A BALLOON ATTACK
“I’m looking for two balloonatics,”
said Talbott, as he came into the messroom; “and
I think I’ve found them.”
Percy, Talbott’s orderly, Tiffin
the steward, Drew, and I were the only occupants of
the room. Percy is an old legionnaire,
crippled with rheumatism. His active service
days are over. Tiffin’s working hours are
filled with numberless duties. He makes the beds,
and serves food from three to five times daily to
members of the Escadrille Lafayette. These two
being eliminated, the identity of the balloonatics
was plain.
“The orders have just come,”
Talbott added, “and I decided that the first
men I met after leaving the bureau would be balloonatics.
Virtue has gone into both of you. Now, if you
can make fire come out of a Boche sausage, you will
have done all that is required. Listen. This
is interesting. The orders are in French, but
I will translate as I read:
On the umteenth day of June, the escadrilles
of Groupe de Combat Blank [that’s ours]
will cooperate in an attack on the German observation
balloons along the sector extending from X to
Y. The patrols to be furnished are: (1) two patrols
of protection, of five avions each, by the
escadrilles Sp and Sp; (2) four
patrols of attack, of three avions each,
by the escadrilles Sp [that’s us],
Sp, Sp, and Sp.
The attack will be organized as follows:
on the day set, weather permitting, the two patrols
of protection will leave the field at 10.30 A.M.
The patrol of Sp will rendezvous over the
village of N . The patrol of protection
of Sp will rendezvous over the village of C .
At 10.45, precisely, they will start for the lines,
crossing at an altitude of thirty-five hundred
metres. The patrol furnished by Sp
will guard the sector from X to T, between the
town of O and the two enemy balloons
on that sector. The patrol furnished by
Sp will guard the sector from T to Y, between
the railway line and the two enemy balloons on
that sector. Immediately after the attack has
been made, these formations will return to the aerodrome.
At 10.40 A.M. the four patrols of attack
will leave the field, and will rendezvous as
follows. [Here followed the directions.] At 10.55,
precisely, they will start for the lines, crossing
at an approximate altitude of sixteen hundred
metres, each patrol making in a direct line for the
balloon assigned to it. Numbers 1 and 2 of
each of these patrols will carry rockets.
Number 3 will fly immediately above them, offering
further protection in case of attack by enemy
aircraft. Number 1 of each patrol will first attack
the balloon. If he fails, number 2 will attack.
If number 1 is successful, number 2 will then
attack the observers in their parachutes.
If number 1 fails, and number 2 is successful,
number 3 will attack the observers. The patrol
will then proceed to the aerodrome by the shortest
route.
Squadron commanders
will make a return before noon to-day,
of the names of pilots
designated by them for their
respective patrols.
In case of unfavorable
weather, squadron commanders will be
informed of the date
to which the attack has been postponed.
Pilots designated as numbers 1 and
2 of the patrols of attack will be relieved from
the usual patrol duty from this date. They
will employ their time at rocket shooting. A
target will be in place on the east side of the
field from 1.30 P.M. to-day.
“Are there any remarks?”
said Talbott, as if he had been reading the minutes
at a debating-club meeting.
“Yes,” said J. B. “When is
the umteenth of June?”
“Ah, mon vieux!
that’s the question. The commandant knows,
and he isn’t telling. Any other little
thing?”
I suggested that we would like to
know which of us was to be number 1.
“That’s right. Drew,
how would you like to be the first rocketeer?”
“I’ve no objection,”
said J. B., grinning as if the frenzy of balloonaticking
had already got into his blood.
“Right! that’s settled.
I’ll see your mechanicians about fitting your
machines for rockets. You can begin practice this
afternoon.”
Percy had been listening with interest
to the conversation.
“You got some nice job, you
boys. But if you bring him down, there will be
a lot of chuckling in the trenches. You won’t
hear it, but they will all be saying, ‘Bravo!
Epatant!’ I’ve been there. I’ve
seen it and I know. Does ’em all good to
see a sausage brought down. ‘There’s
another one of their eyes knocked out,’ they
say.”
“Percy is right,” said
J. B. as we were walking down the road. “Destroying
a balloon is not a great achievement in itself.
Of course, it’s so much equipment gone, so much
expense added to the German war-budget. That
is something. But the effect on the infantrymen
is the important thing. Boche soldiers, thousands
of them, will see one of their balloons coming down
in flame. They will be saying, ‘Where are
our airmen?’ like those old poilus we met at
the station when we first came out. It’s
bound to influence morale. Now let’s see.
The balloon, we will say, is at sixteen hundred metres.
At that height it can be seen by men on the ground
within a radius of ” and so forth
and so on.
We figured it out approximately, estimating
the numbers of soldiers, of all branches of service,
who would witness the sight. Multiplying this
number by four, our conclusion was that, as a result
of the expedition, the length of the war and its outcome
might very possibly be affected. At any rate,
there would be such an ebbing of German morale, and
such a flooding of French, that the way would be opened
to a decisive victory on that front.
But supposing we should miss our sausage?
J. B. grew thoughtful.
“Have another look at the orders.
I don’t remember what the instructions were
in case we both fail.”
I read, “If number 1 fails and
number 2 is successful, number 3 will attack the observers.
The patrol will then proceed to the aerodrome by the
shortest route.”
This was plain enough. Allowance
could be made for one failure, but two the
possibility had not even been considered.
“By the shortest route.”
There was a piece of sly humor for you. It may
have been unconscious, but we preferred to believe
that the commandant had chuckled as he dictated it.
A sort of afterthought, as much as to say to his pilots,
“Well, you young bucks, you would-be airmen:
thought it would be all sport, eh? You might have
known. It’s your own fault. Now go
out and attack those balloons. It’s possible
that you may have a scrap or two on your hands while
you are at it. Oh, yes, by the way, coming home,
you’ll be down pretty low. Every Boche
machine in the air will have you at a disadvantage.
Better return by the shortest route.”
One feature of the programme did not
appeal to us greatly, and this was the attack to be
made on the observers when they had jumped with their
parachutes. It seemed as near the border line
between legitimate warfare and cold-blooded murder
as anything could well be.
“You are armed with a machine-gun.
He may have an automatic pistol. It will require
from five to ten minutes for him to reach the ground
after he has jumped. You can come down on him
like a stone. Well, it’s your job, thank
the Lord! not mine,” said Drew.
It was my job, but I insisted that
he would be an accomplice. In destroying the
balloon, he would force me to attack the observers.
When I asked Talbott if this feature of the attack
could be eliminated he said:
“Certainly. I have instructions
from the commandant touching on this point. In
case any pilot objects to attacking the observers with
machine-gun fire, he is to strew their parachutes with
autumn leaves and such field-flowers as the season
affords. Now, listen! What difference, ethically,
is there, between attacking one observation officer
in a parachute, and dropping a ton of bombs on a train-load
of soldiers? And to kill the observers is really
more important than to destroy the balloon. If
you are going to be a military pilot, for the love
of Pete and Alf be one!”
He was right, of course, but that
didn’t make the prospect any the more pleasant.
The large map at the bureau now had
greater interest for us than ever. The German
balloons along the sector were marked in pictorially,
with an ink line, representing the cable, running
from the basket of each one down to the exact spot
on the map from which they were launched. Under
one of these, “Sp” was printed, neatly,
in red ink. It was the farthest distant from
our lines of the four to be attacked, and about ten
kilometres within German-held territory. The cable
ran to the outskirts of a village situated on a railroad
and a small stream. The location of enemy aviation
fields was also shown pictorially, each one represented
by a minute sketch, very carefully made, of an Albatross
biplane. We noticed that there were several aérodromes
not far distant from our balloon.
After a survey of the map, the commandant’s
afterthought, “by the shortest route,”
was not so needless as it appeared at first. The
German positions were in a salient, a large corner,
the line turning almost at right angles. We could
cross them from the south, attack our balloon, and
then, if we wished, return to French territory on the
west side of the salient.
“We may miss some heavy shelling.
If we double on our tracks going home, they will be
expecting us, of course; whereas, if we go out on
the west side, we will pass over batteries which didn’t
see us come in. If there should happen to be
an east wind, there will be another reason in favor
of the plan. The commandant is a shrewd soldier.
It may have been his way of saying that the longest
way round is the shortest way home.”
Our Spads were ready after luncheon.
A large square of tin had been fastened over the fabric
of each lower wing, under the rocket fittings, to
prevent danger of fire from sparks. Racks for
six rockets, three on a side, had been fastened to
the struts. The rockets were tipped with sharp
steel points to insure their pricking the silk balloon
envelope. The batteries for igniting them were
connected with a button inside the car, within easy
reach of the pilot. Lieutenant Verdane, our French
second-in-command, was to supervise our practice on
the field. We were glad of this. If we failed
to “spear our sausage,” it would not be
through lack of efficient instruction. He explained
to Drew how the thing was to be done. He was to
come on the balloon into the wind, and preferably
not more than four hundred metres above it. He
was to let it pass from view under the wing; then,
when he judged that he was directly over it, to reduce
his motor and dive vertically, placing the bag within
the line of his two circular sights, holding it there
until the bag just filled the circle. At that
second he would be about 250 metres distant from it,
and it was then that the rockets should be fired.
The instructions were simple enough,
but in practicing on the target we found that they
were not so easy to carry out. It was hard to
judge accurately the moment for diving. Sometimes
we overshot the target, but more often we were short
of it. Owing to the angle at which the rockets
were mounted on the struts, it was very important that
the dive should be vertical.
One morning, the attack could have
been made with every chance of success. Drew
and I left the aerodrome a few minutes before sunrise
for a trial flight, that we might give our motors a
thorough testing. We climbed through a heavy
mist which lay along the ground like water, filling
every fold and hollow, flowing up the hillsides, submerging
everything but the crests of the highest hills.
The tops of the twin spires of S
cathedral were all that could be seen of the town.
Beyond, the long chain of heights where the first-line
trenches were rose just clear of the mist, which glowed
blood-red as the sun came up.
The balloons were already up, hanging
above the dense cloud of vapor, elongated planets
drifting in space. The observers were directing
the fire of their batteries to those positions which
stood revealed. Shells were also exploding on
lower ground, for we saw the mist billow upward time
after time with the force of mighty concussions, and
slowly settle again. It was an awe-inspiring sight.
We might have been watching the last battle of the
last war that could ever be, with the world still
fighting on, bitterly, blindly, gradually sinking from
sight in a sea of blood. I have never seen anything
to equal that spectacle of an artillery battle in
the mists.
Conditions were ideal for the attack.
We could have gone to the objective, fired our rockets,
and made our return, without once having been seen
from the ground. It was an opportunity made in
heaven, an Allied heaven. “But the infantry
would not have seen it,” said J. B.; which was
true. Not that we cared to do the thing in a spectacular
fashion. We were thinking of that decisive effect
upon morale.
Two hours later we were pitching pennies
in one of the hangars, when Talbott came across the
field, followed solemnly by Whiskey and Soda, the
lion mascots of the Escadrille Lafayette.
“What’s the date, anybody
know?” he asked, very casually.
J. B. is an agile-minded youth.
“It isn’t the umteenth by any chance?”
“Right the first time.”
He looked at his watch. “It is now ten past
ten. You have half an hour. Better get your
rockets attached. How are your motors all
right?”
This was one way of breaking the news,
and the best one, I think. If we had been told
the night before, we should have slept badly.
The two patrols of protection left
the field exactly on schedule time. At 10.35,
Irving, Drew, and I were strapped in our machines,
waiting, with our motors turning ralenti, for
Talbott’s signal to start.
He was romping with Whiskey.
“Atta boy, Whiskey! Eat ’em up!
Atta olé lion!”
As a squadron leader Talbott has many
virtues, but the most important of them all is his
casualness. And he is so sincere and natural in
it. He has no conception of the dramatic possibilities
of a situation something to be profoundly
thankful for in the commander of an escadrille
de châsse. Situations are dramatic enough,
tense enough, without one’s taking thought of
the fact. He might have stood there, watch in
hand, counting off the seconds. He might have
said, “Remember, we’re all counting on
you. Don’t let us down. You’ve
got to get that balloon!” Instead of that, he
glanced at his watch as if he had just remembered
us.
“All right; run along, you sausage-spearers.
We’re having lunch at twelve. That will
give you time to wash up after you get back.”
Miller, of course, had to have a parting
shot. He had been in hiding somewhere until the
last moment. Then he came rushing up with a toothbrush
and a safety-razor case. He stood waving them
as I taxied around into the wind. His purpose
was to remind me of the possibility of landing with
a panne de moteur in Germany, and the need I
would then have of my toilet articles.
At 10.54, J. B. came slanting down
over me, then pulled up in ligne de vol, and
went straight for the lines. I fell in behind
him at about one hundred metres distance. Irving
was two hundred metres higher. Before we left
the field he said: “You are not to think
about Germans. That’s my job. I’ll
warn you if I see that we are going to be attacked.
Go straight for the balloon. If you don’t
see me come down and signal, you will know that there
is no danger.”
The French artillery were giving splendid
cooperation. I saw clusters of shell-explosions
on the ground. The gunners were carrying out their
part of the programme, which was to register on enemy
anti-aircraft batteries as we passed over them.
They must have made good practice. Anti-aircraft
fire was feeble, and, such of it as there was, very
wild.
We came within view of the railway
line which runs from the German lines to a large town,
their most important distributing center on the sector.
Following it along with my eyes to the halfway point,
I saw the red roofs of the village which we had so
often looked at from a distance. Our balloon
was in its usual place. It looked like a yellow
plum, and no larger than one; but ripe, ready to be
plucked.
A burst of flame far to the left attracted
my attention, and almost at the same moment, one to
the right. Ribbons of fire flapped upward in
clouds of black oily smoke. Drew signaled with
his joy-stick, and I knew what he meant: “Hooray!
two down! It’s our turn next!” But
we were still three or four minutes away. That
was unfortunate, for a balloon can be drawn down with
amazing speed.
A rocket sailed into the air and burst
in a point of greenish white light, dazzling in its
brilliancy, even in the full light of day. Immediately
after this two white objects, so small as to be hardly
visible, floated earthward: the parachutes of
the observers. They had jumped. The balloon
disappeared from view behind Drew’s machine.
It was being drawn down, of course, as fast as the
motor could wind up the cable. It was an exciting
moment for us. We were coming on at two hundred
kilometres an hour, racing against time and very little
time at that. “Sheridan, only five miles
away,” could not have been more eager for his
journey’s end. Our throttles were wide open,
the engines developing their highest capacity for
power.
I swerved out to one side for another
glimpse of the target: it was almost on the ground,
and directly under us. Drew made a steep virage
and dived. I started after him in a tight spiral,
to look for the observers; but they had both disappeared.
The balloon was swaying from side to side under the
tension of the cable. It was hard to keep it
in view. I lost it under my wing. Tipping
up on the other side, I saw Drew release his rockets.
They spurted out in long wavering lines of smoke.
He missed. The balloon lay close to the ground,
looking larger, riper than ever. The sight of
its smooth, sleek surface was the most tantalizing
of invitations. Letting it pass under me again,
I waited for a second or two, then shut down the motor,
and pushed forward on the control-stick until I was
falling vertically. Standing upright on the rudder-bar,
I felt the tugging of the shoulder-straps. Getting
the bag well within the sights, I held it there until
it just filled the circle. Then I pushed the
button.
Although it was only eight o’clock,
both Drew and I were in bed; for we were both very
tired, it was a chilly evening, and we had no fire.
An oil lamp was on the table between the two cots.
Drew was sitting propped up, his fur coat rolled into
a bundle for a back-rest. He had a sweater, tied
by the sleeves, around his shoulders. His hands
were clasped around his blanketed knees, and his breath,
rising in a cloud of luminous steam,
“Like pious incense
from a censer old,
Seemed taking flight for heaven
without a death.”
And yet, “pious” is hardly
the word. J. B. was swearing, drawing from a
choice reserve of picturesque epithets which I did
not know that he possessed. I regret the necessity
of omitting some of them.
“I don’t see how I could
have missed it! Why, I didn’t turn to look
for at least thirty seconds. I was that sure that
I had brought it down. Then I banked and nearly
fell out of my seat when I saw it there. I redressed
at four hundred metres. I couldn’t have
been more than one hundred metres away when I fired
the rockets.”
“What did you do then?”
“Circled around, waiting for
you. I had the balloon in sight all the while
you were diving. It was a great sight to watch
from below, particularly when you let go your rockets.
I’ll never forget it, never. But, Lord!
Without the climax! Artistically, it was an awful
fizzle.”
There was no denying this. A
balloon bonfire was the only possible conclusion to
the adventure, and we both failed at lighting it.
I, too, redressed when very close to the bag, and
made a steep bank in order to escape the burst of
flame from the ignited gas. The rockets leaped
out, with a fine, blood-stirring roar. The mere
sound ought to have been enough to make any balloon
collapse. But when I turned, there it was, intact,
a super-Brobdingnagian pumpkin, seen at close view,
and still ripe, still ready for plucking. If I
live to one hundred years, I shall never have a greater
surprise or a more bitter disappointment.
There was no leisure for brooding
over it then. My altimeter registered only two
hundred and fifty metres, and the French lines were
far distant. If the motor failed I should have
to land in German territory. Any fate but that.
Nevertheless, I felt in the pocket of my combination,
to be sure that my box of matches was safely in place.
We were cautioned always to carry them where they
could be quickly got at in case of a forced landing
in enemy country. An airman must destroy his
machine in such an event. But my Spad did not
mean to end its career so ingloriously. The motor
ran beautifully, hitting on every cylinder. We
climbed from two hundred and fifty metres to three
hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty, and on steadily
upward. In the vicinity of the balloon, machine-gun
fire from the ground had been fairly heavy; but I
was soon out of range, and saw the tracer bullets,
like swarms of blue bubbles, curving downward again
at the end of their trajectory.
No machines, either French or German,
were in sight. Irving had disappeared some time
before we reached the balloon. I had not seen
Drew from the moment when he fired his rockets.
He waited until he made sure that I was following,
then started for the west side of the salient.
I did not see him, because of my interest in those
clouds of blue bubbles which were rising with anything
but bubble-like tranquillity. When I was clear
of them, I set my course westward and parallel with
the enemy lines to the south.
I had never flown so low, so far in
German territory. The temptation to forget precaution
and to make a leisurely survey of the ground beneath
was hard to resist. It was not wholly resisted,
in fact. Anti-aircraft fire was again feeble
and badly ranged. The shells burst far behind
and above, for I was much too low to offer an easy
target. This gave me a dangerous sense of safety,
and so I tipped up on one side, then on the other,
examining the roads, searching the ruins of villages,
the trenches, the shell-marked ground. I saw no
living thing; brute or human; nothing but endless,
inconceivable desolation.
The foolishness of that close scrutiny
alone, without the protection of other avions,
I realize now much better than I did then. Unless
flying at six thousand metres or above, when
he is comparatively safe from attack, a
pilot may never relax his vigilance for thirty seconds
together. He must look behind him, below, above,
constantly. All aviators learn this eventually,
but in the case of many new pilots the knowledge comes
too late to be of service. I thought this was
to be my experience, when, looking up, I saw five
combat machines bearing down upon me. Had they
been enemy planes my chances would have been very
small, for they were close at hand before I saw them.
The old French aviator, worn out by his five hundred
hours of flight over the trenches, said, “Save
your nervous energy.” I exhausted a three-months
reserve in as many seconds. The suspense, luckily,
was hardly longer than that. It passed when the
patrol leader, followed by the others, pulled up in
ligne de vol, about one hundred metres above
me, showing their French cocardes. It
was the group of protection of Sp. At the
time I saw Drew, a quarter of a mile away. As
he turned, the sunlight glinted along his rocket-tubes.
A crowded hour of glorious life it
seems now, although I was not of this opinion at the
time. In reality, we were absent barely forty
minutes. Climbing out of my machine at the aerodrome,
I looked at my watch. A quarter to twelve.
Laignier, the sergeant mechanician, was sitting in
a sunny corner of the hangar, reading the “Matin,”
just as I had left him.
Lieutenant Talbott’s only comment
was: “Don’t let it worry you.
Better luck next time. The group bagged two out
of four, and Irving knocked down a Boche who was trying
to get at you. That isn’t bad for half
an hour’s work.”
But the decisive effect on morale
which was to result from our wholesale destruction
of balloons was diminished by half. We had forced
ours down, but it bobbed up again very soon afterward.
The one-o’clock patrol saw it, higher, Miller
said, than it had ever been. It was Miller, by
the way, who looked in on us at nine o’clock
the same evening. The lamp was out.
“Asleep?”
Neither of us was, but we didn’t
answer. He closed the door, then reopened it.
“It’s laziness, that’s
what it is. They ought to put you on school regime
again.”
He had one more afterthought.
Looking in a third time, he said,
“How about it, you little old
human dynamos; are you getting rusty?”