Quill Pen Scratchings

Chapter 6

All the men who had been standing quietly around snapped into action, making a show of doing things that they had already done earlier. They were busily rechecking equipment, latching engine cowlings, checking the aileron movements, all while keeping an eye on the line of approaching cars.  Tino said that the pilots had a raucous party four days before at the chateau where they all lived.  Apparently there was a lot of liquor and food and many women from nearby towns.  That was, Tino said, their tradition.  They spent the final day before the mission mostly in solitude, eating and drinking little.

The line of automobiles made their way through the camp and pulled up behind the parked airplanes.  Twenty-three pilots and planes were taking part in this mission.  They were mostly flying the new Nieuport 11’s, but there were also four slower two-seat Nieuport 10’s and two Voisin bombers going out that would each hold a pilot and an observer who would serve as a spotter for troop movements on the ground.  They anticipated some heavy resistance, so the large contingent was being sent out for protection.

Knox stepped out of an open-topped Renault behind his plane. The attendant with the food handed him a china cup of black tea and a piece of dry toast.  “Well, boys, how is she doing this morning?”  Knox looked magnificent in his crisp uniform with its wide cavalry breeches, though his face was somewhat pale.

“All ready, sir.  How do you say it?  Tip-top shape?”  Tino replied.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?”  Knox said as the ran his free hand down the side of the fuselage.  “Lewis working okay?”

“Yes, sir.  Tested it ourselves,” Tino said, nodding to Edmund.  “And the Foster works like a charm.  I tied a cord to the release so you can lower it down to change the magazine.”

“Great!  That will be a big help.  Hold this for me, would you?”  Knox held the cup of tea out to Edmund.  He had been dipping his toast into the tea as he ate it and it had crumbs in it.  Knox jumped up into the cockpit and sat, and then worked the Foster mount release to see how it moved back and forth.  When fully down, the gun was right in front of the pilot’s face.  “Is the magazine full?”

“Yes, sir.  47-rounder.  And I put four more around your seat.  They are wedged in, so they won’t move around on you.”

“Perfect!  If I use all of these up, it will be a banner day!”  Tino had told Edmund that Knox had never flown this new airplane into combat before, and he was likely to be more than a little nervous.  Knox climbed down out of the airplane and took his tea back from Edmund. 

The squadron’s commander, Georges Thénault, stepped out behind the line of planes and announced, “Gentlemen, it is time!” Knox gulped the rest of his tea, and the driver of the car brought his leather coat, gloves, helmet, and goggles over to him.  He put on the coat and gloves.  Knox walked over to where all the pilots were gathering in a circle.  Tino and Edmund followed.  A priest in long white robes stood in the center.    He raised his hand, and all of the men removed their hats and bowed their heads.  The priest began praying first in French and then in Latin.  Edmund had barely understood the French, so he said his own prayer for Knox’s safe return.  He hadn’t said a prayer in a long time.  Edmund didn’t hear the priest say Amen, but the group was suddenly, and without speaking, dispersing towards their planes.  The prayer had changed the atmosphere from nervous excitement to quiet seriousness.  Knox, Edmund, and Tino gathered back beside the Nieuport.  Tino took the helmet and goggles from the attendant and handed them to Knox and then helped him adjust the goggle strap behind his head.  They were speaking in hushed tones.  Edmund stood by watching, not sure what to do. 

Another one of the American pilots, Edmund didn’t know his name, jumped up onto the wing of his airplane and said loudly, “I don’t know about you boys, but I’m gonna go shoot down some of those Hun bastards!”  And as if a dam broke, all the men, pilots and crew alike, began shouting.  Edmund joined in as Knox jumped into the cockpit of his plane.  Tino followed and helped him strap in.

One of the pilots shouted, “Contact!” and his plane coughed and hesitated for a moment before roaring into life.  Several other engines quickly joined in the din.  Edmund felt very excited, as if he were on the cusp of something important, but he didn’t know what to do.

 “Contact!”  Knox shouted.  Tino shoved down hard on the propeller and the Nieuport exploded into life.   Tino backed up and stood out on the runway and turned his head to look toward the front of the procession, holding his hands up in the air towards Knox.  “Pull the chocks!”  Tino shouted.  Edmund sprung over and pulled the wooden blocks from in front of the wheels. 

Edmund could see and hear the first three planes begin to move.  They circled around the end of the runway and lined up, Thénault in front, and the other two angled behind him.  An attendant stood out in front of them holding up a bright yellow flag that fluttered gently in the morning breeze.  After they were in position, the man dropped his arm and the flag, and Edmund could hear the engines thunder louder as the planes began to move down the runway faster and faster until all three were in the air.

The next three were brought into line and quickly followed Thénault’s group.  It was time for Knox to take off, and Tino motioned him forward, following behind two other planes, the last of the three.  Knox looked over at Edmund and nodded and gave him a thumbs-up signal.  Edmund did the same back to him.  He watched as Knox taxied down the runway and then took off like the others.  In a few moments, all the airplanes were gone, and Edmund watched them until they had been swallowed up by the sky.

The air crews were now standing around the trays eating the food that had been brought out for the pilots.  “They always bring out these feasts before missions, but the pilots are always too nervous to eat much.  So, all the better for us!” Tino said, holding a piece of sausage in his hand.  “Help yourself!”  Edmund walked over to one of the trays of food and poured himself tea and put some sausages, two hard boiled eggs, and bread and cheese on a plate.  He walked back over to Tino who was talking with several of the other mechanics in French.   One thing that Edmund had noticed was that the French lessons he had taken in school were not serving him very well.  The rapid-fire manner in which people normally spoke made it possible for Edmund to discern only a word or two.  He supposed it was the same with English though, the slow methodical way of learning a foreign language didn’t really match the way people spoke.

“I was just telling these boys about the time when we were all stationed in Luxeuil.  The flyers were mostly doing bomber patrol then, so it was pretty quiet, but the Boche sons of bitches decided to try and take out the airplanes on the ground with bombs.  The bastards missed all of the planes, but did take out a latrine,” Tino said smiling.  Edmund laughed.  “The poor bastards in there doing their business never knew what hit them.”  Edmund stopped laughing. 

“They were killed?”

“Four of them.  Mechanics, like you and me.  All we found was a crater of wood and shit and body parts.”  Tino said, laughing gently.

Edmund was silent for a moment and then looked up at the sky.  “Has that ever happened here?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.  Not for now, at least.  Our boys will give them enough to deal with up in the air.”

The tables were being cleared away by the attendants, and Edmund heard another car pull up beside the hangar.  It was an ambulance.  Two men jumped out and ran over to where the trays were being cleared away.  “Are we too late for breakfast?”  One of them said in very distinct American English, and the two men began picking at what was left.  The attendants who were trying to clean up looked annoyed but stopped long enough for the men to get food.  They walked over to the group that Edmund was in.  “Hey fellas, missed the launch.  How long they been gone?”

One of the mechanics, who had never replied to Edmund’s attempts to communicate in either broken French or slowly spoken English said, “Not long.  Few minutes.”  So he could speak English.

Edmund chimed in, “They just left, actually.”

One of the men turned and looked at Edmund.  “You an American?  I thought Dewey and I were the only ones around here, besides the pilots.”  The man switched all his food over to his left hand and held out his right.  “Reuben Wood.”  Edmund shook his hand.

The other man extended his hand also, “Dewey Short.”

Edmund shook his hand, “Edmund Fitzhugh.”

“We’re from St. Louis.  Came over with the Red Cross ambulance service.  Eleven and a half months.” Reuben said, nodding over his shoulder at the beat-up ambulance parked beside the hangar.

“I’m a mechanic for Sinclair Knox.  I’m from Maryland.  I just got here a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh, he’s a pretty good fella, for being one of them stuck up pilots.  Never had to work on him, thank God.”  Dewey said.  “We get assigned to be here when they land to patch up holes from any lucky Hun bullets that might have found their mark. Usually only nicks though.  Flesh wounds and that sorta thing.”

“Yeah, when the wounds are serious, they usually don’t make it back here for us to try and patch up, the poor bastards.” Reuben said. There was a pause.  “Think we got time for a cup of coffee.  Want to come and tell us about what’s been going on back home?  We only get old news from letters.”

“Sure.  Tino, okay if I go get some coffee?” Edmund said, nodding towards the ambulance crew.  Tino was engaged in an animated and, Edmund thought, somewhat heated conversation with two other mechanics, but he gave Edmund a slight shrug, which Edmund took as a ‘yes.’ 

As they walked over to the canteen, Dewey said, “This is pretty light duty for us.  I mean, even when they are hurt, it is usually something they could have taken care of themselves.  When these boys go down though, they go down hard and usually don’t walk away from it, so there is nothing for us to do.  Sometimes feels more like an undertaker’s job.  Did have one poor fella who lingered for a few days after he had been shot up pretty good and put his airplane into a fence when he was trying to land.  What the hell was his name?

“Prince, I think it was.”  The men walked on in silence for a few moments.  “So what’s going on back in the States?”

They reached the mess hall and went inside and poured coffee from the urns that sat against the wall and found seats at a table near the door.  A few other mechanics and attendants were also filtering in for more breakfast.  Edmund assumed they were the ones who had not been fast enough at the food carts.  “Well, I know that the debate about entering the war has become pretty much the only topic.”  Edmund went on to recount some of the conversations that he had heard at the houses of his parents’ friends and at his college.  And though this news was a few weeks old, it was still more than Reuben or Dewey had heard.  Both seemed eager for the United States to officially join the war.  Dewey said that he planned to enlist in the regular army when they finally arrived.  Reuben had also had this plan, but now that he had seen the carnage of the front lines and the trenches for so long, he was not so sure.  The two men were childhood friends, and really, as far as Edmund could tell, had never been apart.  They roomed together at Washington University, and entered the ambulance service from there.  It was strange to Edmund that, when he was home, St. Louis seemed as far away to him as France had, but now it was as if it could be next door to Annapolis.  The two men were funny together, and their banter back and forth, while sprinkled with inside jokes that Edmund didn’t understand, was very entertaining. 

The three sat and talked for over an hour, and after what seemed to be their tenth cups of coffee, one of the orderlies entered the canteen and announced that the planes were on their way back and then bolted out of the door.

“Well, that’s our cue.” Dewey said as he drained the dregs of his coffee.

By the time the three had made their way over to the runway, most of the mechanics attendants and all the staff at Behonne were standing on the end of the airstrip, and one of the chief mechanics was perched on a small platform with a pair of binoculars, scanning the sky to the north and west.  “Deux!” the man shouted and held up two fingers.  “Chapman et Masson,” he called out.  Edmund could barely make out two specs in the sky.  He couldn’t hear any airplanes at all.  The man continued to look through the binoculars.  “Rockingham!” he said.  Edmund picked out the first two planes and then the third, but it looked like smoke was trailing off behind it.  Rockingham’s mechanics ran into the first hangar and emerged carrying two brass fire extinguishing canisters.  Edmund also saw Reuben and Dewey getting a stretcher and two bags full of medical supplies from the ambulance.  “….McConnell, Cowden….Knox…” Edmund looked over at Tino who nodded at him.  “…Thénault et Lufbery…Thaw …” By now, Edmund could see Chapman and Masson coming in to land.  The crowd dispersed to either side of the airstrip, and their mechanics were preparing to meet the planes.  The two pilots touched down in quick succession and traveled to the end of the airstrip and quickly turned off to the side and made their way up toward the hangar, eventually being pushed by the mechanics.  Rockingham’s plane had a large plume of smoke trailing from the engine, but Edmund didn’t see any fire.  His crew was standing halfway down the runway with the fire equipment.  Reuben and Dewey were there also.  As soon as he touched down, instead of taxiing to the end, he stopped in the middle, and several men jumped in to quickly push his plane off the side of the runway.  The propeller stopped spinning so abruptly that the whole plane jolted.  Rockingham’s face was blackened from the smoke, and he was coughing.  He jumped out of the cockpit and landed on his knees on the ground.  Dewey and Reuben tried to help him up.

“I’m okay, goddamnit,” he said, pushing them away.  “It was just the damn smoke.  I couldn’t see a thing.  Couldn’t breathe either.”   He doubled over coughing again.  His crew opened the cowling and doused the engine with the fire extinguisher.  Dewey handed Rockingham a canteen, and he drank greedily, and then spit water on the ground.  “I’m okay.  Took a few shots to the engine block.”

The planes were coming in regularly now.  Edmund and Tino ran down the airstrip when they saw Knox’s airplane approach.  He landed smoothly and taxied down to the end of the runway and turned and began approaching the hangars.  Edmund and Tino met him midway.  “How you doing, boss?”  Tino shouted looking at three holes torn in the rear of the Nieuport’s fuselage. 

“I’m okay!”  Damn this bird can fly!  She was the fastest thing up there!”

“Didn’t outrun everything though!” Tino shouted.  Knox half stood in the cockpit and looked where Tino was pointing.  “Here, here, and,” Tino moved back another two feet, “here.”

“Damn.  I didn’t even feel those.”

“Looks like just the fabric.  Easy fix.  Pretty close to the fuel tank though.”

“Well, that would have been a bit more exciting,”  Knox said, grinning.

Edmund looked back down toward the end of the airstrip, and one of the planes, Thaw, he thought, was still sitting at the end with the engine shut off.  His crew were jogging down the field toward the plane.  They jumped up on the wings on either side of the pilot.  One of the men turned and looked back towards the hangars.  “Ambulancier!  Ambulancier!” he shouted.  Dewey and Reuben, who had been talking to Rockingham turned and looked for a moment and then picked up their medical bags and the stretcher and sprinted toward the airplane. They took the place of the crew members on the wings and were leaning over Thaw.  Edmund looked around, and every eye was riveted on the scene.  All the happy conversations that had been taking place a moment before had stopped. 

Edmund saw Dewey shout at the crew members, and they began pushing the plane back toward the hangars and the ambulance.  As they approached, he could see that Reuben had his hand under the left side of Thaw’s coat.  Thaw’s head was leaning back against the fuselage, and his face was very pale.  As the plane approached the hangars, all the men cleared a path so that it could be pushed right up to the ambulance.  Dewey jumped down from the plane and grabbed the stretcher that he had been balancing on the fuselage and laid it out on the ground.  Then he dropped to his knees and began pulling bandages and bottles out of his bag. 

“I need one man on the other wing, and another on this one!”  Reuben shouted.  “We are going to lift him out gently.  His left shoulder’s been shot through, so don’t touch him there.  Lean in and lift him by his legs and his back.  Thaw grunted as the two men leaned far into the cockpit and lifted him.  “Gently, dammit!”  Reuben shouted.  He didn’t remove his hand from under Thaw’s coat. 

“I have him,” the large mechanic said, and hefted Thaw into his arms, while still allowing Reuben to maintain his hold on the wound.  Together they hopped down off the wing.  Thaw cried out as they hit the ground.  Edmund could see blood running down the leg of the mechanic who was holding Thaw, and as he laid him on the stretcher, blood shot up from his right leg and hit the mechanic in the face.

“Got another bleeder!  Right leg!”  Reuben shouted.  Dewey raced over and located the wound and pushed a linen pad hard on it.  Thaw cried out again.  “Hang on there, buddy.  You are gonna be just fine.”

“Tourniquet!”  Dewey shouted.  With his free hand, Reuben reached into the bag and pulled out a leather strap.  “You,” Dewey shouted at the mechanic who had lifted Thaw down from the plane. The man leaned in and Dewey grabbed his hand, which was covered in Thaw’s blood, and pushed it onto the pad he was holding against Thaw’s leg.  “Push hard and don’t let go!”  Dewey looked at him until the man nodded, then Dewey removed his hand and slid the strap under Thaw’s leg above the wound.  He buckled it like a belt, and then began twisting a small handle on the buckle to tighten the strap.  Thaw cried out and tried to sit up. Reuben held him down.

“It’s okay. You are gonna be just fine.”  Reuben was feeling behind his shoulder for an exit wound.  Once the tourniquet was tight, Dewey reached into his bag and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle.  He filled the syringe and then injected it into Thaw’s other leg.  “You are going to be feeling much better in just a moment,” Reuben said, and Thaw nodded.  Reuben looked up at Dewey, “No exit on this one.  Think the bullet is still in him.”

Dewey moved the mechanic’s hand and replaced the pad with a fresh one.  The bleeding had slowed considerably.  He began wrapping a bandage around Thaw’s entire leg to hold the pad tight against the wound.  He tied the bandage off, and then quickly stuffed all his supplies back into his medical bag and handed it to Edmund.  “Put this in the ambulance for me, would you?”  Edmund ran over and put it on the front seat.  Dewey had lifted one side of the stretcher, and a mechanic had lifted the other.  Reuben still held his hand over Thaw’s wounded shoulder.  He walked beside the stretcher and stepped up into the back of the ambulance as they put Thaw inside.  Dewey ran around the front.  “Don’t worry boys, we’ll have him back in no time!  Bois un verre pour liu!”  He got into the cab of the ambulance and drove in a wide arc and then headed back outto the road that they came in on.  Edmund watched as the ambulance jolted painfully with the ruts in the road.

Edmund felt someone grab hold of his shirt sleeve and turn him around.  It was Tino, and he shoved a tin cup into Edmund’s hand.  He smelled it.  Champagne.  Tino nodded to his left, and Edmund saw that all the men, pilots and mechanics and staff alike were gathered in a circle around Thénault.  He and Tino moved over toward the back of the crowd.  “Gentlemen,” Thénault began in his heavily accented English, “we achieved a great victory today.  We plotted out the movement of a great army reinforcing the front lines north of Verdun. This information will help our commanders plan an appropriate defense and counter-attack.  Our success did not come without a price.  For us or for the Boches.  Thanks to Sergeant Rockingham, one more Fokker won’t be bothering us anymore!”

“Here, here!” murmured the pilots and the mechanics.  They gestured towards Rockingham, who had managed to wipe off some of the soot and grease off his face, by raising their mix of champagne flutes and tin cups in his direction.  His teeth and eyes still looked unnaturally bright against his grimy skin as he grinned broadly. 

“Still, he will have to pay for the damage to his plane out of his paycheck,” Thénault said.  The crowd laughed politely.  “But we want to pay tribute to our friend, Sergeant Thaw, who paid a high price today.  May he be back in the sky soon.”  Thénault raised his glass and drank deeply from it.  The crowd followed suit and was silent for a moment as everybody drank, then they began to disperse.  The pilots refilled their champagne and stood together talking quietly, but the mechanics and crew began moving back around their airplanes, pulling open engine cowlings and inspecting damage.

“It is usually a little more cheerful than that.  The blood unnerved everybody,” Tino said as they were looking closely at the bullet holes in the fuselage of Knox’s Nieuport.  Knox walked up behind them.

“How does she look?”

“Not too bad.  Little fabric, little paint,” Tino shrugged, “good as new in no time.”

“Good,” Knox said, patting Edmund on the back.  “I think we are going up again in two days, so we need to be ready.”

“No problem, sir.” Tino said.

“I know I can count on you boys!  I will be by tomorrow to check in on her.”  Again he clapped Edmund on the back and shook Tino’s hand.

            When he was gone, Edmund felt around the bullet hole and asked, “So how do we fix this?”

            “That?  Just a patch and some paint, but we need to get back in there and take a look and make sure that those bullets didn’t cut any guide wires or nick the airframe.  Be a shame for the poor son of a bitch if he lost his rudder at a thousand feet.  Looks like he fought back too, so we need to clean the Lewis and give the engine a thorough going over.  We are going to be here a while.  You didn’t have plans, did you?” Tino smiled at Edmund.  “Do me a favor and grab the patch kit and my toolbox from the chest in the hangar.  I need to see about getting this gas tank out so we can get a look at the back of the plane.  Tino climbed up onto the wing and leaned into the cockpit, and Edmund went to get the tools from their trunk.

            In all, it took them six hours to make all the repairs and get the plane back together again.  They had removed the seat, drained the fuel, and removed the tank so that Tino could climb in and inspect the damage from the bullets.  Nothing vital had been hit.  Edmund took down the Lewis gun and disassembled and cleaned it and showed it to Tino who tested the action on it and nodded in approval.  They reassembled the gas tank and seat and then cleaned the engine thoroughly.  There was no damage there.  Then Edmund watched as Tino sewed patches over the bullet holes in tiny, tight stitches.  Then they painted the patches with paint that matched the finish of the plane.  As dusk was approaching, most of the other planes that weren’t damaged had already been put away, and the crews were long gone.  Only Thaw’s and Rockingham’s planes remained outside.  Edmund and Tino, with the help of a few other men pushed Knox’s plane back into the hangar, and Tino put the canvas cover over the cockpit and engine cowling.  They went back out and helped push the other two planes in and then helped the other crews string up extra lights.  Rockingham’s crew would be working long into the night.  Thaw’s plane had only surface damage similar to Knox’s, but the shots had gone through the cockpit portion and into Thaw.  Thaw’s crew had spent most of their time mopping up the blood.  Tino told him that if the shots on Knox’s plane had been just a little bit forward, he would have either been shot up like Thaw, or his gas tank would have exploded in the sky.  Rockingham’s plane was in much worse shape.  He had sustained several shots through the left wing, and three directly into the radial engine, totally destroying two cylinders. 

Tino and Edmund had worked through the afternoon and then made their way to the canteen and ate without talking much and then returned to their tent. 

“Shocking to see that much blood come out of a man,” Tino said.

Edmund lay down and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.