Quill Pen Scratchings

Chapter 10

            The moon was bright.  As he walked, he began to cry.  Lightly at first, but then the tears were making it hard for him to see the road.  He stepped off the road and sat down on a small embankment.  He was alone, and put his head down on his arm, and sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes.  With his nose buried in the sleeve of his coat, he could smell the roses from the satchel that had been against the fabric.  He stood and wiped his eyes one final time and then set out for Behonne again.

Edmund awoke the next morning, stopped to eat breakfast quickly at the canteen, and then headed over to check over Knox’s Nieuport.  He was drinking coffee from a tin mug and eating a piece of bread as he walked into the darkened hangar.  As he got closer to the plane, he saw that the engine cowling was open, and an oilcloth was spread out over the bottom of the fuselage.  Oil was dripping down on to the ground.  Edmund broke into a quick run, and as he came closer, a man wearing greasy coveralls was walking from the tool chest back up to the engine. 

            “Stop!” Edmund yelled.  “Who the hell are you?”

            The man looked up at Edmund.  He had a cloth tied around his head, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  He looked to be about Edmund’s age.  He stared blankly at Edmund, and he was holding an oil can with a long nozzle on the end of it.  Edmund thought he recognized him from one of the other mechanic crews.  Edmund took a step closer to the open engine compartment and looked inside and then looked back at the man.  Edmund stared at him for a moment, and the man just stared back at him.  “What are you doing?”

            The man took a long draw on his cigarette and then blew the smoke off to the side. As he did this, he reached inside his coveralls and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.  He handed it to Edmund.  There were grease smudges on it from the man’s fingers.  Edmund opened the paper, and it was a short note in French.  It was from Commander Thénault, to a man named Luc.  Edmund looked up at the man. Luc, he supposed.  Luc stared back at him, the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips.  Edmund’s skill at reading French was lagging somewhat, but he thought he got the gist of it.  He saw Captain Knox’s name, and Tino’s and his own, and gathered that Luc had been assigned as Edmund’s assistant until Tino returned.  Edmund handed the note back to Luc, who put it back in his pocket.  “Fine.” Edmund held out his hand “Edmund Fitzhugh.”

            Luc looked at Edmund’s hand for a moment and then shook it. “Luc.”  Edmund pulled his hand away and realized his palm was blackened with grease.  He closed his hand and looked up at Luc who was still staring back at him, cigarette still dangling.  He looked back at the airplane.  “So what have you been doing?”

            “Je ne parle pas Anglais.”

            “No English.”  Edmund thought for a moment about how to ask the question in French, but he decided just to ask again in English with hand gestures.  He didn’t feel like cooperating.  He pointed to the oil can and then to the engine, and shouted, “What are you doing?”

            “Roulements à billes.” Luc said, holding up the oil can.

            “Ball bearings.  Fine.”  Edmund had just oiled the bearings two days ago, but he didn’t really care what Luc did as long as he didn’t hurt anything.  He made a mental note to himself to check them later. Edmund walked over to the open trunk and took out the gun cleaning kit.  He had also already cleaned the Lewis gun, but he wanted to do something he felt comfortable and adept at in front of Luc.  He climbed up into the cockpit and slid the gun down its mount and then took it off and then climbed down.  He tripped slightly on the lip of the cockpit and banged the gun against the frame.  He didn’t look at Luc, but instead he just continued to climb down, spread out a tarp, and then proceeded to clean the gun.

            There wasn’t really any work to be done on the Nieuport.  The whole squad had been grounded for several days, so Edmund had already done everything as Tino had shown him.  There was a notice posted at the canteen during breakfast announcing a mission the next day, leaving at first light.  There would be pre-flight checks in the morning, but he didn’t want to leave Luc alone with the plane until he knew him more.  And it didn’t look like that was going to happen easily.  He kept a close eye on Luc as he worked, and Edmund thought he seemed proficient at what he was doing, but he still planned to re-check his work. 

            The hangar became extremely busy as the day wore on.  Most of the pilots would be going on this mission.  There were no details about what the mission was supposed to accomplish on the notice Edmund had read.  He assumed they didn’t put that kind of thing in print just in case it fell into German hands.  There was a general assumption among those in the camp that the Germans knew a lot about what they were doing there.  That was one thing that the French complained about:  they saw the American pilots as a sieve of information. 

            Edmund and Luc tinkered around the plane for the better part of the day, never saying more than just a couple of words to each other.  They communicated mostly in gestures, with Luc’s pale eyes giving away nothing.  When dinner time came, Luc finished the job on which he had been working, and then just walked away, saying nothing to Edmund.  Edmund straightened up the area around the plane, and put all the tools away, including the ones that Luc had left out, and then went to eat himself.  The two American ambulance drivers, Dewey Short and Reuben Wood, were in the canteen, and Edmund sat with them and exchanged the latest news they had heard from America.  It was mostly Dewey and Reuben talking because, outside of the letter from his mother, Edmund had heard very little.  They said that they would be on hand for the return of the pilots the next day.  They also told him that they had heard that Tino was recovering well at the hospital at Lyon. 

            After dinner, Edmund returned to the hangar and rechecked everything that Luc had touched, and was a bit disappointed to see that he had actually done a very neat and thorough job.  Edmund re-covered the plane to keep the pigeons from decorating it and then went back to his tent.  It was starting to get dark, so he lit the oil lamp, and then pulled out the letter he had started to his mother.  He read it over to where it ended abruptly.  He thought about adding something else, but instead just wrote, “Love, Edmund,” and then folded it over.  He would mail it in the morning.

            He awoke well before dawn and lay in bed for a while.  The camp was silent.  When he first started hearing noises outside, he got up and dressed and then washed himself with the icy water from the pump behind his tent. He went to the canteen and ate a quick breakfast, gulping two cups of very hot, black coffee, and then headed to the hanger.  There were a few other members of flight crews around, but he was among the first there.  He uncovered Knox’s Nieuport and began doing the pre-flight checks as Tino had taught him.  Luc was not there.  He really could have used some help, but he managed to complete everything himself.  Hell, he thought, it might be harder if Luc was around.  He didn’t quite like the position of the rudder, so he adjusted the tension on the pedal wires until it was more to his liking.  He checked that the Lewis had a full clip of ammunition, and he put two extra clips down in the seat.  He filled the extra canteen that Tino kept in the locker with water and placed it down beside the seat. 

            When it was time to move the plane out of the hangar, Luc was still nowhere to be found, so he asked for help from Sgt. Masson’s crew, who had just moved their plane out of the hangar.  Together, these men and Edmund pushed the plane out into line.  Two crewmen pushed a manual fuel pump along the airplanes, and each took turns topping off the gas tanks.  Edmund filled Knox’s Neiuport and then bled the tank to make sure there was no water in it. 

            Edmund began to get nervous.  Knox’s life depended on the work he had done.  He was confident that he had done everything as Tino had shown him to do, but he suddenly began to wonder if there was something that Tino had not demonstrated yet, something not needed before now.  In a nervous sweat, he looked around and spied an older mechanic that he knew Tino was friends with and asked him to come and give the plane a once over.  The man knew about Tino’s wounding and agreed.  He looked at the engine connections and all the control systems, and finally the Lewis.  He hopped down out of the cockpit and nodded at Edmund and then went back over to his own plane and crew. Edmund felt relieved, but there was still no sign of Luc.

            Finally, Edmund heard the approach of the pilots in their caravan of cars.  Food arrived on carts, and suddenly the whole airstrip, which until then had been filled with silent nervous tension, was alive with laughter and shouting and motion, but all of it still fueled by nerves and fear.  Knox strolled up to Edmund, with a teacup in his hand.  He ran his hand along the body of the airplane as he approached.

            “Well, Fitzhugh, she looks great!”

            “Yes, sir.  She is all ready for you.”

            “Good, good.  And how is the other man that I sent to help you?”  Edmund opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t get a chance.  Luc appeared from under the nose of the Nieuport, seeming to have been there the whole time.  “Ah, Luc!  Thanks for helping out.”  Luc quickly took the cigarette out of his lips and nodded and grinned at Knox.  He put the cigarette back and looked at Edmund.  Edmund could not read him.  Knox turned back to Edmund as well.

            “She is fueled up and I have already bled the tank.”

            “Good, good.”

            “You have a full magazine mounted on the Lewis, and two extra 47’s beside the seat.  Oh, and extra water too.”

            Knox smiled at Edmund.  “You are just like Tino, always taking care of everything!”

            “Thank you, sir.”  Edmund didn’t think he was very much like Tino.

            “Speaking of our Italian friend, how is he doing?”

            “I heard that he is recovering nicely.”

            “And he is at,” Knox hesitated, but Edmund thought it was just for effect.  “Lyon, is it?”

            “Yes, sir.”  He hoped Knox wouldn’t ask any more about Tino, because that was all that Edmund knew. He felt ashamed that he didn’t know more about his friend’s condition.

            “I tell you what,” Knox said as he was buckling the chin strap of his helmet, “I have some business over that way in the second week of December, how about you and I hop a train over to see him, that is, of course if we can find any running that direction.  If not, we can probably get a car.”

            “That would be great, sir.” 

            Knox climbed up onto the wing, and leaned into the cockpit.  He put some papers and a small flask down beside the seat.  He stood up and looked at Edmund again. “Oh, that also reminds me, a few of us at the chateau are planning a Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans in the area.  There is no Thanksgiving in France, you know.”  Knox looked up for a moment and then laughed, “Though there might be soon if enough of us come over here to help out.  Anyway, you are invited.  Along with a guest of course.”  At that moment, Thénault walked by, calling all of the pilots and crew together for a pre-flight speech.  Knox nodded his direction, “We will also be inviting some of our more distinguished French compatriots as well.”

            “I’m honored. Thank you.”

            “Great.  I will make sure that you get an invitation.  I assume you didn’t bring your formal attire with you?” Knox looked at Edmund, who shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.  “No matter, we can set you up with something suitable.  I need to invite those two ambulance drivers also.”  Knox stepped down off the plane and gathered with the rest of the pilots around Thénault.  As usual, a second ring of crewmen formed around the pilots and listened to the pep talk. 

The mission was designed to weaken a particularly strong and troublesome artillery emplacement north and east of Verdun that the French had little success at dislodging using ground forces and artillery. They were long range guns that were behind the German trenches that were being supplied by a hastily constructed rail line.  Their mission was to take out the guns and the rail supply line.  They expected it to be heavily defended from the air, so Knox and the other pilots in fighters were to give the bombers cover so they could destroy the guns.  After Thénault finished and led the pilots in a couple of cheers, the men walked back to their airplanes.  Edmund walked back slightly behind Knox, who was talking with another pilot, Sgt. Chapman. 

            When he reached his Nieuport, Luc was already standing with a hand on the propeller.  Edmund’s face grew red.  Tino had been the one to help start the engine, and Edmund thought this was a more prestigious job than pulling the chocks from the wheels.  Knox hopped up into the cockpit and buckled himself in.  The elevators and the ailerons move up and down and back and forth as Knox tested the controls.  Other engines began roaring to life around them.  Knox shouted, “Contact!” and Luc shoved down hard on the propeller, and with no hesitation, the powerful engine joined the chorus of the other planes.  Knox looked over at Edmund through his goggles and gave him a thumbs-up sign.  Edmund waved back at him and then ducked under the plane.  As soon as Knox eased the throttle off and the propeller slowed down, Edmund ducked under the plane and removed the chocks. 

Soon the planes were taxiing down the airstrip and with a roar began taking off in groups of two’s and three’s.  Knox launched in a v-formation beside another Nieuport following behind a bomber.  Edmund stood still and followed the planes with his eyes.  Several of the men were standing and watching the same was he was, with similar looks of awe and admiration on their faces.   Tino used to watch the launches in the same way, even with as hardened and as callous as he seemed about most things.  Luc was nowhere to be seen. 

            Edmund grazed on some of the food brought out for the pilots, who, as usual, didn’t eat very much.  He stood and ate with some of the other flight crews he had come to know, but he just joined in awkwardly, never really entering into conversation much.  Soon he went into the hangar and neatened up his work area to get it ready to receive the plane once again.  He then walked over to the office and put the letter to his mother, which he had put into his pocket that morning, into the outgoing mail tray.

            When he walked back over to the airfield, Luc was still not around, but Dewey Short and Reuben Wood were there eating what was left of the food, sitting on the tailgate of their ambulance.  Edmund noticed as he walked up to them that the vehicle was quite a bit more beaten up than the last time he had seen it.  It even had what looked like bullet holes in the side of it, but the two medics seemed to be okay, and in their usual spirits.  They were laughing at a joke one of them had just told.  Dewey spit part of his biscuit out onto the ground in a burst. 

            “Morning fellas.  What’s so funny?”

            “Fitzhugh!  How are you doing?” Reuben asked.

            “Oh, I’m fine.”

            “Getting along okay without your mentor?” asked Dewey, still chewing what he still had left in his mouth.

            “Sure, I guess.  A plane’s just a car with wings.”  Edmund said and smiled.  Dewey laughed again, coughing out the remainder of the food in his mouth.

            “I suppose it is at that,” Reuben said.  “But if a car stalls, you can just pull it over to the side of the road.”

            “Well, that is one difference, I suppose.”  

            “Those flyboys sure are brave, I will give them that.” Dewey said, looking off into the sky.

            “Or just crazy,” Reuben added.

            Edmund wanted to change the subject.  “Well, it doesn’t look like you boys,” he walked over to the side of the ambulance and ran his hand along some of the damaged areas and holes in the body, “have fared much better on the ground.”

            Reuben looked around to where Edmund was standing.  “Oh, that? Well, yes, that was pretty hairy.”

            “Yes, it was,” Dewey said.  “Pretty much the worst scrape we ever got into.”

            “Well, except maybe for that time back home when you got shot at by that girl’s daddy,” Reuben said.

            “Oh, it wasn’t even close!  He didn’t even hit the car,” Dewey said, laughing slightly.

            Edmund laughed and turned back to the ambulance.  “Are those bullet holes?”  As he looked at them closer, they seemed a bit jagged and irregular.

            “No, shrapnel, I think,” Reuben said. 

            “We got caught in an artillery barrage,” Dewey added.  “Early in the morning after a rather nasty fight just north and west of Verdun, everything was quiet, but there were a couple of fellas still alive lying out forward of the trench line that we were trying to bring back.”

            “Yeah, we thought everything had quieted down, so we drove out, making sure to show the red cross to the bad guys,” Reuben pointed to the large symbol painted on the side of the vehicle, “and parked and took the stretcher out to one of the French boys who was laying just moaning out on the side of a crater.  He was shot through the knee, it was pretty much gone, and he had lost a lot of blood, but the poor bastard was still alive, so we tied the wound off quickly and loaded him up onto the stretcher when Dewey here sees flashes and smoke coming from the Huns.”

            “Yeah, the bastards started shooting at us.”

            “Well, they weren’t shooting at us,” Reuben said.

            “But they hit us,” Dewey said, mocking Reuben.  “Anyway, a shell comes screaming in and lands behind us.   Just blew the shit out of everything.  I got zinged in the shoulder,” he grabbed his right shoulder with his left hand and grunted as he flexed it, “and Reuben goes flying the other direction, stretcher gets shredded, and that poor bastard we were carrying has a six-inch piece of shell sticking out of the side of his head.  Damn near cut it in two, right through his skull.”

            “We had parked the ambulance up on the forward edge of a shell crater so the fucking Huns could see the cross, so we clambered down behind the ambulance and laid down on the side of the crater.  A few more landed in front of us, but not close enough to hit the ambulance with anything but flying metal.”

            “Well, it sure shook a few times, and I thought it was going to come down on top of us once.”  Dewey added.

            “Yeah, I was just hoping it didn’t take a direct hit to the gas tank.  We wouldn’t be here talking to you right now if it had.”

            “Probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to stay right behind it, but at the time, I remember just trying not to shit in my drawers.”  Dewey said, but he didn’t laugh.  “One shell landed just beyond us, but we were protected by the crater, but it was so loud that I couldn’t hear for three days afterwards.”

            “So anyway, they adjusted their fire, trying to hit further back into the trenches, or into the artillery that was behind it, but I don’t think they had the range.  When we finally got back over the lines, we never saw any damage.  The Huns did attack later that morning.  Came right across the field where we were laying, but they didn’t really get anywhere with it,” Reuben said.

            “We jumped back into the ambulance, praying like hell that it would start.  It did, and we quickly took a look for the other guy we had started off to get, but there was just a big hole where he had been laying.  We guessed he had been turned to mud under a direct hit.”

            “So we just hightailed it out of there.  I sewed Dewey’s shoulder up later.”  He patted the ambulance with what looked to Edmund like affection, “She sure took a beating though, and probably stopped a couple of pieces of metal that might have hit us.”

            “I think I’m still a little deaf in my right ear.” Dewey said, snapping his fingers near the side of his head.

            Edmund looked back at the ambulance.  “Is it running okay?  Did it get damaged at all?  I mean besides the holes in the body.”

            “I think so,” Reuben said.  “We looked it over and didn’t see anything.  It does sound a little funny though.”

            “I would be happy to take a look for you,” Edmund said.

            “We sure would appreciate that,” Dewey said, still snapping in his ear.

            “Yeah, if this thing goes, we will be out of luck.  Not sure when we could get a new one.  It would be quite a shame.  Sure has gotten us through a lot over here.” Reuben again patted the ambulance affectionately.  The men tinkered over the ambulance for a while, looking under the hood, and finally Edmund spotted a small hole in the exhaust near the manifold.  Nothing serious.  He was about to get materials to patch the hole when they heard a shout from the spotter with binoculars, and they heard the first faint noise of the airplanes returning.

            This time, all of the pilots returned, all unhurt.  The only damage that Knox’s Nieuport had sustained, as far as Edmund could see initially anyway, was two bullet holes in the upper starboard wing.  Easy to patch, he thought, as long as they hadn’t hit the airframe.  Knox was ecstatic when he landed, claiming two kills.  It seemed that the squadron’s mission was a wild success.  They destroyed four long-range artillery pieces and the rail head that was supplying them.  In total, they shot down five enemy airplanes that had been sent out to intercept them.  Great cheers erupted as Thénault recounted the successes of the mission to the entire assembly, and he singled out Knox with a champagne toast for his skill, daring, and bravery in the face of enemy fire. 

Soon, the pilots were standing and recounting their exploits to each other, and the crews had drifted back over to the planes.  Edmund wanted to look at the bullet holes and to see if any other damage had been done.  Luc was standing off to the side of the plane, smoking and talking quietly to some of his friends.  He didn’t acknowledge Edmund as he walked toward the plane.

Edmund climbed up onto the lower wing and found the bullet holes in the upper.  One of them slightly nicked a rib of the wing, but nothing more than a mark on the surface really.  It would just take some surface patching and paint, he thought.

“That one came pretty close!” Knox said.  He was standing near the cockpit watching Edmund.  Edmund had not heard him approach.

“Yes, I’d say so,” was all Edmund could think to say. As he turned to look at Knox, he could see the Luc had partially turned and was watching Knox also. 

“Listen, Fitzhugh, part of the congratulations for what happened up there belongs to you.”  He ran his hand along the side of the fuselage and gazed at it for a moment.  “She flew like a dream. Every cylinder fired when I gunned it, and it seemed to respond to my thoughts, turning at pinpoint when I needed it to.  And I needed it to a couple of times,” he said grinning.  “I felt just like a bird up there,” he said, looking at the plane once more.  “She really is beautiful, isn’t she.”

“Yes, sir.  She is.”

“The Lewis is going to need some attention though.  I burned through two magazines and was well into the third by the time we were finished.  I probably only have two or three shots left.  I don’t know that I would be here talking to you if the Boches had sent any more after us.  I probably should take another magazine or two with me next time.”

“No problem,” Edmund replied, making a note to get a couple of extra magazines before they went up again.  He jumped down from the wing and Knox stepped closer to him. 

“And don’t forget about Thanksgiving.  And you need some clothes, right?”  He walked up and, facing Edmund grabbed his shoulders with his hands, and then looked him up and down.  “Mm hmm.  I think I know just the thing.”  Edmund felt a little like a child, but it was only a mild embarrassment.  He thought that Knox genuinely meant well.  But he did wonder if what he was going to get for him would fit.  Knox was considerably taller than Edmund and had much broader shoulders.  Knox looked down at Edmund’s muddy shoes.  “What size shoe do you wear?” he asked.

“Um, nine, I think.” Edmund was suddenly unsure.  He had never really thought about it that much before.  When he was at home, he would just go to the shoe store and have his foot measured.

“Great.  I will send something over to you next week.  Remember, Thanksgiving in two weeks, and bring a date!”  He let go of Edmund’s shoulders and patted him hard on the back and took a couple of steps toward the cars.  Then he stopped and turned again and looked at Edmund in the eyes.  Edmund had started to walk back toward the tail of the plane but stopped when Knox did.  “Again,” Knox said, his voice had changed and softened a bit, the bravado gone, “thank you for taking care of her.  She saved my life up there.”

Edmund felt the back of his throat swell a bit, and he couldn’t think of a reply.  He just nodded, and after a second said, “I will get her ready for next time.”

“Good man,” Knox said, and patted him on the arm again, and then turned to go. As he approached the cars that were waiting to take the pilots back to the chateau, Edmund could hear the other pilots cheering Knox as he came near, and he was greeted with handshakes and backslaps all around.

“Luc!” Edmund said loudly, “let’s get this bird back inside.”

Luc looked at him for a moment, and Edmund knew he had watched the whole exchange between Knox and himself.  He took the cigarette he was smoking out of his mouth and flicked it onto the ground and walked back to the tail and bent to lift it off the ground.

Edmund put his hand on the tailfin and said, “No, you grab the struts.”  Luc looked at him in the eyes for a moment not moving.  Edmund stared back at him and didn’t flinch.  Luc dropped his gaze and walked up to the port wing strut and began pushing the plane, as Edmund lifted the tail and steered it toward the hangar.  This was normally a job for more than two, but Edmund didn’t want any help, and together they eased the plane back into the hangar.

Edmund spent the next few days checking over the Nieuport.  There really was little damage to it other than the two bullet holes, which had only torn through the fabric.  Edmund sewed patches on them using the tight stitches that Tino had shown him and then painted over the new fabric to match the rest of the plane.  Luc didn’t show up for two days following the mission.  Edmund had to ask for help from another crewman who he had been friendly with to help him check the alignment of the rudder and the tension on the elevator wires.  Knox really had put the plane through its paces, Edmund thought.  He had to readjust the tension on all the control wires, as they had been stretched slightly under the strain of all of the maneuvers Knox had done. 

The Lewis gun also showed signs of heavy usage.  Edmund dismantled and cleaned it.  Knox had gone through almost three clips of ammunition.  Edmund replaced the used ones with fresh ones from the armory and then went back for three more to stash next to the pilot’s seat for the next mission.  He gave the engine a tune-up and it was humming like a top when he tested it out. 

He was proud of the condition of the Nieuport, and confident that he had done everything right.  He had wiped down the entire fuselage and cleaned the oil stains and soot underneath the engine and near the exhaust until the plane fairly shone.  After two days working more that fourteen hours straight on the plane, Edmund returned to his tent and collapsed in his clothes.

The next morning, he was up early and had a quick breakfast and headed back over to finish putting away all the tools and to generally clean up the work area.  He entered the hangar and passed the first few planes in the row, the Nieuport came into view.  Luc was sitting on a stool at the side of the plane.  Edmund could see a large outline of the Escadrille’s Lakota Indian head mascot sketched lightly on the side of the fuselage behind the cockpit.  On the tailfin, there was a large and stylized “SK” painted in black. A lot of the pilots had their initials on the tailfin or on the side of the fuselage.

Edmund walked past Luc over to the tool cabinet.  Luc did not look over at him.  After rummaging around for a few moments, and gaining control of his temper, Edmund said in French, “What are you doing?”

Luc didn’t look at him, but replied, “Surprise for Sergeant Knox from Commander Thénault.”  It was the longest English sentence that Edmund had ever heard him say.  As always, a cigarette hung out of Luc’s mouth, and Edmund’s eyes followed some ashes that dropped as Luc spoke.  The ashes landed in one of the cans of paint that were opened around Luc.  An assortment of smaller brushes was neatly arrayed on a cloth on the ground in front of him.  Edmund looked over the rest of the plane, and there wasn’t really much for him to do, but he didn’t want to leave Luc there alone with the plane.  He decided to sand down the wooden propeller and then give it another coat of varnish. It didn’t really need it, but Edmund had planned to do it after the next mission anyway.  It was really the only thing left undone, and it would take him several hours.  Probably the same amount of time, he calculated, that it would take Luc to paint the insignia. 

He got out some sheets of sandpaper and rags and cans of varnish.  Luc did look over once to see what he was doing but then turned quickly back to his work.  One of the propeller blades was angled downward, so Edmund began sanding it smooth with a sheet of rough sandpaper.  At one point he was rubbing it vigorously causing the plane to shake.  Luc shouted, “Oy! Oy!” and gestured at his painting.

“Sorry,” Edmund said, but he smiled to himself as he began to work more gently.  It took Edmund several hours to finish the propeller, about the same amount of time Luc worked that day.  He had mostly finished the port side and sketched out the design on the starboard before leaving, without saying anything to Edmund.  Luc had also sketched out two skull and crossbones designs on the port side of the fuselage, just below the cockpit.  Edmund stayed for a while and inspected Luc’s work.  It was actually very good, he thought.  Edmund cleaned up and covered the cockpit with the tarp, being careful not to let it fall on the newly painted Lakota head.

Edmund went out into the darkening night, ate some dinner, and chatted for a while with some of the other flight crews.  When he returned to his tent, he saw two packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine on his bunk.  He lifted the larger one.  It felt like cloth and the other was clearly shoes.  A note in Knox’s handwriting had been slid underneath the twine on the larger package:

Fitzhugh,

            I hope these fit.  They belong to a fellow pilot (and an American!) who will            be wearing his dress uniform to Thanksgiving dinner.

            See you there.

                                                S. Knox., Sgt., E.A.

Edmund untied the string and opened the package.  A black tuxedo, complete with white shirt and black tie were inside.  Edmund took them out and hung the jacket from a nail he had hammered into one of the tent’s support posts. He decided he had better try them on, so he stripped down to his underwear and put the suit on, including the tie.  It did mostly fit.  The pants were a bit too long, but not by much.  He unwrapped the shoes, and they also fit, though they rubbed his heel a bit as he walked around the tent.  He took the outfit off, hung the pants over the back of the chair to try and let the wrinkles from being folded straighten out, and hung the coat and shirt on the nail again.  He thought that he would try and find some clothes hangers in the morning.  It was still about a week and a half until the feast.  Edmund, still in his underwear, slipped into bed and fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, Edmund went to the camp administration office to see if they had any clothes hangers.  The clerk said that he did not have any, but he did have a note from Commander Thénault for Edmund that was dated November 20, the day before.

Dear M. Fitzhugh,

On Thursday, November 23, at 11 o’clock in the morning, I am having a small ceremony to recognize the achievements of Sgt. Sinclair Knox during the most recent mission against the Imperial forces of the German Empire, during which Sgt. Knox shot down two enemy aircraft and personally saved two of our bombers from certain death.  An official commendation is working its way through the proper channels, however this is a squadron-wide recognition of his feats and bravery.  Please see that M. Didier has his artwork on Sgt. Knox’s airplane completed in time for this celebration and that the plane is clean and made presentable.

                                                Georges Thénault,

Captaine, Escadrille Americaine

            Didier.   So that was Luc’s surname.  The plane was in pretty good shape already.  Edmund thought that he would give it a once over, and he did want to clean—and possibly touch up—the exterior, especially around the engine exhaust again. 

Edmund headed over to the hangar to get started.  No one else was there, so he began to work.  He cleaned the fuselage around the engine and had to touch up the paint on the starboard side where the engine exhaust had blackened the surface.  He also touched up several mysterious splotches on the wings and the body of the plane and polished the glass on the windshield.  Luc did not show up before lunchtime, so Edmund went to the canteen to eat, and ask if anyone had seen him.  Now that he knew his last name, it was easier to try and find him.  No one had seen him that morning, though one man whom Edmund thought that Luc was friends with said that he had spent a late and rather hard evening in Bar le Duc.

Edmund headed back over to the hangar after he ate a quick lunch, and Luc was sitting on his stool beginning to paint the Lakota head on the starboard side of the Nieuport.  “You need to get that finished by tomorrow afternoon, so it will dry before Thursday,” Edmund said to Luc.

Luc looked over at him and said, “No problem,” and turned back to painting.

Edmund really didn’t have much else to do to get the plane ready, so he wiped a few things, and put his paint away, and then climbed up on the wing on the opposite side of the plane from Luc.  He knew he shook the plane, but Luc didn’t complain this time.  Edmund leaned inside the cockpit and polished the glass faces of the dials and the wooden instrument panel and then reached up and oiled the outside of the Lewis gun until the metal shimmered. 

Edmund climbed down and walked around the plane to see how Luc was coming along.  He really had not gotten much done, Edmund thought.  He put the rags and oils he had been working with away and told Luc that he was going to get some coffee from the canteen.  Luc did not respond.  After a cup of lukewarm black coffee, Edmund went back to the hangar and Luc was gone, along with all his paints and brushes.  Edmund asked some of the crew from the next plane if they had seen him, and they told him that Luc had cleaned his stuff up and left right after Edmund had.  No one knew where he had gone.

The next morning, Luc showed up at 10:30 and began working.  Edmund really tried not to say anything, but finally he reminded Luc of the time of the ceremony the next day.  Luc did not respond but did look a bit rattled as he began working on the second Lakota.  Edmund began to feel like his own mother, so he decided to leave and not hover over Luc and nag him all afternoon.  He could see that Luc was feeling pressure to get it finished.  Edmund stayed away from the hangar until the evening, and when he came back, the Lakota, as well as the two skull and crossbones images were completed, and Luc was gone.  Edmund reached out and touched one of the skulls.  It was still wet. 

Edmund looked around the hangar and tried to picture where the ceremony would look best.  He had remembered an automobile show that his father had taken him to when he was younger and they had the new car models under large silk cloths that were whisked away to reveal the shining new automobile underneath. 

Tino had once shown Edmund an experimental parachute that had been given to the Escadrille early on to try out, but no one had ever actually used it.  Edmund took the parachute out of the trunk that it was stored in and took it over to the center walkway of the hangar.  He laid it out on the floor and then looked up.  A wooden joist beam ran directly over his head.  He found a ladder lying along the hangar wall and took two pulleys that were in Tino’s tool chest.  He put the ladder directly over the parachute and climbed up and screwed one of the pulleys into the beam.  He put another pulley in off to the side of the hangar.  He strung one long parachute cord through the pulleys, and then unfurled the parachute, and tied one end of the cord to the center vent.  He moved around the parachute, spreading it out to its full dimensions on the floor of the hangar, and he untied all the parachute cords. 

This took him quite some time, but he was pretty sure he would never have to retie the cords.  The pilots did not have parachutes, nor did any of them express an interest in them.  They had all heard of a woman in California who had successfully jumped from an airplane and glided to the ground using a parachute, but none of the pilots were eager to try it.  Most of them figured that they could ride a crippled plane to the ground or maybe jump when they got close enough.  All of them had seen a compatriot or an enemy go down, and they did talk about it; whether or not the poor bastard was already dead, or whether he watched the ground come at him until the very end.  Planes catching fire is what really seemed to haunt the pilots.  That is why many of them carried pistols with them, so that they could have a last resort escape from a slow death by burning.  But parachutes?  That was just insanity.  So Edmund didn’t figure that anyone would mind if he dismantled this one.

He spread the silk chute out to its full length, with the center directly below the pulley.  He walked over to the side of the hangar where the end of the cord running through the pulleys hung.  He reached up as far as he could and yanked hard on the cord and the parachute lifted up off the ground in a collapsing cone shape.  Edmund saw that the parachute was suspended high enough, so an airplane sitting underneath it would be fully revealed.  He tied the cord onto a side beam of the hangar and walked over and removed the chocks from the wheels of the Nieuport.  He had never tried to move an airplane by himself before, but he had felt the heft of them and had always thought he could do it.  He lifted the tail off the ground and grabbed the tail dragger and pushed hard but gently on it, and the plane rolled slowly out to the center of the hangar, directly underneath the parachute.  He took the stool that Luc had sat on when he painted the sides of the plane, and put it directly in front of the newly finished Lakota.  He hoped that this would keep the parachute from touching the wet paint. 

Edmund went over to where the cord was tied off, and he slowly lowered the parachute down to where the center was suspended just over the back of the Lewis gun.  He tied the cord off again and walked to the plane and spread the chute out evenly over the entire airplane, making sure that it didn’t touch the wet paint.  It took him a while, running around the plane many times to get the whole thing even.  Once he did this, he stepped back.  The effect was exactly what he had pictured, with the whole plane draped elegantly in the white silk.  After looking at it for a moment, Edmund walked back over to the end of the cord and untied it, and pulled hard on it, and the parachute lifted smoothly off the plane and disappeared up into the rafters of the hangar.  Perfect, he thought, and he lowered the chute back down to where it was, and spread it over the plane again for the night, except that he uncovered the wet Lakota so that it would dry during the nighttime.

Edmund left the hangar and strode into the chill night air.  He wrapped his coat tightly around him and walked back to his tent.  He didn’t know what time it was, but he suddenly felt very tired.  He must have been working for hours, he thought.  No one was around and the sky was very dark.  Edmund fell quickly asleep once he reached his bunk. 

He awoke early the next morning, and dressed in his makeshift military clothes, but he wore a civilian shirt and a tie, along with his grey overcoat and a soft kepi hat that he had picked up recently to replace his civilian fedora that he had brought from home.  All of the flight crews wore mismatched uniform pieces, and even the pilots were allowed to largely personalize their uniforms.  Edmund stopped by the canteen and took some coffee in a tin cup and a piece of bread and headed to the hangar.  The Nieuport was just as he had left it.  Several of the crewmen who were there looked at him expectantly as he walked in, and several more were admiring Luc’s artwork.  Edmund chatted with a few of them for a while, and, after checking that the paint was dry, covered the whole plane in the parachute cloth. 

Soon, Edmund could hear the caravan of cars delivering the pilots from the chateau to Behonne.  Captaine Thénault walked over to Edmund.

“Is everything completed?” he asked, looking at the cloth covered airplane.

“Yes, sir,” Edmund responded, and walked over to the plane and lifted the parachute so that Thénault could see the painted insignia. 

“Very good.”  He looked at it for a moment, “Yes, very nicely done.”  He looked up at the plane, and Edmund could see his eyes follow the cord up to the pulley on the high rafter, and then over to where the cord was tied off against the wall.  “And very dramatic, no?” he said, smiling at Edmund.

Edmund just smiled and nodded.

“Very good.”  Thénault said as he turned and walked over to other pilots filing in who were in their dress uniforms with stiff kepi hats.  Knox was one of the last to arrive.  Thénault walked him over to the plane but would not let him look underneath.  As they stood chatting, Edmund walked over to the tied-off parachute cord against the wall.  As the men stood talking, he could see Luc talking with some of the Thaw’s crew against the opposite wall.  Edmund looked at him and smiled, but Luc did not turn his way.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, gather round please.” Thénault began.  “We are here today to recognize one of our fellow knights of the sky, who, on our last foray, demonstrated exceptional daring, bravery, and skill,”

“And I daresay, luck!” added another pilot Blaine Rockingham.  All of the pilots, including Knox and Thénault, laughed.

“Yes, yes, we all need a bit of that,” Thénault added.  “But this man, Sergeant Sinclair Knox, now has, I have learned this morning, two officially confirmed kills on one outing!”  At this announcement, the men burst into cheers and applause for Knox.  Knox smiled and waved at his compatriots and bowed slightly to Thénault.  “So,” Thénault continued, “to mark the occasion, we have prepared a little gift for you.”  Thénault stepped off to the side a bit and nodded at Edmund.  Edmund gave the cord a steady and strong pull, and the parachute slipped off of the airplane and disappeared into the rafters above.  When it hit the top, it shuddered and billowed up like a cloud for a moment, but only Edmund noticed this.  Everyone else was applauding and slapping Knox on the back.  Knox himself was admiring the artwork on his plane.  Only with prompting did he notice the initials on the back, and then the two skull-and-crossbone insignias marking the two kills.

Edmund tied the cord off, and then walked forward, but just to the edge of the row of planes, staying behind the crowd gathered around Knox.  Edmund heard several of the pilots saying, “Speech! Speech!” 

After a moment, Thénault stepped forward next to Knox and said, “Perhaps the Sergeant would honor us with a few words.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly come prepared to make a speech.  I haven’t even had coffee yet,” Knox said, and the crowd laughed.  “Well, Raoul, my bird looks almost nicer than yours now,” Knox continued looking back at the painting on the side of his Nieuport, as the men continued to laugh quietly.  Raoul Lufbery bowed toward Knox.  “But I really just want to thank all of you for doing this.  And as we all know, no man is up there alone.  We all have our crews that keep us flying, and our families that sent us here.  You, um, did have a mother once, didn’t you Captaine?” Knox said looking at Thénault, who nodded and smiled back at him.  Again the men laughed quietly.  Knox continued, “But the only thing between our machines and the ground is Almighty God who keeps us aloft and safe, until he decides to call us home.”  The crowd murmured in agreement.  Edmund could hear several men say “Amen.”  “And the only thing we have up there besides God is each other, and hopefully a well-oiled Lewis gun.”  Again the men laughed, and he could feel the tension leave the crowd.  None of them liked to think about how close they all were to death.  “We are all up there because it is the right thing to do.  We all recognize the need to stop this evil that is spreading throughout this land, and to keep up the fight until the rest of our American brethren see the light, and come to the defense of France, before this scourge spreads to the rest of the world.  So, I just want to thank all of you.  None of us could accomplish anything alone.  We are all up there together, supporting each other and watching out for each other. We live together, fly together, kill together, and die together.  I have never had a closer family than you men in this room right now.”

“Here here.” Thénault said quietly, and the room was silent.  Edmund could feel a lump forming in the back of his throat. 

The quiet was broken by the noise of a metal tub filled with ice and champagne bottles being sat roughly on the ground by two other pilots, Victor Chapman and Bert Hall. “Who else here needs a drink besides me?” Chapman asked, holding up a bottle.  This question was answered by most of the men with “Here here!” and “Amen!”  Chapman and Hall began pulling bottles out of the ice and handing them around.  The men popped the corks, sending them flying into the rafters of the hangar, and drank directly from the bottles, passing them around to their compatriots. 

Knox was standing talking quietly to Thénault, looking at the Lakota insignia.  Knox took a long drink from a champagne bottle, and then offered it to Thénault, who politely shook his head.  They spoke a few more words to each other, then Thénault patted Knox firmly on the back and turned into the crowd.  Edmund walked over to Knox who was taking another long drink from the bottle when he saw Edmund approach.  He clapped Edmund on the back and put his hand on the back of Edmund’s neck, holding it affectionately, but also at arm’s length. 

“Boy, that is nice,” Knox said, looking at the Lakota. “Was this your idea?”

“No, the Captaine’s,” Edmund said, nodding toward Thénault.

“Well, it sure is beautiful,” Knox said, and he handed the bottle to Edmund.  “And she looks brand new.”  As Edmund drank, Knox looked up at the wing where Edmund had patched the bullet holes.  “I can barely see the damage.”

“Thank you,” Edmund said, wiping champagne off his mouth with the back of his hand.  He handed the bottle back to Knox.

“Oh, I meant to ask you, did the clothes I sent fit you?”

“Yes, perfectly, thanks.”

Knox reached inside his coat and pulled an envelope out of the breast pocket.  “And here, rather late I am afraid, is your actual invitation.  We had a devil of a time finding a printer who wasn’t either evacuating or working on war stuff.”

Edmund opened the envelope and slid out an invitation card.  At the top left was a cartoon of the American and French flags on crossed flagpoles, and at the top right was the Lakota head insignia.  A little further down in the middle was a drawing of a roasted turkey and two Pilgrim torsos.  Below that, the text began.

The Members of the Escadrille Americainé

Invite you and a guest to

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thursday, November 30, 1916

at the

Chateau Americainé

Please respond using the enclosed card                                                         Formal attire requested

“If you could just send a note back up to the house with your name and the name of your guest on it so the staff can make the name cards, I would appreciate it.”

“Will do,” said Edmund, realizing that he didn’t have a guest.

“And again, thanks for all of this,” Knox said, looking back at the plane.

“You deserve it, sir.”

“Well,” Knox said and looked down at the ground, “thanks.  See you next week, if not before.”

“Yes, sir,” Edmund said.  Knox walked over to a group of pilots who slapped him on the back and began talking loudly about his exploits.  Edmund looked around the hangar.  Groups of mechanics and crewmen were gathered around the edges, dispersed among the airplanes, sharing a bottle or two and talking.  The pilots were all gathered around the middle of the room, standing next to the tub of champagne, each with his own bottle in his hand.  Edmund looked back at the plane for a moment and then decided that he would move it back when the crowds had thinned a bit.  With one last glance at the men talking excitedly in the hangar, Edmund walked out and headed back over to his tent. 

When he got inside, he sat down at the small table and took out a pen and a piece of Behonne stationery, and began writing a note to Clemence, asking her to Thanksgiving dinner.  Three days later, he received her acceptance.  Edmund sent another note to the chateau confirming their attendance. 

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the Escadrille flew another mission.  It was a small reconnaissance job, but Knox had seemed particularly nervous before this one, and he tried to cover it up by being affectedly relaxed and magnanimous.  He offered to send a car from the chateau to pick up Edmund and his date, to which Edmund agreed.  The mission went off without a hitch.  They encountered no air resistance and only a few wild shots from the ground.  None of the pilots were hit.  Edmund sent another note to Clemence telling her when he would be picking her up.