “I know I’ve pulled a star boner. Guess I’ve had my war—been hired, fed and fired all in a day, sir.”

“Whose idea was it, Langdon?”

“Mine, sir. As yet, I can’t always remember that I have another man behind me. Observers weren’t in my first schooling, sir.”

“Even if the thing were excusable, Lieutenant, you should have asked Akeley what he thought of the plan.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe you did.”

“No, sir. I just got the idea that I could do damage on that road, so I shoved down the nose and went. Then we got together, Akeley and I. He said—“‘Go back and give ’em hell!’ And we went.”

“I thought that was it!” Major Mack smiled. “Langdon, ever since Bob Akeley came to this squadron, at least twice a day he’s been in here trying to talk me into turning the squadron to pursuit. Of course we can’t sanction such doings, Langdon. And for my own part, I wouldn’t pull such a strafe. No, I’m a little too old and slow on the controls. You see, I like to have a little more space between my wheels and the ground. But I’m not so old as to be unable to appreciate the finesse of the thing and, Lieutenant, if we could roll back time, and circumstance would place Langdon in Mack’s place, and Mack in Langdon’s— Well, that road would have been strafed today. Maybe not as good, but after a fashion at least.

“Now, Lieutenant, I’m neither going to call out a firing squad nor mark you on the ground. Between you and me, aviation, as the eyes of artillery, doesn’t carry even the weight of a good joke. I’m an old artillerist myself, Langdon, and I know. So if we can wage any kind of a war of our own, I’m not going to stand in the way of progress. You understand, Langdon, I am not authorizing, sanctioning or legalizing future side trips; but in your own right, you are in command of one ship while off the ground. Orders, the best orders ever made, were only made to be broken. And so long as they are broken without going into the red, when it’s all over, there’s no kick coming. In other and fewer words—be sure you’re right, then go ahead and don’t slip up. The quick are always right in war, Langdon. But it is far better that the quick be dead than be wrong.

“Now, there’s one observer in the Trente-Neuf with whom I want you to become well acquainted. It is Lieutenant Samter. Samter, during such times as Bob Akeley wasn’t pestering me, has spent much wind trying to show me where and how this outfit might run up a big record in combat victories. He’s of the opinion that an observer should only observe when there’s no fighting to be done. And he can do things with that rear machine gun, Langdon. Sergeant Rictor tells me that Samter has shown him more trick stuff than he’s ever seen before. And Sergeant Rictor has been an armorer for upward of fifteen years. If you and Samter find that you have much in common, come to me and we’ll talk it over. No reason at all why he shouldn’t hold down your rear stool on all flights . . . English fags, they are. Take a couple with you, Lieutenant.”

Late into that night, Langdon and Samter talked. And they discovered that they had just about everything in common, including a rotten opinion of one Charles Surry Mudd, F.F.V. Lieutenant Samter had been riding behind Mudd a great deal of late, and the war had lost its flavor.

“I’d rather hold on to the rear saddle of a motorbike with an enlisted stiff chewing hard on the handlebars,” he told Langdon. “All of the white haired boy’s good flying is wasted. And I’ll say old F.F.V. can pilot. But what’s the use of being behind him—just going the route, delivering the milk and coming home? There’s more thrill working at kitchen police where you have the ever present danger of cutting your finger while paring spuds, eh?”

“Sure,” Langdon agreed. “The C O. gave me these cigs. They’re English. Ain’t they rotten, what?”

“I wouldn’t walk a mile,” Samter answered, “unless it was to get away from such smokes.”

The next day it rained and the new team worked ship. Langdon and the Trente-Neuf’s head rigger washed out the outer bays of all four wings. Also they took out one of each pair of outside flying wires.

“They don’t need all these wires,” the rigger agreed. “Each one of these cables has a breaking strength of more than two thousand pounds. When would you ever get such a load on a wing? Same way with the landing gear. You know how to set these babies down, Lieutenant. I watched you when you brought Akeley in yesterday. You wouldn’t have broken an egg, so we’ll pull out all the extras and that will help to speed the crate up too.

“We’ll do some streamlining on her, too. I’m glad to get a chance to see what can be done about pepping up a DH. I always argued that something could be done. They ain’t such dead culls. They’ll maneuver if you’ll help ’em.”

Samter and Rictor put hour after hour on the two guns. That DH had surely fallen into good hands. Toward the end of day they flushed the water radiator, drained the old and refilled with new motor oil, cleaned ignition heads, and the ship was set. Then they prayed for a morrow full of flying weather.

Next morning, September the twenty-third, Langdon and Samter mooched their way into a real melee above the road from La Harazee, where the 77th Division was convoying guns through to the Bois des Hautes Batis. That fight, by rights, belonged to the pursuit gang. It was no place for a DH. But when Langdon and Samter pulled out, they had done damage enough to justify a bid for confirmation on two enemy planes. Their ship had been hit seven times, and Samter once. But his was just a minor rap, only a little job for the squadron doctor.

On the day following, the two wild men accounted for three of eight German observation balloons that had hung above the main road through the Vesle. And Langdon and Samter were beginning their traditional climb toward lasting air fame.

On October the thirteenth, divisional headquarters called for a rock bound verification on all observations covering that tough stretch of road between Grand Pre and St. Juvin. It had been a hard line to bend—that German stronghold along the northern bank of the Aire: but now, one way or the other, it was not only going to be bent, but broken—and completely.

Mudd, with four following ships, and covered from above by twelve pursuit planes, went out to do the job. They were nearly above Grand Pre before hell broke loose; and they were past St. Juvin and making a turnabout before the first Hun ship broke the high defense and took a DH off the Trente-Neuf’s rear.

With his remaining three, stiff lipped and obstinate, Mudd flew his turn and went down the St. Juvin-Grand Pre line for a return whirl. Then a second DH fell, and Langdon broke out with combat, quit formation, and won another Boche ship from the milling group.

Lieutenant Charles Surry Mudd worked long and late upon another report. Then Major Mack paced late and long into the night and tried hard to be a good fellow and, at the same time, a good soldier. Which is a thing well nigh impossible. In the end, he called all six who had returned. All of Mudd’s five companions, including Mudd’s own observer, swore by all that might have been holy that Langdon, in quitting formation and taking on combat, had only done so to cover the successful retreat of the camera planes. And Charles Surry, F.F.V., went into the night talking to himself and kicking stones. That war was a war for him.

Langdon and Samter, listening to the guns that were pouring it into Grand Pre and the road to the east, waited impatiently for the morrow.

“This damn’ swagger stick dude of a muddy Mudd!” Samter said from his shakedown. “If the simple minded, simpering juvenile does anything more to tear down our meat house, Jack, I’ll work him over with a prop wrench on my own time. Reports for the major! He’ll make one more report to the Old Man and I’ll land on him so hard that his brains, if any, will detonate and blow some he-man color into his insipid map.

“F.F.V.—Far From Vodka, Finest Fish Vender, Faint Falsetto Voice—I’ll F.F.V. the white haired, white livered rat!”

“Check—a madman,” Langdon laughed. “Roll over, Samter, and tear off some sleep. Charles F.F.V. is the least of our many worries. And he’s a good enough gun. One Wing. The only thing is, you and I are fighting a different war. On the level, Mudd’s scrap is gamer than ours. His is an impersonal guerre; and he doesn’t even keep a diary.”

“A good drunk is what Mudd needs,” Samter decided. “A trip to town, a big town, a good drunk and—”

“That’s a two or three motored ship, and she’s mighty close,” Langdon said, as they caught the throb and pump of a night flyer. “Wish we were doing night missions, too.”

“Ambitious guy,” Samter said to his inflated pillow. “When would Mudd find time to write lengthy reports?”

“It really doesn’t make much difference,” Langdon said to his blanket, “because nobody ever reads them anyway.”

During the following days, as the line pushed up through Champigneulle, St. Georges, Alliepont and on to Verpel, the two wild men, for the greater part, went it alone. Major Mack heard Mudd’s bleat often, but the major was too busy to bother himself with such minor distractions. This war was what men like Mack had lived a life for. Mudd could not be expected to sec this; and Mack made no effort toward proselyting F.F.V’s conversion to the cause of Langdon, Samter—and, if the truth must be known, Mack.

The Major was on the wing a great deal during those busy days. With his own eyes, he saw Langdon knock an enemy craft out of the skies behind Buzancy, and follow a second out of sight toward Stonne and the Meuse.

“Yes, sir,” Major Mack told Mudd upon his return to the ’drome. “That heller of a Langdon went down on a Fokker. And when the Hun fell into a spin, after Langdon’s first burst, the kid sideslipped right with him and Samter poured his load from the rear gun. They had the poor devil burning through the last two thousand feet. The second plane they picked on was doing observations near Harricourt.”

“But it’s not consistent, sir!” Lieutenant Mudd insisted.

“But hell, Lieutenant,” Mack said, “it is strictly American, you know. And when we take this out of the Yank youth, we’re eternally lost.”

So Major Mack continued to make allowances for one of his planes which had no more right in an observation outfit, than has a free balloon in a pursuit squadron.

On the third of November Langdon got a German ship which was busily strafing roads near Authe; and on the fourth he accounted for a like worker near Oches.

“The damn’ gorillas—strafing our troops!” he said to Samter, as they regassed their ship at ten o’clock that morning.

Then, reserviced, the two went directly into the air and strafed roads as far back as La Neuville and Raucourt.

In his own way, Mudd was making history through the long hours of those crowded days. Time and again, even with his overhead defense shot to pieces, he made requested observations along the Meuse. He located ambushes near La Bessage and Le Vivier and dropped warning notes to the infantry. On a hill above a graveyard in Raucourt, there was a machine gun and anti-aircraft nest. Mudd wiped it out. Twice in four days he brought dead observers home in his rear pit. And on one of those trips he had landed his burning plane on the long hillside slope before Champigneulle.

“But why the hell doesn’t he stay and fight?” Samter argued. “Every slug hole in his linen is frayed to the front. Dead observers are of no use to anybody. They’re not worth a dollar a thousand ... Langdon, if I ever see a slug coming into the rear of your crate, I’ll spray you with my own gun just to teach you a lesson.”

“And I’ll pile you up surer’n hell if you do!” Langdon promised.

There was no freebooting on the seventh. Artillery and infantry wanted to learn all there was to be known of the bridges on, and the terrain adjacent, the Meuse. Headquarters told the Trente-Neuf to “go get it”. And, behind Mudd, Langdon and four other pilots—three of them green—took off.

At Villers Devant Mouzon, a detachment of engineers were doing their best to throw a path across the Meuse. The German machine gun nests and snipers were making of the job a nasty detail, till Mudd’s flight put an end to those ambushes.

At Remilly, a like detachment was having a still harder time. And the covering aerial defense was no enviable task. Before the first four hour patrol had ended, two of Mudd’s new men had limped back to the ’drome with motor trouble, and one had been driven down a few kilometers east of the river by an enemy pursuit plane. Mudd and Langdon, close at hand, had seen that Trente-Neuf pilot burn his ship before he was taken prisoner by ground troops. Then, still behind the lines, the two had turned back toward the river.

There was a heavy sky that day, November 7, and anything in the way of altitude had been out of the question. But now, here and there, the blue was breaking through and showing a higher ceiling. Suddenly, out of this clearer sky, a bi-motored enemy craft crossed their line of flight. Langdon jumped it. After a few seconds of thought, outclassed by the faster Yank, the enemy ship turned east. And the eager Langdon hung on. Mudd, after a moment, followed. Samter, as Langdon came down on the big ship’s tail again, thumped Langdon on the back and pointed to Mudd.

“Old F.F.V. himself,” Samter yelled. “He’s going to pile on with us. Now there will be a war!”

But war and a personal battle were not Mudd’s concerns. Coming east from the Meuse, he had spotted two Hun pursuit planes that had seen Langdon and the bomber.

Mudd was pretty well off to the south, and the pair of single-seater Germans came down on Langdon before he could work into position. With the first burst of lead, Samter crumpled, shot through both legs. He fought to stay, clinging tenaciously to his machine gun mount. He pulled a belt from his flying suit, passed it through and around the gun scarf and worked his way to a standing position. Langdon had dived and slipped; now he zoomed and flew a wing-over. They came back under the pursuing planes—and Samter got one as they went by.

In a moment Langdon was crowding down on the bomber and single pursuit ship again. And just when he came into position, his gun jammed. The German seemed to realize his predicament; they passed the laugh from ship to ship. That was a mistake on their part; it made Langdon angry.

The speed of the chase was the speed of the big ship out front. The combat plane easily maintained a position between the pursuing DH and the huge German, thus further increasing Langdon’s rage.

For a few minutes, as they flew in line, the American thought hard. Then he gained a little altitude, and with it under him, he threw full power to his motor, went into a long dive and closed the distance between him and the pursuit plane. Before the German knew what was up, Langdon had hooked his left lower wingtip into the right side of the lighter craft. The latter’s single interwing N-strut came out, and half his lower wing went with it. That pilot was finished with the war.

But Langdon’s ship could not go through such a high speed collision without damage. He had counted on losing a few feet of wingtip. If only that much were wiped off, a pilot could carry the difference of lateral stability by using full rudder on the opposite side from the wing so damaged. Also the use of aileron would help offset the loss of wing lift. But he had lost more than was good for the wing balance of any plane. He was in a bad situation.

They had crashed at five thousand feet. Fighting to hold up the clipped lower left wing, he flew a flat turn to the right, covered a great deal of space and started back for the Meuse. But, even with full right rudder and his control stick clear to the side, he was losing altitude. He had to lose altitude in order to remain at all level. Two or three times, in the following five minutes, he came very close to falling into a spin. Each time, he dived, gained high speed and fought the craft out of its wing drag.

Here and there along the Chiers River, the anti-aircraft outfits were sending up feelers for Langdon. Even the machinegun crews were putting steel through his ship as he crossed the highest spots.

Finally he had Mairy just ahead and off to the right. It looked as though he would come to earth and pile up some place between the town and the Meuse; and as yet, the east bank of the river was in enemy hands. The war was just about over for two willing young men and....

Langdon had been watching Mairy, to his right. All of a sudden the weight came off his weak left side. He stared, full of bewilderment, for Mudd’s right wings were tucked under his damaged panels and carrying the load. That, for Langdon and Samter, was the grandest moment of life.

Both motors now roared full on. They lost no more altitude and the river became more than just a possibility.

Samter, still hanging on his belt, shook his head and fainted. Langdon made sure that it was Lieutenant Charles F.F.V., shook his head and tended strictly to his flying. The Meuse came closer, and Archie came up oftener. The war was as good as over for the enemy, but they still had a goodly amount of ammunition on hand and they were throwing most of it toward Langdon and Mudd. But that did not worry Langdon now. The river was only a matter of short kilometers. Soon F.F.V. would be working on his report.

“And he’s got me with my suspenders cut,” Langdon found time to reflect. “Hell, who ever heard of such a dumb thing as an intentional collision on the wing! Collisions are strictly for high rankers and to be made only upon takeoff and landing.

“They’ll ground me for this sure. I might even draw a bobtail. And old kid Charlie Mudd....”

As suddenly as he had arrived, Mudd left. A rifle shot from the east bank of the Meuse had found him. His plane, with dead hands and feet on the controls, spun into the river.

From the dressing station where Langdon sat, richly swathed in iodine soaked wrappings, he could watch the engineers fishing for a pilot and observer where the rudder of a plane waved above the surface of the Meuse. On a cot, where a few medical men had been busy for an hour, Samter was showing the first signs of returning consciousness. Now and then the observer had said, in delirium:

“F.F.V. Old F.F.V., himself.”

“We used to have one of them in this corps,” a medical private said. “He was from Norfolk, I think. That F.F.V. stuff stands for First Families of Virginia.”

“Right you are,” Langdon mused, from where he sat.

“Wrong as hell,” Samter mused. “It stands for Fell Flying Valiantly.”

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 15, 1929 issue of Adventure magazine.

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