Our Pilots in the Air

Our Pilots in the Air

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Title: Our Pilots in the Air
Author: Captain William B. Perry
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6082] [Yes, we are more than one
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Language: English

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OUR PILOTS IN THE AIR
BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM B. PERRY

CHAPTER I
A BOMBING AIR RAID
The scene in the valley was striking in one respect. Low ranges of
gently sloping hills had widened out, enclosing broad levels with what
in America would be termed a creek but was here poetically named a
river. By here I mean eastern France, not so many miles from
No-Man's-Land. The "striking" feature was the "Flying Camp" spread
out over a dead level of much trampled greensward, enclosed by high
board walls, irregularly oval in shape, with a large clump of trees in the
center and a multiplicity of large, small, mostly queer-shaped buildings
scattered about.
There were a few wide roadways, with smaller avenues intersecting
them, and larger open spaces, bordered by hangars, at either end of the
oval.
On a bulletin board in one of these open spaces a placard was tacked, at
which several young men in khaki and wearing the aviator cap were
gazing, commenting humorously or otherwise. All that this plainly
open placard published, apparently for all eyes to see, was as follows:
"Members of Bombing Squadron No. - will be on the qui vive at 7 p.m.
tonight. Specific orders will be issued to each at that time."

Not much in that, an outsider might think. But wait! Listen!
"Say, Orry," remarked an athletic youth, throwing an arm casually over
the shoulder of a smaller companion beside him and tweaking the
other's ear, "does this mean that you and me go up together in that
crazy old biplane they foisted on us before?"
"How should I know?" replied the smaller lad, a nervous, sprightly
youngster, dark-eyed, curly-headed, thin-faced. "Did she get your nerve
last time?"
"Not by a long shot! But when we made that last dive to get away from
Fritzy in his Fokker, I noticed your hands on the crank were shaking.
Say, if that Tommy in the monoplane hadn't helped us, where'd we
been?"
"Right here, you goose! We'd have got out somehow, but it was squally
for about five minutes."
The two strolled off together as others, also in khaki but with different
fittings or insignia, gathered about to read, comment and then turn their
several ways.
"We are in that bombing squad all right, I guess remarked Lafe Blaine,
the athletic youngster. "But I am tired of this everlasting bombing that
goes on, mostly by night. We're chums, Orry; we work together all
right. There is no one in this camp can handle a fighting machine better
than I; nor do I want a better, truer backer at the Lewis than you."
The Lewis gun was the one then most in use at this aerodrome station,
which was somewhere on that section near where the British and
French sectors meet.
"You always were a bully boy, Lafe, in spite of your two big handles.
Say, how'd they come to call you Lafayette when you already had such
a whopper of a surname?"
"Oh, dry up, Orry! Those names often make me tired. I'm only an

ordinary chap, but with those names every noodle thinks I ought to be
something real big. Catch on?"
Orris Erwin nodded and pinched the other's massive fore-arm, as he
replied:
"So you are big! Bet you weigh one-eighty if you weigh a pound."
But Lafe was thinking. Finally he announced decidedly:
"I'm going to get after our Sergeant this afternoon. If he knows