Title: War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator
Author: Anonymous
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Language:  English
Date first posted: October 2007
Date most recently updated: October 2007

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Title: War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (1926)
Author: Anonymous





September 20th, 1917

Aboard R.M.S. Carmania in the harbour of Halifax.

Well, here I am aboard ship and three days out of New York, waiting for a
convoy at Halifax. This seems to be a fitting place to start a diary. I
am leaving my continent as well as my country and am going forth in
search of adventure, which I hope to find in Italy, for that is where we
are headed. We are a hundred and fifty aviators in embryo commanded by
Major MacDill, who is an officer and a gentleman in fact as well as by
Act of Congress. We are travelling first-class, thanks to him, though we
are really only privates, and every infantry officer on board hates our
guts because we have the same privileges they do. Capt. Swan, an old
Philippine soldier, is supply officer.

This morning when we steamed into harbour, which is a wonderful place, we
found five or six transports already here. The soldiers on them, all that
could, got into the boats and came over to see us. They rowed around and
around our boat and cheered and sang. They were from New Zealand and a
fine husky bunch they were. One song went:

Onward, conscript soldiers, marching as to war,
You would not be conscripts, had you gone before.

This is a beautiful place. I expect my opinion is largely due to my frame
of mind, but it really is pretty. Low jagged hills form the horizon and
on the south side of the river as we came up, is solid rock with a little
dirt over it in spots but the rock sticking through everywhere like bones
through a poor horse.

We went through two submarine nets stretched across the mouth of the
harbour. I wish I had words to describe the feeling I had when all the
soldiers in the harbour came over to tell us howdy. One New Zealander, I
think he was a non-com, stood up in the back of the boat and said, "You
fellows don't look very happy." And I guess our boys don't at that--the
doughboys, I mean. We've got over two thousand of them on board of the
9th Infantry Regiment of the regular army. Anyway, New Zealand beat us
cheering with their full throated, "Hip Hurrah Hip Hurrah Hip Hurrah!"
But they said they were five weeks out and knew each other pretty well,
while our boys aren't acquainted yet.

I have a stateroom with Lawrence Callahan from Chicago, who roomed with
me at Ground School, where we suffered together under Major Kraft and had
a lot of fun from time to time in spite of him. We almost got separated
at New York as he was going to France with another detachment over at
Governor's Island. I got Elliott Springs, our top sergeant, to get the
Major to have him transferred to us. We had a good crowd over at Mineola
and I saw him in town and he told me he was in a rotten bunch over there.
I was a sergeant as Springs had me promoted because I took a squad out
and unloaded a carload of canned tomatoes after two others had fallen
down on the job. We got him transferred all right and then he got mad as
fury at Springs because he made him peel potatoes for four days for
chewing gum in ranks. On the fourth day Cal told Springs how much trouble
he had taken to join his outfit and that he hadn't come prepared to be a
perpetual kitchen police. Springs said he was very glad to have him but
if he wanted to chew gum in ranks he'd have to peel potatoes the rest of
the day every time he did it. Cal said he'd already been assigned to the
job for four days. Springs said he knew it but that so far he hadn't
peeled a single potato and he was going to get one day's work out of him
if he had to chain him to the stove to do it. Cal won though, because
Springs was too busy to watch him and he never did finish one pan of
spuds.

I've got to go to boat drill now. We practise abandoning ship every day.

That's over. My platoon is assigned to the top deck and Captain La
Guardia is in charge of our boat. He is a congressman from New York City
and learned to fly last year. He is an Italian so was sent over with us.
He managed to bring along two of his Italian ward bosses as cooks. One of
them owns a big Italian restaurant and yet here he is as a cook. And he
can't cook!

I probably won't write much in this thing. I never have done anything
constantly except the wrong thing, but I want a few recollections jotted
down in case I don't get killed.

I am going to make two resolutions and stick to them. I am not going to
lose my temper any more I fight too much. And I am going to be very
careful and take care of myself. I am not going to take any unnecessary
chances. I want to die well and not be killed in some accident or die of
sickness--that would be terrible, a tragic anticlimax. I haven't lived
very well but I am determined to die well. I don't want to be a hero--too
often they are all clay from the feet up, but I want to die as a man
should. Thank God, I am going to have the opportunity to die as every
brave man should wish to die--fighting--and fighting for my country as
well. That would retrieve my wasted years and neglected opportunities.

But if I don't get killed, I want to be able to jog my memory in my
declining years so that I can say, "Back in 1917 when I was an aviator, I
used to--!" I'll probably not write any more for a week, or perhaps no
more at all.

September 21st

We left Halifax in a haze just as the sun, blood red, broke through the
clouds for an instant before it set behind those rock-ribbed hills. It
was a wonderful sight seen from our ship, one of a convoy of fourteen
strung out, as we left the harbour in a stately majestic procession. All
hail to Mars, the Kaiser's godfather!

As we came through from the inner basin down the river south to the sea,
we passed the British battle cruisers, their bands all playing the "Star
Spangled Banner" and their crews cheering with their well organized "Hip
Hurrah," the "Hip" being given by an officer through a megaphone. As we
were coming out of the inner basin, one of our convoy steamed past us
with one lone bugler playing our national anthem and every one on board
standing rigidly at attention. I never had quite such a thrill from the
old tune before and I am really beginning to love it. The bugler played,
"God Save the King," too, and not a sound was made on either ship as the
clear, sweet, almost plaintive notes stole out over the water. I am sure
every man on board was affected no matter how hardboiled he was.

There is a cottage to the right of the river going up where only three
women live. I am sure no men are there and they must be Americans for
they had a big U.S. flag. When we passed they dipped their flag on the
house and one of them wigwagged, "Good-bye, good luck, God bless you!"

September 22nd

We haven't done much to-day except watch the other ships. They changed
their formation every little while during the morning and finally settled
down in three lines of four ships each with one ship leading and the
Carmania bringing up the rear. That makes fourteen in the convoy not
counting our escort. It rained all morning but held up this evening. It
remained cloudy and the wind blew. Every one thought we were going to
have some rough weather to-night. I was just on deck and the stars were
peeping through the clouds and they were as bright as diamonds. I never
saw sky more beautiful. I tried to count the other thirteen ships but
could not. I was arrested by the guard for smoking on deck. He saw my
wrist watch. No lights, no matter how faint, can be shown except the red
and green navigating lights on the masts. A British Commander told us
that one ship was torpedoed because some one carelessly struck a match on
the deck.

There is never an intermission of cards in the smoker. We shoot crap in
our staterooms and I am gradually collecting all kinds of money--Italian,
French, English and best of all, a little American. We don't know what
all this foreign money is worth so we have to shoot it by the
colour--green against green, and yellow against yellow. The coins rank by
size. I guess it's all even in the end.

September 24th

I wrote nothing yesterday. Nothing happened except I saw a fight on the
lower deck from above and heard a quartette and a speech down below.
Quite a sea has been running to-day, or so it seems to me, and several of
the boys have been sick. Especially Leach from Tuscaloosa, who is awfully
low. They put a sign on him as he lay in his chair on the deck: "I want
peace and quiet."

We spend two hours a day studying Italian. La Guardia and the two cooks
and Gaipa are the instructors. I am way behind and will never catch up. I
am discouraged about it. I learned all sorts of queer things at Ground
School without much trouble so guess I can catch up but I sure hate to
think of the hard work I have to do.

There's a full moon to-night and the sea is beautiful. Oh, for words to
describe it! It makes me sad and makes me ache inside for something, I
don't know what. I guess it's a little loving I need. There are twenty
nurses on board but they are all dated up for the rest of the voyage.
They certainly ought to get all the attention they need.

The wind is rising and whining through the rigging of the ship. We can
hear it crying down here in our staterooms. I am going on deck to see
what goes on. It's a wonderful night, as clear as a bell and this big old
ship rising and falling, sloughing its way through the sea. This must be
a wonderful life at sea. I shall always carry the picture in my mind of
the damp decks and masts rearing along under the stars with the white
foam spreading from both sides every time she dips. I wish I could soak
it all up and keep it. God, I am young, life is before me, and if I have
wonderful memories, when I get old I will be happy. I have spent all my
life so far in harsh surroundings and had so much hard work that I think
some good time is coming to me. And I have always longed for better
things but didn't know how to go about getting them. But now Fate has
tossed me this opportunity. I must make the best of it! All I have to pay
for it is my life! I must make it worth the bargain! I am always feeling
sorry for myself, a poor habit and one I am going to cut out. Well, I'll
try this thrice accursed Italian for a few minutes now.

September 25th

Something queer went on this evening. The Painted Lady, as we call the
camouflaged cruiser that is escorting us, turned around and circled
behind us and fired a few shots. We don't know what she was firing at.
She sure is a queer-looking boat. She's painted all different colours in
lines and squares and you can't tell which way she is going or what she
is until you get close to her. Another boat in our convoy is painted the
colour of the ocean and then has a smaller ship painted over it going the
other way. From any distance it is very deceptive. Another ship has the
same arrangement except the deception is in the angle of her course.

We went below, Cal and I, to hear the Steerage Quartette, as they call
themselves. Enlisted men they are and natural born entertainers. One boy
sang "I ain't got nobody" wonderfully well. Spalding played one of his
own compositions for us. One day at Mineola, Springs was looking about as
usual for some kitchen police. He put the first six men to work peeling
potatoes. While they were manicuring the spuds he checked up their
service records. One record caught his eye. The name on it was Albert
Spalding and he gave his profession as musician. He was sent to our
detachment as an Italian interpreter. Springs went out to the kitchen and
asked him if he was the guy that played the fiddle. Spalding allowed as
how he was. Springs asked him where his pet instrument was. He said he'd
left it in town. So Springs pardoned him from the peeling and sent him
back to town after it. He isn't a cadet but an enlisted man and isn't
eligible for a commission as we are. I hear that he lost a $35,000 a year
contract. I guess he will be figured into a commission somehow, though.
He should be. They put him down in the steerage and won't allow him up in
the first-class with us. Springs and MacDill are trying to get him up but
the regular army colonel of this regiment won't hear of it. But he plays
for the enlisted men every night down below.

I feel safe from seasickness now and would enjoy myself immensely if it
were not for this Italian. I never will learn it unless I do some work so
here goes! I thought my troubles were over when I got rid of that
wireless.

September 26th

Nothing much doing. We have to do submarine watch after to-morrow and I
am sergeant of the second relief. At last I will get a chance to go up on
that little trick platform on the front of the ship and also on the
bridge.

September 29th

I haven't written anything for the past two days. Nothing really of
noteworthy importance has happened until this evening. I was sergeant of
the guard yesterday or rather of the submarine watch. We had a watch
posted at five points on the ship. Each man had a certain arc that he was
to keep his eye on. No man was to take anything to drink for twelve hours
before he was to go on watch. We were supposed to look out for gulls
which they say usually follow in the wake of a sub. Everybody has to take
their turn at it except Springs, who is sort of perpetual officer of the
day and runs the show. We did have a guard mount at five in the afternoon
but MacDill and Springs and Deetjen are the only ones that know how to do
it so we had to abandon that after the first day. No periscopes have been
sighted yet though one boy got all excited over a big piece of timber
that was sticking up. The signal for take to the boats is five whistles
and yesterday while our company barber was shaving one of the boys, it
blew three times. It scared the barber so bad that he couldn't finish the
shave. Nervousness has been growing for the last few days about subs.
There has been a kind of tension barely noticeable. No one is actually
scared but we all feel a little nervous about it. We have had to wear our
life preservers all the time since yesterday morning. They are very
uncomfortable and are a great nuisance but the order is strictly
enforced. We wear them to meals and put them beside our chairs while we
eat. No refuse of any kind is thrown overboard except at night when it is
all thrown over at one time. That's to prevent leaving any trace.

Everybody felt funny about the thing until four this afternoon, right
after Italian. I went up on deck and the sea was swarming with submarine
chasers. Lord, how happy every one was at the sight of them! They are the
prettiest little ships I ever saw, about a hundred and twenty feet over
all, I would say. They cut through the water instead of riding the waves
but there were no waves today. You can't feel the motion of the ship at
all. They say we have three American chasers with us but we couldn't tell
which they were. Lord, those little boats are fast; they fairly fly
through the water and cleave it so clear and clean. I would give a leg to
own one. They are all run by steam. I thought there would be gas boats,
but I guess we are too far out for them.

I never slept as much in my life as I have on this ship. Must be the salt
air.

I hear we will sight the coast of Ireland to-morrow about twelve o'clock
and be in Liverpool Monday. It can't be too soon for me, I'm sick to
death of this Italian.

Everybody on board makes fun of my laughing. I never knew before I joined
the army that there was anything unusual about it, but it seems to waken
every one on this side of the ship. Poor McCook, the ugliest man alive,
is worried to death about subs. The boys, Curtis and McCurry, have kidded
him until he sleeps in his clothes including his puttees and shoes.
Curtis says he'll be mad as hell if the ship isn't sunk.

We have an ex-cowboy with us named Bird, who has been having a terrible
time behaving himself. Bob Kelly was a cowboy out in Arizona for a while
when he was trying to shake off the con and every time they get together
the storm clouds gather. They are good friends of Springs's and whenever
they get started he joins them and tries to quiet things down. One night
last week Bird got tired of this paternal supervision in the bar and went
down below. Then he started giving his cowboy yell and the matter was
reported to the Major. The Major said he didn't want to be hard on
anybody but he couldn't overlook it, so he left the punishment to
Springs. Springs put him on the waggon for a week. Since then he has been
sitting around the table in the bar drinking ginger ale and looking at
Springs in a pleading tone of voice so he let him off to-night in honour
of the prospects of seeing land to-morrow. We had a big crap game later
in our staterooms. First Jake Stanley took all the money and then Springs
took it all from him and finally Stokes ended up with it all. I don't
know how much it was but there were a couple of handfuls of assorted
paper.

How I hate those Italian lessons. They finally got Spalding up in the
first-class on the excuse that he has to be there for private
instructions. All he does is play bridge with Springs, Cal, and the
Major. They say that he is the fastest bridge player in the world,
whatever that means. Crap is my game but the Major outlawed that. We can
gamble at bridge and drink all we want as long as we don't get drunk. Now
isn't that a fine distinction! I don't know how to play bridge and I like
to get drunk.

October 1st

To-morrow we will wake in Merrie England. Oh, boy! This voyage is nearly
over. I am sorry in one way and glad in another. I am growing restless
and want a change. This ship is too monotonous.

We left the other ships about nine-thirty last night and steamed off at
full speed. We are making nineteen knots now and it seems high speed
after the snail's pace we have had. We picked up a lighthouse shortly
after leaving the convoy and Cal and I fancied we saw land by the light
of the moon away off on the starboard. The sea is as green as grass and
has been all day. It's beautiful, and the foam from our wake is as white
as snow. We have only one chaser with us and it is streaking along in
front. I found out that they are not as small as they look. They are
nearly three hundred feet long. I am rather excited about arriving in
Liverpool tomorrow and going across England by train to London. I know it
will be a peach of a trip.

October 3rd

So this is England. We landed yesterday morning and took a train right at
the dock for Oxford. We aren't going to Italy after all. We've got to go
to Ground School all over again. Our orders got all bawled up in Paris
and MacDill, La Guardia, the doctors, the enlisted men and Spalding have
gone on to France. MacDill said he would go on to Paris and get the
orders straightened out and come back for us. Somebody had made a
mistake. All our mail is in Italy, all our money is in lira and our
letters of credit are drawn on banks in Rome and we've wasted two weeks
studying Italian and two months going to Ground School learning nonsense
for now we've got to go through this British Ground School here. And we
hear that everything that we were taught at home is all wrong. Gosh, I
hope some day I get a chance to tell Major Kraft that. We left all our
baggage and equipment at Liverpool because we couldn't wait until it was
unloaded. Springs left Kelly in charge of it and he picked Bird and Adams
and Kerk to stay with him to help. I'll bet they don't show up for a
month. They are fools if they do.

We came through the most beautiful country I ever saw. It made me think
of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The greenest fields imaginable and no fences,
just hedges and occasionally a stone wall. We did see some fences too,
but very few and they were board, no wire. I think the biggest field I
saw was about sixty acres and they ranged down to about one and a half
acres. Most of the fields were pasture lands or seemed so. They were
covered with this intensely green grass. I saw a good many haystacks, so
I guess they must cut this grass and cure it. There was never a frame
house, all the houses were the softest red brick, I mean the colour, and
all pretty too, or I should say, picturesque, and never an inch of ground
wasted even on the railroad right-of-way, which was all in grass except
where it was planted in vegetables.

I am living at Christ Church College in a room with Callahan, Jim Stokes,
and Springs. Stokes and Springs had a stateroom together on board ship.
Our barracks are a million years old, I know, because it took it that
long to cool off to this temperature. The stone is crumbling away and the
whole place is very ancient and has all that charm and dignity that only
antiquity can give. Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII built it or had
something to do with it. I haven't found out whether they got fired from
it or gave money to it. Either one makes a man famous. Our mess-hall is
like a chapel, with stained glass windows and the most wonderful
paintings all around the walls. The ceiling is very high and is beamed.
It's an inverted V and has the old black wood inside with the cross fancy
work showing on it.

We have champagne with our meals at $2.10 a bottle! We get the vintage of
1904. This is indeed the life! I am full of it now and that's why I can't
write very well. Every one over here is so damn polite. I know now why
they always think of us as savages. This is the most charming country I
ever dreamed of. Cal and I went canoeing on the Thames this evening and
saw some sights. I tell you this is the home of the brave and the land of
free love.

Most of the boys are pretty mad. We all came over as volunteers and we
volunteered for service in Italy and not in England. There seems to be a
good deal of prejudice against the British.

This is Sunday. I don't know the date but I am sober so it must be
Sunday. The description of this country is so far beyond me that I will
have to leave it to a better pen than I wield. It suits me!

Yesterday the old fellow, the dean of Christ Church College, took us all
through the church and showed us the interesting things there. The newest
part of the church is only about four hundred years old but it is built
on the ruins of an old Norman church and one of its present walls was
built in 700 A.D. being then a part of the priory of St. Frideswide. This
quadrangle where we live is called Peckwater Quad and where the mess-hall
is, Tom Quad. The architecture over there is Moorish and is the work of
Sir Christopher Wren. I would love to know all the old English gentlemen
who spent, or misspent their youth here at Oxford and slept in this very
room. I'll bet they love the wasted part of their youth best. I hear
to-day that we will only be here five weeks. I think that will be long
enough but I won't mind as long as the champagne holds out. Fry, Curtis,
Cal, Brown, and I took a bicycle ride over to the Duke of Marlborough's
palace at Woodstock. It is a beautiful place and was given to the old
Duke by Queen Anne, I think, for winning a battle. It fulfils my idea of
what a palace ought to be. It's on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake
with little islands in it and a most imposing picturesque bridge across
it. He has erected the statue of Victory or some such idea on the far
side of the bridge to commemorate his victory. The Duchess is an American
girl.

It's a ten-mile ride from Oxford and about every two miles there is the
most delightful wayside inn where you get this English ale and Scotch
whisky and cheese and bread. We made all the stops going and coming and I
never saw such quaint places or quaint people. We stopped in Woodstock
and had a bottle of port and lunch. The woman who ran the place could
hardly understand our American way of talking.

I went to the barber shop yesterday and asked for a hair cut. I got a
hair cut, shampoo, singe and a big revolving brush run over my head for
the equivalent of fifty cents. They don't have any regular barber chairs
over here. They sit you down in a regular office chair, and they never
heard of a hot towel.

Everything over here is dirt cheap. The English don't run up the price on
anything just because it's scarce. I think there're some laws on the
subject. There's no candy for sale except in small lots at a few places,
yet the price is the same as if it were plentiful. I tried to buy all the
chocolate they had at one little shop. They told me they couldn't sell
but one piece to a customer and when that was gone they couldn't get any
more. I told them I would buy it all and they could close up and go on a
vacation. But they couldn't see it that way and all I got was one piece.

We met a private last night in the Canton Bar who seemed to resent the
presence of American troops in Oxford. He was Irish and seemed to be
looking for trouble. I was all for helping him find it. He wanted to know
where we had been for the last three years. I wonder how much of that
feeling there is. Every one else has seemed more than glad to see us and
is more than cordial. I wonder if some of the boys have been going around
bragging. No one gives a damn, but I had rather these people would think
well of us and feel kindly towards us for after all, we are their
cousins. The British cadets are as nice as can be and go out of their way
to help us when they have the opportunity.

I am going over to the library and read some old books. The last time
troops were quartered here was in Oliver Cromwell's time.

We have no commissioned officer here so do about as we please. Springs is
a good hard worker and does the best he can to keep order but he hasn't
the proper authority to back it up. Everybody realizes that if we don't
obey him we'll catch hell from somebody else later. But there are a few
roughnecks in every outfit that will cause trouble and get the whole
bunch in wrong. I've got my eye on one of that sort and the first break
he makes is going to be his last. I can't put him in the guard house, but
I can put him in the hospital. Springs is only a sergeant so can't
legally discipline anyone and according to the Constitution no officer of
a foreign army can discipline an American soldier, so if anything goes
wrong they'd have to send to London for an American officer. Stokes was a
lawyer before he took wing and keeps finding all sorts of trouble. He may
have had a law office but I'll bet he made his living shooting crap. He
cleaned out the whole crowd last night.

Some of the boys are getting reconciled to England but there's still a
lot of cussing about it and a lot of them are looking for trouble.

October 8th

Cal, Stokes, Springs and I went to supper and a show to-night. Dismal
failure. This has been our first day of real work. I believe the course
will be easy as we've had it all once except the Vickers machine-gun and
rotary motors. Both of these are used extensively by the Royal Flying
Corps.

I hear that the Germans have the goods in airplanes and A.A. guns. I
guess it's the North and South over again. Of course, no one doubts our
winning out in the end but it will be a long hard fight and few of us
will be left to enjoy the fruits of our victory. I surely am lucky not to
be in the trenches. Some, in fact, most of the cadets have been out and
they say it's hell. "Only we young chaps can stand it," they say. Most of
these English cadets are kids and the instructors themselves wouldn't
average over twenty-one. Our machine-gun instructor has a bullet hole
through the flap of his ear. He says he's going to get one in the other
ear so he can wear ear-rings.

Kelly and his squad arrived to-day with our baggage. They look like they
had a good time. Bird was telling some story about their driving a coach
until Kelly fell through the top of it.

The only thing that confuses us is this English alphabet. Instead of
saying: A, Bee, Cee, Dee, they have a different way of designating the
letters. They say: Ak, Beer, Cee, Don, E, F, G, Haiches, I, J, K, Ella,
Emma, N, O, Pip, Q, R, Esses, Toc, U, Vic, W, X, Y, Zed. And as they call
everything by initials it's very confusing.

They also drive on the left-hand side of the street. If there was any
traffic we'd all be run over.

October 16th

I am neglecting this important volume lately, I am afraid.
The last few days have been crowded with events. A regular army West
Point major came over from Paris to look us over Sunday and straffed hell
out of us in front of the British Colonel and his staff. Besides the
hundred and fifty of us, there are sixty more American cadets over at
Queen's College that came here two weeks before we did. They have a
sergeant named Oliver in charge of them. He is a son of Senator Oliver
and is only five feet high. When, he marches along beside the first squad
it's an awfully funny sight because none of them are less than six feet
five. All the Englishmen like him and cheer every time they see him
marching the detachment around.

This major had a parade of both outfits and inspected us and then got us
in the mess-hall and pitched into us as if we were convicts. He said he
had heard that we were grousing because we had to go to Ground School
again and hadn't gotten our commissions as we had been promised. He said
if any of us didn't like it, he would send us over to France and send us
up to the trenches as privates. He said he could do what he pleased to us
in time of war and would. He said he had heard that there was some
objection to having the Colonel discipline us but that we were going to
take it and going to like it. He said he'd asked the Colonel as a special
favour to him, to give us all the discipline that his own cadets got. He
certainly did despise us in public with a loud voice.

He didn't like our uniforms. He said they were all right at home but they
wouldn't do over here where everybody has to be smart. So we've got to
buy tailor-made uniforms and pay for them ourselves. If we haven't got
money enough, we've got to borrow it and any man who refuses to buy one
of these special uniforms, is to be sent to France for discipline.
Springs has a big letter of credit and has offered to lend it to us as
far as it will go. And we've got to wear these funny little monkey hats
and R.F.C. belts. Our detachment will be the funniest thing when they
blossom forth in their bastard British-American get-up. Springs was the
first to adopt the monkey hat and we all nearly died laughing when he
showed up. Our belts were issued today and they look awfully funny with
these short blouses. We don't like the idea of adopting the British
uniform and looking as much like an Englishman as possible. But that's
what the major was after. We will sure look funny as the devil as every
man has designed his own uniform and picked different material and
colours. These tailors ought to give that major a commission. I hope some
day I meet him again. He's one man that ought to have his face shoved
down his throat. If we ever meet as equals I'm going to break my resolve
about keeping my temper. He'll always retain possession of my goat and as
an American, I'm as ashamed of him as he was of us. I'll bet he never
does any fighting! He got hightoned by the Colonel and lost his head and
indulged himself in an orgy of bootlicking. That was the reason for the
whole thing.

If he wants us to look like officers, why doesn't he get us our
commissions? They were promised to us. If we have to obey army rules and
regulations, why doesn't he? If he has authority to violate the
Constitution, why hasn't he authority enough to give us our commissions
and pay? How can he make enlisted men buy their own uniforms? By calling
us cadets. The cadets are the mulattoes of the army. They get the
privileges of neither enlisted men nor officers and get all the trouble
coming to both. MacDill dressed us as we are; what business is it of his
if the Colonel wants to doll us up like Englishmen?

October 19th

A British major with the D.S.O. and the M.C. talked to us the other day.
He said as I remember it,

"You men are starting on a long trip. It's a hard trip and will require a
lot of courage. You'll all be frightened many times but most of you will
be able to conquer your fear and carry on. But if you find that fear has
gotten the best of you and you can't stick it and you are beyond bucking
up, don't go on and cause the death of brave men through your failure.
Quit where you are and try something else. Courage is needed above all
else. If five of you meet five Huns and one of you is yellow and doesn't
do his part and lets the others down, the four others will be killed
through the failure of the one and maybe that one himself.

"This individual hero stuff is all tommy rot. It's devotion to duty and
concerted effort and disciplined team work that will win the war.

"War is cruel, war is senseless and war is a plague, but we've got to win
it and there's no better use of your life than to give it to help stop
this eternal slaughter.

"It's a war of men--strong determined men and weaklings have no part in
it."

He looked just like he talked.

None of the men I've talked to curse the Hun particularly. So far, I've
met no eyewitnesses of atrocities and not much is said of them.

I hope I can stick it through. I know I'm not afraid to die. I'm pretty
young to be ready for it and I'm not. Why, I'm just beginning to live!
And after going to all this trouble to help make history, I want to live
a little while to be able to tell about it. If we make the world safe for
democracy, as some salesman remarked, brandishing a Liberty Bond in one
hand and a flag in the other, what price salvation if we are not here to
be democratic? Glory is hardly a passport to paradise. I can't imagine a
man with a lot of rank and a lot of medals and a lot of dog, getting
through the eye of a needle any easier than a camel. I'll have to consult
Springs on the matter. He was an honour man in philosophy at college and
is the authority on heaven, hell and hard liquor.

I was talking to a little English cadet who had on an old battered Sam
Browne and I asked him was he trying to look like a veteran. He smiled
and said, "My brother wore it two years. He was killed by Richthofen."
There seem to be a lot of them after that bird. Wonder how long before
somebody sneaks up behind him and drops him. It will take a good man from
all I've heard. There's no price on his head but I'll bet the fellow who
gets him gets a lot of decorations.

Kelly and Bird got started again. We were all over in the R.F.C. Club
doing a little quiet drinking--Cal, Stokes, Jake and myself. Kelly and
Bird came in with a good start. Bird said he couldn't enjoy his drinking
unless he had Springs to watch him and tell him when he had enough. Kelly
said that in that case the best thing to do was to send for Springs. They
wanted to know where he was so we told them he was over in the room
writing some letters. They found some one who was going back to the
college and sent word to him to come right over or Bird would start
giving his cowboy yell and keep it up until he got there.

By the time Springs got there they were well oiled. They are both six
feet three and would rather fight than eat. I had visions of them both
being sent to Leavenworth in chains. They nearly killed Springs with an
affectionate greeting and he had to do some fast thinking. Bird said he
supposed he was going to be put on the waggon for another week and he
wanted his portrait painted doing it. Springs ordered a round of double
brandies. Then Kelly, who always has to pay for more than anybody else,
ordered triple whiskies. Then Bird called for some port and they started
a round again. It was a good battle while it lasted. We had to put
Springs in a cold tub before he could call the roll for dinner and Kelly
and Bird never raised their voices again until the next morning. They are
on the waggon all right and it didn't require any orders either.

We met a French officer from Chicago to-night who came over from France
to see his brother Paul Winslow, who's over at Queen's College with the
first outfit. He's in the French Air Service and says the Hun has the
supremacy of the air on the French front without a doubt. It seems that
we will be the goats as France has about shot her wad. He says we are
lucky to be here as all the cadets in France are having a terrible time.
They haven't done any flying but live in tents and do manual labour. They
help build the flying-fields and have to do the same work as the German
prisoners and get the same food. Their letters are censored and they
aren't allowed to write home how they are being treated. They had a
German spy in command of them for a while. He says he expects to hear of
a mutiny any time.

October 22nd

We have moved to Exeter College. And why? Thereby hangs a tale. Bim
Oliver and his crew had finished their course and made the highest marks
in the examinations on record. So the officer in charge of Queen's gave
them all passes Saturday night to go out to dinner and celebrate. That
was also Jake Stanley's birthday and he gave a party at Buol's that night
to celebrate it. It was a right good party. He had a private room on the
third floor and there were present: Cal, Springs, Stokes, Paul Winslow
and his brother Alan, Hash Gile, Dud Mudge, an English staff officer and
myself. Dwyer and a bunch of others came in later. Everybody was all teed
up before they got there and then we had cocktails by the quart and
champagne and then each man got a half-gallon pitcher of ale. We sang
that old song and made everybody do bottoms-up by turn. Jake had a cake
and he kept announcing that he was going to "tut the twake." When he did
cut it, Hash Gile insisted on helping Springs to eat it and got most of
it down his neck and in his ears. I never laughed so much in my life.

When the party broke up and we were all getting out, the English officer
and the French officer were assisting each other home. The Colonel came
up with a flashlight and tried to stop a bunch of them. The English
officer gave the Colonel a push and ran and the Colonel made a flying
tackle at him but missed and grabbed Winslow. The Colonel insisted on
knowing who it was that ran and when Winslow refused to tell him, he went
down to Queen's and ordered a formation of all of Bim's detachment. They
say it was the greatest sight that Oxford ever witnessed--sixty American
soldiers in all sorts of costumes, in all stages of drunkenness, trying
to get into line and stay there, in a dark and ancient courtyard,
hallowed by the scholars of the ages, with a British colonel dashing
about with a flashlight and bellowing like a bull at each man as he came
in, "Are you the man that pushed me and ran?" The first sergeant that
tried to call the roll passed out cold in the middle of it and had to be
carried off. The second one got the British and American commands mixed
up and was led away babbling something that sounded like a cavalry drill.
The Colonel tried to question them but all one man would say was: "I
wasn't on the third floor, I was on the second floor." No matter what the
Colonel would ask him, that was all he would say. Another on asked the
Colonel, "What do you mean run, sir? How fast is a run?" Finally the
Colonel had to give it up but he made the French officer leave the
college and he wants to make a complaint to the French Ambassador. It
certainly was an international mess. Bim and his crew left the next day
to go to Stamford to learn to fly and the Colonel moved us over here to
Exeter where we can't corrupt any of his cadets and turned the place over
to us. We have the whole college to ourselves. There are a million
rumours flying around about what is going to happen to us. The Colonel
sent over one of his staff officers to help Springs. And who did he send
but the very same officer that pushed him and ran! You can't laugh that
off. He and big Shoemaker, who used to drive a dogteam in Alaska, are
great friends and I foresee trouble.

Ten of us went to a dance Saturday night at Miss Cannon's. She's a real
English girl and wears a monocle. I'm going riding with her Wednesday
afternoon. Oxford isn't such a bad place after all. Stokes came to the
dance illuminated and did an Indian war dance in the middle of the floor.
He nearly passed away next day over the kidding he got. We have a way of
getting in late at night by climbing over a high wall with the assistance
of a limb of a tree that hangs over from the inside. Fulford and I were
coming in by that route and we heard a plaintive call for help. It was
Brownie and he had tried to get over at the wrong place and had got hung
by the seat of his trousers on a nail. We had a time getting him down and
putting him to bed.

We brought four boiled lobsters back with us and a couple of bottles of
port. We woke Springs up and he was as mad as hell. He said if the rest
of the crowd got on to the fact that he was letting us come in when we
pleased, he wouldn't be able to control anybody. We told him that
everybody was out anyway and to go back to sleep and forget it. So we ate
the lobsters and drank the port ourselves. About that time Kelly and Bird
came in with Capt. Swan. He had come up from London to pay us off and
they had run into him and brought him on over the wall with them. He told
us some funny stories of the Philippines. Kelly and Bird were all lit up
and had a bottle of whisky which they had brought to Springs. He wouldn't
take it so they drank it themselves with Capt. Swan. We finished the
lobster and put the shells in a big' bucket outside the door. Bird saw it
and decided it was a football and took a terrific kick at it and
scattered it all over the courtyard outside. Springs got up steaming like
a scalded hog and told Bird that he had to get a flashlight and go out
and pick up every piece or he'd have to put him under arrest in the
morning for it. Bird thought it was a joke at first but Springs made him
do it. It sure was a funny sight, that big cowboy out in the court with a
flashlight, down on his knees looking for lobster claws. We all went out
and helped him.

Sunday morning we were all just as sick as we could be from that lobster.
Cal, Stokes and I couldn't get out of bed and couldn't get to drill.
Springs was raging. Along about noon we got up and managed to stagger in
to lunch. Then Springs informed us that we were under arrest and couldn't
leave the college. And the damn fool made us stay in all the afternoon
and evening too. He said if we were too sick to drill we were too sick to
go out and get drunk again. I'll get even with him. He says he is going
to demote all three of us. He's just mad because he's missing all the
fun. Kelly and Bird go out every night and take off their white hat bands
and say that they are mechanics from this squadron outside of town. They
throw a big party and then come in and wake Springs up to tell him about
it because they say they don't want to do anything behind his back that
they wouldn't tell him about to his face. Some morning this detachment is
going to wake up and find they haven't got any sergeants.

We had a boxing-tournament last week. Springs and I went in and won our
first bouts, but got knocked out in the second round. Pudrith and Jake
Stanley each won in their classes and got a trip to London over the
week-end as prizes.

October 24th

We had mail from home to-day which seemed to sadden the boys more than
cheer them up. It sort of made us realize how far away we are. Springs
certainly had a funny collection. He ought to save them for publication
some day when people get their sense of humour back.

November 6th

Harroby Camp, Grantham, Lincolnshire.

I wish I could have stayed at Oxford for the horseback ride with Miss
Cannon but we were all suddenly sent up here to Grantham to the
machine-gun school. All except Springs and twenty who have gone to
Stamford to learn to fly. Springs had to pick the twenty and naturally
every one wanted to go. He picked those who'd done the most flying
already. He took only those who were ready to go solo and Deetjen, Garver
and Dietz because they have done a lot of hard clerical work for the
detachment. I couldn't see why he wouldn't take Cal and me and I told him
so. What's the use of having friends if you don't stick by them and do
things for them? And what's the use of having authority if you can't use
it to help your friends? I'm a Jackson democrat and I believe the victim
is entitled to what is spoiled. And when I fight, I fight to win. I don't
want to know anything about the Marquis of Queensberry's ideas. When I
fight I only hit a man once and the first thing he knows about it is when
he reads about it in the papers. And when I swing, somebody gets 199 of
my 200 pounds where they least expect it.

Mit wanted to go to Stamford and he kicked up an awful row. He claims
that he is a friend of General Wood's and he wanted to call up the
American Ambassador when Springs wouldn't let him go. He stood out in the
court and cussed for half an hour because he said there was a conspiracy
against him. Finally I went over and told him that he was about to be
crowned and that if there was any partiality in it I would be going to
Stamford myself. He says he's going to spend the rest of his life getting
even with Springs.

We all chipped in to buy Springs a parting gift. We couldn't see wasting
$75 on a cup that he couldn't use so we bought him a big silver flask.

We had to leave poor Jim Stokes behind. He was operated on for
appendicitis the day we left. He got through it all right.

We were met at the station here by a band and escorted to our barracks.
The English rank us as officers now and we don't have to salute anything
under majors. Some of us are rather embarrassed because we are treated as
officers when we really aren't, though it isn't our fault. We just aren't
nephews of the right people in Washington. Mit is in his glory. He has
blossomed out in boots and swaggers about in the bottom half of a Sam
Browne belt and cusses his batman. We have a regular servant who cleans
our hut and shines our shoes. We have our own mess--a regular officers'
mess. The classes are terribly boring and take all the daylight hours but
we do as we please in the evening and don't have to be in until twelve
o'clock.

Cal, Schlotzhauer, Leach and I went over to Nottingham Sunday and had
supper. Believe me, it is some town. There have never been any troops
quartered in Nottingham and there are no camps near it and all the men
have been gone for three years. I never knew there was such a place. The
women clustered around us all the time and talked to us as if we were a
new species.

Stillman is in charge now and I am a platoon commander still. When
Springs was trying to decide whom to appoint in his place, every one
wanted Bird as top sergeant. Springs likes Bird but isn't so particularly
keen about Stillman but he said he was afraid of Bird so he put Stillman
in as top and made Bird second in command. I guess it's just a well.
Somebody has got to hold this crowd down and Bird has been in too much
devilment already to be effective on his own responsibility. Stillman is
a fine fellow and certainly looks the part. He's six feet seven and a
half and weighs over 200. He used to play end on Yale.

McCurry came in to-night and begged me with tears in his eyes to go with
him and cut off Ken's moustache. He sure was tanked. He ran into the
barbed wire between this hut and the next one and nearly tore his brand
new uniform off.

I miss Kelly and Springs and Jim. This is the first split and I guess
there will be many more.

November 7th

We have Raftery in our hut. He is going to bed now, putting his money
belt on over his pyjamas and wearing a knitted helmet. He's the funniest
thing I ever saw.

I heard that Jim is getting on all right.

November 8th

I got four letters from home to-day and they seem to have travelled a
little bit farther than the others. Poor old Fat Payden hasn't had even a
postal since he left the States. His eyes are inflamed and he doesn't go
to classes but sits in here all day and gossips with Fry and our batman.
He laughs at everything anyone says, no matter how stale it is. I just
found out to-day that he is just twenty.

Cal, Herbert, Fulford and Fry are sitting around the table now drinking
port out of their canteens and writing home. Every one is fed up. I don't
see how we are going to stand three more weeks of this. Aren't we ever
going to fly? There was some talk of making ground officers of some of
us. Some of the married men decided they wanted to be ground officers but
nobody else would consent. An English general made us a talk and said
this war was no great adventure: you were either scared to death or bored
to death all the time.

This camp is sort of a pretty place. When I look down at Grantham
nestling between these pretty checkered hills with the sky all coloured
up by the setting sun and the clouds so low you can hang your hat on
them, it kind of gets up in my neck and I think this old world is a damn
fine place to live in. The hill on the other side of town we see from
here is checkered up with little fields--every one a different colour and
it's very pretty. If the sky wasn't filled with aeroplanes all day, you'd
never think of war. I hope I never see another machine-gun. I came over
here to fight--not to sit around and talk about it forever.

November 9th

Lord, I have the blues, the worried blues. Anderson was in here playing
his steel guitar. How that boy can play! A couple of the English
instructors have been going to see a couple of girls and not making much
progress. So they took Andy along with them and put him in the next room
and made him play soft Hawaiian music to keep them in the proper frame of
mind.

Morrison came in to-night with a beautiful bun and a new pair of boots.
They were tight too and it took four of us to pull them off.

I've got the blues so bad I think I'll get drunk to-morrow and see if
that will help things.

November 10th

One of the boys came in the other night after midnight without his Sam
Browne belt. He was last seen walking down the street with a girl and he
had it on then. So everybody got to kidding him about bushwhacking. He
couldn't remember where they had gone but he had to have a belt and was
broke so he decided he'd go back and ask the girl where he left it. But
when he went back he woke up the girl's father and he came out and chased
him down the street. But he had his belt back the next day so I guess
love found a way.

November 13th

Well, the old man is himself again. Jack Fulford, Cal, Morrison, Leach
and I went to Nottingham over the week-end. We didn't get very drunk.

Springs flew up from Stamford to see us while we were away.

Last night was guest night in our mess and we had all the English staff
over. These Englishmen sure have a funny idea of a party. They want to
smash everything. Fulford got the idea that he was a baseball pitcher and
he knocked the end out of our hut throwing whisky bottles at it. We
caught Ken and cut his moustache off at last.

November 16th

Cal and I went down to Stamford to spend the day and nearly died
laughing. Our stomachs are still sore. Springs and Kelly are rooming
together over a millinery shop. They spend all their time at a club
there.

There was a sort of straff going on that day. They had a new C.O. and he
was an ex-Guards officer and had a grudge against the Huns and wanted to
get on with the war. There were a lot of young English kids that had been
there some time swinging the lead and he sent for them all and lined them
up. He told them that there was a war on and that pilots were needed
badly at the front and that they were all going solo that afternoon. They
nearly fainted. Some of them had had less than two hours of air work and
none of them had had more than five.

We all went out to the airdrome to see the fun. I guess there were about
thirty of them in all. The squadron was equipped with D.H. 6's which are
something like our Curtiss planes except they are slower and won't spin
no matter what you do to them.

The first one to take off was a bit uneasy and an instructor had to taxi
out for him. He ran all the way across the field, and it was a big one,
and then pulled the stick right back into his stomach. The Six went
straight up nose first and stalled and hung on its propeller. Then it did
a tail slide right back into the ground.

The next one did better. He got off and zigzagged a bit but instead of
making a circuit he kept straight on. His instructor remarked that he
would probably land in Scotland, because he didn't know how to turn.

Another one got off fairly well and came around for his landing. He
levelled off and made a beautiful landing--a hundred feet above the
ground. He pancaked beautifully and shoved his wheels up through the
lower wings. But the plane had a four-bladed prop on it and it broke off
even all around. So the pupil was able to taxi on into the hangar as both
wheels had come up the same distance. He was very much pleased with
himself and cut off the engine and took off his goggles and stood up and
started to jump down to the ground which he thought was about five feet
below him. Then he looked down and saw the ground right under his seat.
He certainly was shocked.

Another took off fine but he had never been taught to land and he was a
bit uncertain about that operation. He had the general idea all right but
he forgot to cut off his motor. He did a continuous series of dives and
zooms. A couple of instructors sang a dirge for him:


"The young aviator lay dying, and as 'neath the wreckage he lay
To the Ak Emmas around him assembled, these last parting words did he
say:

'Take the cylinder out of my kidney, the connecting rod out of my brain,
From the small of my back take the crankshaft, and assemble the engine
again!'"


There were a lot more verses but I can't remember them.

We thought sure he was gone but he got out of it all right and made a
fairly decent landing but not where he had expected.

The next one didn't know much about landing either. He came in too fast
and didn't make the slightest attempt to level off. The result was a
tremendous bounce that sent him up a hundred feet. He used his head and
put his motor on and went around again. He did that eight times and
finally smashed the undercarriage so that next time he couldn't bounce.
Then he turned over on his back. The C.O. congratulated him and told him
he would probably make a good observer.

They finally all got off and not a one of them got killed, I don't see
why not though. Only one of them got hurt and that was when one landed on
top of the other one. The one in the bottom plane got a broken arm. I got
quite a thrill out of that.

A flying-field is not at all what I expected it would be like. They all
seem to do pretty much as they please, go where they please and fly when
they please. The chief occupation seems to be passing the flowing cup.

There is a cemetery right in the middle of the town and since the
Americans came the ghosts walk about it all night. Kelly has a joke on
Springs about it. I saw Horn, Knox, Taber, Roth, Neely, Watts and a
couple of others.

November 17th

Cal, Curtis, Brown, Fry and I are ordered to Thetford to learn to fly at
last. This is the final bust-up of the Italian Detachment. I am lucky to
get a good gang. I had Ken but I swapped him for Curtis. Fry said it was
just like swapping horses.

November 18th

I went to Stokes Castle this afternoon for lunch and stayed for tea. I
think this has been the best day I have spent in England. I met a Mrs.
Chapin out there from Louisiana. She is a sure-enough Southern aristocrat
and I am proud of her. She reminded me of Gramma. She dominated the whole
table at dinner and was so interesting and made every one feel at home.
She took me to her room and showed me the picture of her old home in
Louisiana. It was an old Italian villa on the banks of the Mississippi. I
certainly enjoyed talking to her. It was like a visit home. I wonder if I
will ever see the Mississippi again. It flows through another world like
the River Styx that Springs talks about.

The castle was a wonder, too. It was full of old paintings and
relics--some of them a thousand years old. There was a picture of a woman
kissing Christ's feet by Rubens. The library was about forty by eight and
lined with books and relics. The best part of the place was the grounds,
about three acres, I guess.

We leave for Thetford to-morrow at eight-thirty and at last I am really
going to learn to fly. It's over six months since I enlisted to fly and I
am not sorry they are past.

November 20th

Arrived at Thetford via Peterborough and Ely. We had about four hours at
Peterborough and went to see the Cathedral. It's the most magnificent
thing I hare seen so far. I saw where Mary, Queen of Scots was buried
before she was moved to Westminster.

Thetford is not much. We are going to start on Rumptys as these Henry
Farman planes are called. They say that you test the rigging by putting a
bird between the two wings. If the bird gets out, there's a wire gone
somewhere. They are so unstable that they never go up except when the air
is very smooth. No one flew to-day except Roberts.

These old short-horn Farmans are awful looking buses. I am surprised they
fly at all. We have the same sort of wild kids here for instructors that
we had at Oxford, only more so--wilder and younger. I was told that they
kill off more instructors in the R.F.C. than pupils and from what I've
seen, I can well believe it. I have a Captain Harrison for an instructor.
He seems to be a mere kid. He's about nineteen and is trying hard to grow
a moustache. Classes are a joke.

This is real country here. The fields are bigger and rougher. I like it
better too. This is Norfolk--I wonder if the jacket originated here.

Cal and I are posted for early flying to-morrow. He just came in and said
in a shaky voice, "Well, let's get ready for our last sleep." The fool
plays bridge all the time for the good of his soul. While he's playing I
usually do my writing on this thing. Fry is in the same room with us and
is terribly funny.

November 25th

Just returned from my first leave. I went down to London to get my teeth
fixed. It cost me forty pounds. These teeth of mine certainly are
expensive, my sweet tooth being the worst. London is a town after my own
heart. I stopped at the Savoy. I tell you it is a wonderful sight to sit
in the dining-room and see all the women in evening gowns--all the
soldiers on leave, airmen, observers, artillerymen, infantrymen, sailors
and marines. It's a wonderful sight. Think of the sacrifice laid at the
feet of the God of War!

To-day I saw my first scout machine, a Sopwith Pup. It's the prettiest
little thing I ever laid my eyes on. I am going to fly one if I live long
enough. They aren't as big as a minute and are as pretty and slick as a
thoroughbred horse. Tiny little things, just big enough for one man and a
machine-gun.

It snowed to-day and it's as cold as a nun's lips. The wind is rattling
the stove pipe. I guess I'd better turn in.

December 6th

I have been flying for three days and Capt. Harrison says I can solo
to-morrow if it's calm. I tell you it's a great life. I am absolutely
ruined for anything else. I wish I could describe it. The thing most
surprising to me is the feeling of absolute safety. I have put in two
hours and twenty minutes in the air and I would have soloed this evening
if it had been calm enough.

I have been to London again. I went to Murray's night-club with the
Chinless Wonder. Cal and Fry joined us at the Court later where we had a
suite. Then I took the Wonder to a dance we heard about at the Grafton
Galleries.

I saw Jake Stanley, who was down from Stamford. He told me a funny story.
Springs and Kelly went to a dance after a party the staff officers gave
to the Americans. Kelly didn't want to go home and threw a bicycle at
Springs which missed him. Then Kelly sat down on the side of a ditch and
said, "If you want me to go home, let's see you take me." Every time
Springs would try to pick him up Kelly would push him in the ditch. Kelly
would make two of Springs and can push him all over the place. About that
time Jake came by and Springs called for help. They decided that the best
thing to do was to knock Kelly out and then carry him home peacefully. So
Jake got behind him and put his hands under his arms and lifted him up on
his feet. Then Springs got in front of him and tilted Kelly's head back
and adjusted his jaw to just the proper angle and hauled off and took a
terrific swing. Just as he swung, Kelly's feet slipped and instead of
landing on the jaw, Springs hit Jake on the nose and they all went over
in the ditch. May Dorsey was going home with a big package of his own and
saw Springs hit Jake and thought there was a fight on and jumped on
Springs. Before he knew what was happening Springs had a black eye and
Dorsey was working on the other one. Then Springs got on top of Dorsey
and nearly killed him. He was bumping his head on a piece of cement when
they pried him loose.

A couple of Bobbies came up and helped Springs get Kelly over his
shoulder and then he carried him home quietly.

I met Dora at Murray's and had lunch with her the next day. She is very
pretty and witty and smart. She came up to Thetford and brought another
girl with her. Fry called her the Long Lean Lanky Devil. We had dinner
and they caught the eleven-thirty train back to London. The landlady at
the Bell Hotel refused to take them in at the indecent hour of
ten-thirty.

January 1st, 1918

London Colney, Hertfordshire

This is New Year's Day. I haven't written up this diary for quite a long
time--nearly a month, and many things have happened.

I have done my four hours solo on Rumptys and am done with them forever,
thank God. I have done two hours on Avros. They are entirely different
and I have to learn to fly all over again. We had four days' leave in
London before we left Thetford. Cal and I finished the same day and came
to London together. Cal rolled into a Roman dugout on his last landing
and I thought sure he was killed. Fry wrote off a bus by pancaking from
two hundred feet.

We met Jim in London and had a wild party. Jim is living there now and is
attached to Headquarters. After the show we had Beatrice Lillie and the
entire cast of "Cheap" up in our suite at the Court and they brought
along Lord Somebody or other. Cal salaamed before him and shook hands and
said, "Hello, God." He was much shocked. That was the first lord I ever
met. They all got to fraternizing among themselves so we split up. Cal
has fallen in love with a sweet little thing called Peggy. She is very
pretty but that's the best I can say for her.

We have been posted to London Colney, which is the greatest place yet. It
is only twenty miles from London and they have Pups and Spads and Avros.
There's no discipline or wind-up at all. One class a day in machine-guns
and one in wireless but we know more than the instructors and nobody
cares whether we go or not. We go to London when we please. There are
only two Avros for about thirty of us so we will be here for some time.
Americans are not popular with the C.O. and adjutant. I guess they've got
a good reason to dislike us.

It seems that the U.S. Army has bought a lot of Curtisses at home for
primary training-planes and they are building a lot of planes like
Sopwith Pups but they don't want to build any Avros if they can help it.
So they sent orders over to take the best men that finish on Curtisses
and put them on Pups without letting them go up in Avros. Springs and
DeGamo were the first two to finish on Curtisses so they sent them down
here to London Colney to be used as experiments.

The C.O. and adjutant said it would be plain murder and refused to let
them have Pups. There was a U.S. Lieutenant here named Gaines and he
forbade them to try it. The London Headquarters called up and told them
to go ahead anyway. The C.O. ordered them off the tarmac and said he was
fed up on funerals and the U.S. Army would have to conduct its own
executions. A British general came over and backed up the C.O. so they
compromised by sending Springs and DeGamo back to Stamford for further
instructions. The C.O. at Stamford got sore as a boil and said there was
nothing more he could teach them on Curtisses and that they were ready
for anything. The adjutant at London Colney tried to put it off on the
two of them so Springs and DeGamo wrote a letter and said they were
always willing to do it and were ready at any time and had been ordered
off the tarmac at London Colney but they were still ready to try it.
There was a big row over it and the adjutant caught hell for not carrying
out orders. Then the Paris Headquarters sent over orders that they were
to loop and spin Curtisses and then be put on Pups anyway--the worst that
could happen would be two funerals. Don't these non-flyers love us! What
are a couple of aviators, more or less?

Up at Stamford, Springs and DeGamo were duly ordered to go up and loop
and spin those ancient crates. They couldn't get any of the instructors
to go up and show them how to do it. They knew better! Besides the orders
came from American Headquarters and the British didn't approve of them.
But up they went and looped and spun anyway. Springs did ten loops in
succession and landed. Ainsworth went up later in the same machine and
was coming over the top of his loop when the wings fell off. He was
killed instantly. He's the first of the American cadets to go. I'm afraid
there'll be many more before the Kaiser is pushed over backwards.

The C.O. at Stamford refused to permit any further foolishness and Paris
backed down and sent orders over for DeGamo and Springs to stop all
flying until it could be decided what form the experiment would take. So
they had to sit around for a month doing nothing while everybody else was
going on. DeGamo is instructing on Sixties and Springs is ferrying. A
great system we have. Everything we have had to do so far has been messed
up. I'll guarantee our noble commanders will kill more Americans than
Germans before it is over. But what can you expect when they promote the
jackasses on seniority and put men in charge of important technical
affairs just because they have spent their lives doing infantry drill in
the Philippines and transferred to the aviation section a week ago to get
a soft berth and more pay? Why should they worry about mistakes? They
aren't the ones that get killed. An order from the adjutant general can't
make a pilot out of a quartermaster.

Last night Cal and I and four English officers went to a dance at an
Insane Asylum. Cal became fascinated with a charming young Welsh nurse.

January 3rd

There's a U.S. Lieutenant here that certainly is looking for trouble. He
enlisted the same time we did, but he did his flying first and got out of
going to Ground School and got his commission right away. He's quite
impressed with his exalted rank and makes us all salute him continuously
just because the government hasn't kept its promise to us and we are
still cadets.

The English can't see any difference between us and it makes him foam at
the mouth. He was an instructor at home and has done two hundred hours on
Curtisses. But he's no good on Avros. Two instructors turned him down and
he's got to have a lot of dual. I wish they'd send him up in a Pup as an
experiment!

Machine-gun class is awfully boring. Kent Curtis draws pictures of
everything in his notebook. One of the lecture headlines is, "The
tripping of the lock." Instead of taking down the lecture, Curtis drew a
picture of it. The next paragraph is headed, "The depression of the
seer." He drew a picture of an old soothsayer looking into a crystal ball
and biting his nails. Then he drew a picture entitled "The care of the
piece," and another, "The return of the fusee." The sergeant caught him
at it and got mad and reported him to the C.O. The C.O. had him up on the
carpet and made him bring the notebook. He nearly died laughing. So for
punishment he made him draw the same pictures on the walls of the office.
Now every time a general comes over to inspect they get in the office and
get to laughing and there's no inspection.

January 12th

Springs and DeGamo showed up to-day. They were as welcome as the measles.
The adjutant will probably file their flying wires. The experiment is all
off and they are to fly Avros if they ever get a turn. Springs looks bad
and says Kelly has been getting his revenge for that party in Stamford.
Joe Sharpe was killed over at Waddington on a D.H. 6. There was a fine
fellow for you.

January 14th

Yesterday was washout day so we all went into town and threw a party at
the Court. The travelling is so congested over the week-end that the
flying corps takes its holiday during the week and works on Sundays.

Dud Mudge had a funny crash over at Northholt. He was up on his first
solo in a Rumpty and lost his head coming in and flew right into the side
of a hangar. The nacelle came on through and pitched Dud on the floor. A
mechanic was at work in there and was smoking and he was so frightened at
being caught smoking in a hangar that all he could do was to stammer and
make excuses while poor Dud lay on the floor with a broken arm. The
engine was full on outside and the throttle was on the inside and before
anybody could get to it, the Rumpty slowly pushed the side of the hangar
in and the roof fell on top of it. No one could get to the throttle then
and it ran until the cylinders overheated and froze up. It must have been
a funny sight to see that box-kite pushing madly at that hangar and then
jump on top of it.

Hash Gile cracked up a Curtiss but didn't get hurt. His instructor had
bawled him out for not getting his tail up when he was taking off, so the
next time he started off he pushed the stick forward up against the dash
and held it there. His tail came up and kept on coming. It got higher and
higher and still Hash kept the stick forward. The poor old Curtiss did
the best it could and turned a forward somersault. When they fished Hash
out of the wreckage he was still holding the stick forward. I also hear
that Al Rothwell distinguished himself by spiralling into the ground.

January 20th

We all went into town and tore off a real raspasass party at the Court.
Everybody was there for dinner. Springs's beauty nearly broke up the
party. She got mad when he started drinking and then got insulted when
some other girls came in to join us. She said she couldn't be seen with
such girls--they were not respectable. I told her that there was only one
place in London she could go to a party and that was Buckingham Palace
and I wasn't sure about that. She referred to us as "your uncouth
friends," and made Springs take her home.

January 24th

I'm feeling pretty much at home in the air now. But after doing very many
vertical banks I feel rather sick and dizzy. If to-morrow is a good day,
I am going up to ten thousand and shut off and spin down and see what
happens. I am quite good at spinning but it makes me a little sick. I
guess I'll get over that, though, and I think a lot of it is due to the
castor oil from the motor.

Springs, DeGamo, Nathan and Barry have all finished Avros and gone on
Pups. Barry and Springs crashed the first time but got away with the
second try.

Dora and another girl, who was so big that Fry called her a Handley-Page,
came up and had dinner with us at the Peahen Inn at St. Albans. They went
back on the eleven-thirty train. There was a snow storm and we had to
walk back the five miles. Fulford and Fry insisted they were going to
sleep in the snow so we left them in a big drift.

I am afraid that this diary will not be of any value as an historical
document. I don't write it the way I date it always. Sometimes I don't
get a chance to write in it for a week or so, and then I take a couple of
hours off when Cal is playing bridge or it's raining, and then I go back
and write it up properly. I'm getting so I really enjoy writing in here.
It makes me realize how lucky I am. And some day it will be my greatest
pleasure to read it over. Maybe some day I'll read parts of it to my
grandchildren and tell them all about the war.

We went into London again last night, Capt. Pentland, the wild
Australian, Fry, Cal, Springs and myself. We went down to Jim's hotel for
dinner. Then we all went to the flying corps dance at the Grafton
Galleries. The whole flying corps was there, with a good sprinkling of
our crowd. All the American cadets manage to cluster themselves around
London. We spent the night at Jim's hotel and caught the seven-thirty
train back. Jerry Pentland and Springs stepped into the St. Pancras Hotel
opposite the station for something to eat. They couldn't get any service
so Jerry put Springs in the dumbwaiter where he promptly went to sleep.
Some maid on the top floor pressed the button and up went the waiter.
Jerry got scared and started up the stairs and climbed six flights. The
maid started to put some dishes in and saw Springs and let out a yell and
pressed the down button just as Jerry burst in. Down went Springs with
Jerry in hot pursuit. The dumbwaiter got stuck in the basement and they
had a time getting Springs out of it. The manager wanted to turn him over
to the military police, but Jerry swore that he was Russian and Springs
quoted a little Latin and the manager saw all the eagles on his buttons
and believed it and let them catch the train without any further
argument.

I saw little Halley and Newt Bevin and Matthiesen at the Savoy.

January 28th

I took my altitude test to-day. I went up through thick clouds to nine
thousand five hundred feet and damn near froze. The bus was covered with
ice where it had been touched by the clouds coming up. The sky up there
was the bluest I ever saw, absolutely glassy blue with just a few cirrus
clouds about five miles up, snow white, and this beautiful snow white
plain of clouds beneath me. I felt awfully lonely. I could see, I know,
at least a hundred miles. I saw another plane about ten miles away and I
thought it was a bird at first but it started spinning and I knew it was
a plane. I spun down and came out of the spin in the clouds. It was the
nastiest sensation I ever had. I didn't know whether I was upside down or
not. At last I got into a straight dive and came out of the clouds at a
hundred and fifty miles an hour right over the airdrome.

There's a little captain here with the M.C. and a bar named Keller, just
back from the front, who loves to stunt close to the ground. He seems to
be daring the ground to come up and hit him. He took me up with him in an
Avro and for thirty minutes we never got above fifty feet and only then
to clear the trees. His speciality is flying under bridges. The other day
one of his friends was getting married in the centre of London and he
flew down in a Pup and broke up the wedding-procession by diving on them.
He was looping and rolling between the church spires. Some general was a
guest and got excited and put in a complaint about it so the wing sent
around orders for us to stay away from London below five hundred feet.
That boy has been knocking on the golden gate for some time and if he
isn't careful as well as lucky, he's going to push too hard and get in.
He and Maclntaggart chased each other all over the country for an hour at
an altitude of fourteen inches. Scared me to death to watch them.

Roy Garver was killed on an Avro day before yesterday.

January 29th

A girl who is a friend of Springs's in New York wrote over to some people
that live near St. Albans and they called him up and invited him to
dinner and told him to bring along a couple of others. So Cal and I went
along with him to dinner last night.

They have a beautiful place about three miles north of St. Albans. Their
name is Drake and they are direct descendants of Sir Francis Drake, who
did something famous, either discovered the North Pole or licked the
Spaniards. I've forgotten which. There were three Drake brothers there,
back from the front on leave, and their wives. A fine looking trio they
were, two captains and a major, two M.C.'s and one D.S.O., three years in
the trenches. Another brother was killed.

Dinner was a very formal highbrow affair. A lot of dog but very little
food. They asked us the usual questions: How do you like England? Do you
get enough to eat? Don't you miss the sugar? Do you ever get frightened
when you are up in the air? We answered yes to all of them.

Food is getting very scarce in this country and even the rich can't get
what they need. That poor hostess didn't have enough to go around.

After dinner was over the atmosphere underwent a decided change. The
ladies withdrew and our host brought out a bottle of real pre-war whisky
that had the kick of Brown's mule. Then we all got to acting natural.

Later Cal got at a piano and the poor thing was nearly shocked off its
legs. How that boy can play! He can make "Nearer My God to Thee" sound
like "Georgia Camp Meeting." The ladies wanted to learn the latest dance
steps, so Springs and I tried to teach them how to do them. Its a long
jump from the Boston and the hesitation to the giant swing, but we had
them all fox-trotting in no time.

The party was concluded by the three Drake brothers putting on a pukka
drill with some of Sir Francis's own muskets. Gosh, it was great and
those men certainly could drill. They were in blue dress uniforms and
looked snappy as the devil. I wish we could strut a little.

We had to walk all the way back--eight miles. We stopped at the Peahen in
St. Albans long enough to get a warm drink and give Cal time enough to
kiss his Peggy good night.

Springs went back this morning to pay his party call in a Pup. He chased
the children around the yard and nearly scared them to death running his
wheels on the front driveway. I don't guess we'll be invited back again.

An Australian lieutenant was killed this morning flying a Pup.

January 31st

We put on a real circus at the Court night before last. Kelly and his
instructor, Capt. Bell-Irving, came down from Harling Road for the
occasion. Cal, Springs, Tommy Herbert, Capt. Morton and myself went in
from here and Budge Weir and Atkinson, two Scots, came down from
Thetford. Anderson and Jim and three Englishmen and a U.S. Lieutenant
named Fuller, a friend of Cal's from Chicago joined us later.

We got under a full head of steam at tea. We had the whole chorus from
the Shaftsbury theatre up in the suite. Kelly and Springs got caught out
one night last week in a bomb raid--the same night they dropped a bomb on
the front entrance to Jim's hotel about fifteen minutes after they had
all been standing there watching the searchlights. They were walking down
the Street and a bomb fell about a block away from them and they jumped
for shelter. They got in the stage entrance and went behind the scenes in
the Shaftsbury theatre. The show was over but the actors hadn't gone out
and the chorus was all huddled over in one corner of the wings scared to
death. Kelly and Springs got some one to play the piano and started a
dance and before long they were having a regular party. They got them
after the matinee to-day and brought them up to the Court for tea and
early dinner. The Chinless Wonder and Dora and Peggy were all
there--passing nasty remarks backwards and forward, and a couple of
Sheilas. All the girls in London are named Peggy or Sheila.

Cal played the piano and we had a big dance later. We had four suites on
the same floor and everybody kept running from one to the other. Next
morning we were too near dead to get out of bed before eleven. We had a
big champagne breakfast in our suite and didn't get back to the squadron
until after two.

The C.O. sent for us at once. He and Capt. Horn, our new flight
commander, were all set for a big straff because we were supposed to be
back at nine.

The three of us lined up in the orderly-room.

"Why are you so late in getting back to-day?" the C.O. asked us.

"To tell you the honest truth, sir," I said as he was looking at me, "we
had such a hang-over this morning we couldn't have got out of bed before
nine if our lives had depended on it."

"That's at least original," Capt. Horn remarked, "usually it's a bomb
raid or a sick aunt. Where were you last night?"

"In the Court," I told him.

"What suite?" he asked.

"Oh, 103, 111, 115 and some other odd ones," I told him.

"Well, you certainly made a lot of noise," said Capt. Horn, "I was in 104
myself."

"You weren't exactly quiet on your side of the fence," Springs chirps up,
"I thought some one was making boilers in there for a while."

The C.O. got to laughing and said he guessed he'd have to pardon us this
time for telling the truth. Capt. Horn says he wants to go in with us the
next time we throw a party.

February 5th

Yesterday was washout day so we all went into town again.

Springs had a big suite in the Court and was giving a private party for
his girl.

They had a big dinner and were just beginning to start to argue when the
Huns came over and dropped a bomb on the Court bar. Springs said he heard
the bomb go whistling by his window and when it exploded two stories
below the poor girl was scared stiff. She was so badly scared that she
made Springs take her home as soon as the raid was over and he joined us
in disgust later.

February 9th

I got off in a Pup yesterday. Gosh, what a thrill! They are not so
different, but they are so quick and sensitive that they will crash
taking off or landing before you know what they are going to do. I didn't
bust anything but I pancaked like the devil landing. I hate to think what
would have happened to DeGamo and Springs if they had been allowed to go
up that day. I doubt if they would have got off the ground. If they try
to take them from Curtisses to Pups back home, the undertakers will sure
do some tittering.

A horrible thing happened to-day. We were all out on the tarmac having
our pictures taken for posterity when somebody yelled and pointed up. Two
Avros collided right over the airdrome at about three thousand feet. God,
it was a horrible sight. We didn't know who was in either one of them. I
was glad I was sitting next to Cal. They came down in a slow spin with
their wings locked together and both of them in flames. Fred Stillman was
in one machine and got out alive but badly burned and Doug Ellis was in
the other one and was burned to a cinder.

As I sat there watching, I kept trying to imagine what those poor devils
were thinking about as they went spinning down into hell. It made me
right sick at my stomach to watch. We all went up later and felt better
after a little flying.

We went into town for a party with Capt. Horn. He had a girl with him
from Georgia named Halley Whatley and it sure did my heart good to hear
her talk. He couldn't understand her and Springs and myself when we
dropped into the vernacular. Springs made a julep for her and she
positively cried when she tasted it.

We all had dinner together and went down to Murray's. When it closed we
went to a dance at the Grafton Galleries. Dora and Sousa and Peggy and
the L.L.L.D. were all there. I met a sweet little thing with bobbed hair
named Lily and we went to another dance at a private place for a while.
She is a wonderful dancer and seems to know everybody that ever left the
ground.

Hash was there and he and Springs had their weekly Princeton reunion.
They drank toasts to old Nassau in enough champagne to float a
battleship. It was a right good party. Wonderful music and I'd rather
dance than eat. The British officers were either in evening dress or
wearing their blue dress uniforms, and looking very smart in their snappy
jackets with bright coloured wings and decorations. We looked like hell
in our little khaki jackets. Our army isn't worth a damn for anything but
fighting but I guess we can hold our end up when it comes to the cool of
the evening. But these American women over here get away with murder.
There was a girl there last night from St. Louis that sure was the belle
of the ball.

I have always heard that the English were a tactless blunt people. That's
all wrong. Here is an example of what I call tact. The other evening up
in the room one of the girls took off her ring to wash her hands and
forgot about it and left it on the shelf. She called me up the next
morning and told me about it and said it was a very valuable diamond
solitaire and asked me please to try and find it. I called up the manager
of the hotel and asked him about it. When I was in yesterday I stopped in
to see him and he told me it had been found and if I could identify it, I
could have it. I identified it and he gave it to me in an envelope and on
the envelope was marked, "Found in Main Dining Room." That's what I call
tact. Try and laugh that off!

An Englishman spun an Avro into the ground this morning and got out of it
alive but broke both legs.

February 10th

Big straff around here. One of our bright young cadets who is little Lord
Fauntlery in his home town, got to cussing in the bar the other night
after he got a snoutful and the barmaid objected to his language and made
a complaint. This brought on real trouble. The C.O. had to report it to
the U.S. Headquarters. The cadet got thirty days' confinement and this
American Lieutenant is put in charge of us. He takes his duties very
seriously and is going to have roll-call morning and night.

You can cuss before any lady in England and she will probably cuss back
at you, but if you let your tongue slip before a barmaid, woe be unto
you! They tell the world they are ladies and allow no liberties--during
business hours. I always heard they were good at repartee but all I've
seen so far have acted Lady Godiva holding on to her hair in a breeze.

Twelve of us were up in our suite at the Court having dinner last night
and we decided we ought to have some girls. So after dinner we all went
out in different directions to round up the girls after the theatre. As
we needed so many we thought that everybody should get as many as
possible in case the others had no success.

By twelve o'clock we had twenty-two girls in the suite! Everybody was
successful! Then they all got to fighting among themselves and each one
said that the others were not ladies and it ended up by all of them
leaving. By that time we were glad to see them go.

February 12th

I've done five hours on Pups and am ready for Spads as soon as they get
one in commission.

This Lieutenant is a prime ass net. It was raining this morning and no
one got up to answer his rollcall. So he had us all in his room after
lunch to bawl us out. He announced last week that no one could leave the
squadron without permission from him. I don't know where he got the idea
that it was any business of his because there are no restrictions
anywhere else. He wanted to sit at the head table with the instructors
but the major wouldn't let him and he hates to eat with us. Capt. Morton
bawled the life out of him the other day and stood him easy. In spite of
all his time on Curtisses, he's still on Avros, while Nathan, Barry,
DeGamo and Springs are all through with Pups and Spads and they started
after he did. He also thinks he should have the preference of machines
but he doesn't get it.

He told us that we were not taking the discipline seriously. He told
Springs that he had been to London twice without permission from him and
that he was going to punish him. Springs said he had finished his course
in flying and was ready to go to the front. He said that made no
difference. Springs said he thought that an aviator was supposed to fly
and that what he did when the weather was unsuitable was his own
business. As a matter of fact, Springs got in all his time by flying in
bad weather when no one else wanted the planes and has put in more hours
in the air than any other cadet. And he would go without lunch to get a
plane while the rest were eating. He asked what the charges against him
were. The Lieutenant said A.W.O.L. Springs said he wanted a court martial
because he knew the Lieutenant didn't know how to hold one. They argued
half an hour over the technicalities and Springs bluffed him out of it by
quoting imaginary regulations. He tried to confine the rest of us to
quarters and we all demanded court martials. He's postponed judgment
until he can go into London and find out just what he can do.

February 15th

Flew a Spad to-day. Easy to fly but dangerous as hell. Just like flying
the famous barn door that Beachy used to talk about. And it has the
gliding angle of a brick. I've always laughed at the regulars wearing
spurs to fly in but I needed a pair in this Spad. It bucked just like a
bronco.

The Lieutenant went into London and Dwyer told him to shut up and mind
his own business and do a little flying himself. So Milnor told Cal.

Springs and Nathan and Barry are through and went to Scotland at midnight
last night to the machine-gun school. Springs went hog wild yesterday
afternoon. He and a little English kid named Rogers were raising hell all
over the place in Spads. They were running their wheels on the ground and
then pulling up just in time to try and run them on the hangar roofs. It
was a great exhibition of damn foolishness. Then Springs got a Pup and
began chasing a machine-gun class in and out of the firing-pit. He'd dive
in the pit and chase them out and then run along the ground and chase
them back in. In the midst of the party he lost his pressure and before
he could pump it up his engine conked and he pancaked in a flower garden
between a windmill and a summerhouse. The C.O. called him in the office
and told him they needed fools like that in France and to pack and get
going. Then Maclntaggart made him go over and fly the Pup out.

February 16th

DeGamo was killed to-day. Nobody knows how it happened. He was up in a
Spad and it was found about five miles from here in a small field over
near Ratlett. It wasn't crashed badly but his neck was broken.

I've done five hours on Spads now and I feel I can fly them.

Tommy Herbert took us up to Bedford to a really nice dance with some
friends of his. We had a fine time and he met a sort of vamp. Tommy asked
us to go up there to dinner with him last night and we thought we were
going to his nice friend's house. Imagine our surprise when we walked
into the vamp's house. We all got lit and had a hell of a time. Cal took
up with one Helen who could dance. Tommy amused the vamp and I was alone
except for one Alice, who was the mistress of a general in private life.
She had to go home early.

February 19th

We were getting dressed for DeGamo's funeral when the Lieutenant came in
and bawled us out for being late. Cal looked up at him sheepishly and
held out a box of candy. "Have a piece of candy," he said.

The Lieutenant looked like he was going to bust. "Have you no sense of
propriety?" he asked.

"Maybe not, Lieutenant," I said, fixing a puttee, "but I can at least
thank God for a sense of humour!"

He glared at us and slammed the door as he went out. I hear he was once
an All-American football player.

February 20th

Bulkley and Carlton have been killed. Two good men gone West. Bulkley was
flying a Pup over at Hounslow and ran into an Avro. The landing-skid on
the Avro tore his centre section out and the plane came to pieces in the
air. Canton spun an R.E. 8 into the ground at Spiddlegate.

Cal had a forced landing with a Spad to-day. His elevator controls jammed
and he had to do some quick thinking. He was flying around the insane
asylum trying to see his nurse. He used his head and managed to flop down
on a golf-course. Some old duck was mad as hell when his game was
interrupted. He got behind a bunker when he saw the Spad coming and Cal
hit it and the Spad went over on its back. He said that when the Spad
settled down he was looking right into this fellow's face and it was
awful red.

Cal and I went into town again with Capt. Horn. Cal got mad at Peggy
after dinner and she went off to a dance with a Canadian colonel and he
started back for the squadron. But there was a bomb raid on and the Huns
dropped three bombs on the station so Cal had to come back.

February 22nd

Fred Stillman died after a gallant struggle. They thought he was going to
pull through but poisoning set in. A fine fellow! Also Montgomery was
killed. Montgomery was killed when the pilot fell out of the front seat
in an Ak. W. in a loop. Montgomery was in the back seat and crawled up
into the front cockpit and just had his hands on the controls when it
crashed. Think of watching the ground coming up at you for two or three
minutes while you wiggle up the fusilage. Makes my blood run cold!

March 3rd

Here we are at Turnberry in Scotland. It's on the coast and is cold as
hell. We go to machine-gun classes for ten hours a day for ten days. They
run us to death and we freeze and starve. There's a bunch of Americans up
here and a few of them have got their commissions. I wonder what's
happened to ours. Tipton got his and they had to close the bar for three
days afterwards.

Nichol was killed at Stamford on his first solo.

March 5th

No time to write. They work us too hard. I'm starved. Nothing to eat here
but Brussels sprouts and vegetable marrow.

We went down to Girvan for a party. The Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps has
a training-school there. We watched them drill. Gosh, it was funny. A
Barbados sergeant-major was giving them close order drill and he was
absolutely speechless with rage. He was used to flaying a company with
his tongue mercilessly and there was nothing he could say to this crowd.
There were no words in his vocabulary he could use. He just stood there
and sputtered like a wet wick. He had a hundred and fifty Waacs of all
sizes and contours and he was trying to line them up and couldn't because
he didn't know what part of their anatomy to line on. He had my sympathy.
It had taken him twenty years to acquire his drill vocabulary and now he
could not use it. But why try to drill women anyway? I don't see the idea
at all. They pay them the same as Tommies and give them the same
discipline. A Waac officer can't walk out with a Tommy any more than an
army officer can be seen with a Waac private. There weren't enough
officers to go around with us so we took privates anyway.

March 10th

Heard to-day that Ludwig was killed flying an S.E. He got into a spin
close to the ground.

March 12th

Thank God that's over. We are now at Ayr at the school of Aerial
Fighting. The pilots' pool is also here. When pilots are ready to go to
the front they are sent here and then sent out when needed. We are
quartered at Wellington House. Springs, Nathan, Barry, Landis, Zistell,
Oliver, Capt. Morton, Hash Gile, Hammer, Winslow, Whiting, Tipton,
Kissel, Mathews, Ortmeyer, Frost, Evans, Mortimer, Armstrong, and Clay
are all here. Most of them have finished and are waiting for commissions
before being posted overseas. We hear a lot of rumours about how we are
going out. The British won't take us unless we are commissioned and we
hear that Pershing has recommended that pilots be sergeants and not
officers and that flying pay be abolished. He has stopped it in the
A.E.F. Springs, Oliver and Winslow got Second Lieutenancies and refused
to accept them and asked for their discharges instead. Everybody here
wants to get out of the U.S. Army and join the R.F.C. where they'll get a
square deal. We certainly have got a rotten deal from the U.S.A. and the
British couldn't have treated their own Field-marshals any better. We owe
the British a lot and have a lot to get even with our own army for.

MacDill and Jeff Dwyer are the only two officers that have made any
effort to treat us decently. Jeff is sure our friend.

There's a big party going on here in spite of the wholesale funerals. Six
American Naval pilots were sent over from France to take the course here.
They thought that Camels were as easy to fly as the Hanriots they had
been flying in France and they wouldn't listen to any advice from the
instructors here. Three of them were washed out one week.

Then Ortmeyer, who had three hundred hours on Curtisses at home as an
instructor, spun a Camel into the ground and killed himself. Dealy spun
into the ground the next day and before they got him buried, two
Englishmen killed themselves. All in Camels and all doing right-hand
spins.

Col. Rees is in charge here and he tried to put pep in the boys by giving
a stunting exhibition below five hundred feet. He certainly did fight the
tree tops and he wouldn't come out of a spin above fifty feet. Then he
made all the instructors go up in Camels and do the same thing. It was a
wonderful exhibition and then he made us a little speech and told us
there was nothing to worry about, to go to it. Several of the boys were
so encouraged that they took off in Camels and tried to do the same
thing. Only one was killed.

March 16th

Everybody had gone crazy over eggnog. Springs and Oliver found a dairy
where they got some cream and they made some eggnog. Everybody demanded
more. The next day they made five gallons and it lasted ten minutes. Then
we got a big dairy vat and put all the Waacs to work beating eggs. All
the cooks and maids up here are Waacs. Springs's father sent him ten
pounds of sugar and we had three cases of brandy. It must have made
fifteen or twenty gallons. Everybody from the Colonel down came over to
drink it. By lunch time every officer in Ayr was full of eggnog.

We all went out to the airdrome after lunch and tried to fly. They are
short of magnetoes and the only way they can get more is to steal them
off crashes. There were three Spads so Capt. Foggin asked for Spad
pilots. He sent Springs up in one hoping he would crash it. He had a
quart bottle of eggnog and he took it up with him to drink. The motor
conked all right, but he made a nice landing in the field with a dead
stick without crashing so Foggin sent him up in another one.

Springs decided he'd steeplechase. The field is in an old racecourse so
he came down wide open and ran his wheels on the track. He tried to bank
with the track for a turn but they had put up some heavy wires and his
top wing caught them. He went straight up three hundred feet and stalled
and fell out of the stall right into the middle of the field. God
certainly took over the controls. He wasn't hurt but the Spad was a
write-off and Foggin got one mag.

Springs was mad as a hornet because he had the bottle of eggnog in his
pocket and when he saw he was going to crash he threw it out to keep from
cutting himself up.

The Colonel sent for Springs to bawl him out, "Ah, listen here," said the
Colonel, "I really have enough trouble running this school without you
youngsters interrupting my telephone connections. Don't do it! By the way
is there any of your priceless concoction left?"

March 20th

Cush Nathan killed. He was flying an S.E. and the wings came off at five
thousand feet. He went into the roof of a three-story house and they dug
him out of the basement. A real fine fellow. I liked him. So did
everybody. He and Springs had been rooming together and that's the second
roommate he's lost in two weeks. He doesn't want to ask anybody else to
room with him but Reed Landis said he's not superstitious and moved in.

March 22nd

Last night one of the boys had a date with a staff officer's wife and
couldn't get rid of him so brought him around to Wellington and asked us
to get him tight and pass him out.

Springs and I took him on. We would each mix a drink by turn. When it
came to my drink he did bottoms-up and got nasty about it. He said
American drinks were all too weak and he picked up a glass of it and
threw it into the fire! It exploded! About a half-hour later he went out
on a shutter. That Scotsman was so tight he couldn't hoot any more than a
dead owl.

Armstrong, the wild Australian, came in and said he had two lassies
outside and needed help. Springs went out with him. The girl he drew was
only sixteen and was sweet and innocent so he bawled her out and gave her
a lecture on the perils of folly and the danger of trusting any man after
dark. Then he took her home.

Armstrong came back tight and got into the Waacs' quarters by mistake.
There was a straff over it this morning. The Waacs saved the day by not
complaining officially. They have several rooms in the basement.

Cush's funeral was this morning. The staff officer who went out last
night feet first was supposed to have been in charge of it but he
couldn't make the grade. There was a long delay and then Springs took
charge and somehow we got through with it. One of the escort planes had a
forced landing and one of the firing party got nervous and fired too soon
and scared every one to death.

March 24th

For three weeks before Cush was killed, he and Springs had been going to
a Scot dentist here to have their teeth reworked. We went to see him
to-day to pay Cush's bill. We told him about the crash and do you know,
that Scot wouldn't accept a penny! We explained that we had been directed
by the court of inquiry to pay his bills but still he wouldn't take
anything. He said he couldn't take money from a man who'd died for his
country. Yet they crack jokes about the Scots loving money above all
else. I'm glad that my blood is Scotch. If they don't hurry up and send
us on out to the front a lot of German-Americans are going to have their
veins full of Scotch too.

Springs said he'd pay his own bill right then as he might get killed too
and didn't want to cheat him.

"But, mon," says the dentist, "I'm na through wi' yer."

"Oh, yes, you are," says Springs, "whether you know it or not. I'm not
going to all the trouble and expense of having my teeth fixed when I'm
this close to Lethe's waters. Every morning when I wake up I reach out to
shake hands with Charon."

"And dinna ye take na thought for yer soul when the day draws nigh to
return it to its maker?"

"I've been to the kirk with you every Sunday since I've been here," said
Springs, "and I'm helping to support a couple of distilleries. What more
can I do for my immortal soul in Scotland?"

"Hoot, mon," says he, "Americans must be heathens. Ye dinna ken where to
find the text in the Bible."

Springs told me later that the dentist wouldn't work on his teeth unless
he'd go to church with him. Then he shocked the dentist by pretending to
look for Matthew in the Old Testament.

These Scots may be canny but they are a trusting lot. Any of the banks
here will cash cheques without asking for any identification. Yet down in
England they won't even accept money for deposit until they've got a
picture of you and know why your grandfather had to marry the girl.

Pansy hasn't taken a step since he's been here. He rides out to the field
and back in the only taxi in town. He hasn't paid a penny to the driver
yet and that poor fellow is going to get an awful jolt some day when he
tries to collect.

This town is full of statues of Bobby Burns and bars. That's the
principal industry. The barmaids are the belles of the town. I looked
around at the show the other night and there were our three leading
social lights, all escorting barmaids. The one down at the station hotel
is the favourite. She takes a personal interest in each drink and every
drinker. The other night Springs went down to the station to see Gile and
Hammer off and she thought he was going too. She came out from behind the
bar and threw her arms around his neck and cried over him. We've been
kidding her about it and she's as mad as a hornet. Ayr is really a
beautiful spot and I'd like to stay here a while but they kill off pilots
too fast for anyone to linger very long. Springs says he's been to twelve
funerals. One more coming to-morrow. All the flying here is stunting and
we have service machines. Every time we go up, we are supposed to find
another machine and have a dogfight with it. The Colonel stays up in the
air a lot and is about the best at scrapping--he and Foggin and Atkinson.
Foggin is a wonderful pilot and only has one eye.

March 26th

Springs and Oliver got their commissions as 1st Lieutenants yesterday. It
was Bim's birthday so they decided to give a party and invited every one
to a dinner. It was a nice dinner party but our hosts never appeared
until it was all over. They were back in the bar with the Waac barmaid
experimenting with a new drink they had just invented. Every now and then
they would send us in a sample by Minnie. It was a potent beverage,
judging by the results, though it tasted harmless enough. It had
benedictine, cognac, champagne, vermouth and pineapple juice. They called
it "The Queen's Favour."

Later on the adjutant's wife and sister came over with Alec to call. Bim
came up to speak to them. He came in the door and bowed. Then he reached
out to close the door. He reached short by about four feet. You could
have knocked his eyes off with a spoon. Cal plays bridge all the time.
Curtis says he is suffering from the Woofits, that dread disease that
comes from over-eating and under-drinking.

George Vaughn cracked up an S.E. in splendid style. The engine conked
with him over the town and he pancaked in a vacant lot and climbed up on
top of a building. Later on, somebody wanted a picture of the crash and
wanted him in it. He got back in the seat and the fusilage collapsed and
the whole thing toppled over. He got his arm skinned up then, though he
hadn't got hurt in the original crash.

Pansy run into a chimney with a Camel and scored one complete write-off.
Practically every one that has been killed in a Camel has done it from a
right-hand spin.

Hagood Bostick came down here from Turnberry looking like the Queen of
Sheba's favourite husband. He had on everything but the monocle to make
him Hinglish. He had pale pink breeches, light tan tunic with skirts down
to his knees and boots and gloves and cane to match. He comes from
Charleston, S.C., so doesn't have to cultivate the accent. Plucky little
kid, he's only nineteen. He and Pansy are our sartorial stars. Pansy
really looks more dashing, due to his sabre moustache. He talks too much
about his yacht and his flunkeys.

Thank God we are through with wireless for ever. And just think of the
valuable time we've wasted learning that damn code! Eight words a minute!
Bah! An hour a day for eight months! Da-da-da diddy da! Bah some more! I
knew I was going to be a scout pilot all the time!

March 27th

I am ordered to France on Spads even though I haven't got my commission.
I leave to-morrow. Hoorah! Hoorah!

The Lieutenant from London Colney blew into Wellington last night. He was
all lit up like a new saloon. He asked for Springs and me. We weren't too
cordial. He told us that he had come to see us and he realized we thought
he was an ass and that he wanted to show us that he was a regular fellow.
He said he wanted to give us a party and prove what a good sport he
really was. We slapped him on the back a few times and carried him home
after he passed out. He's learning some of the values of this life, but a
sense of humour is a divine heritage and can't be cultivated.

Springs's little girl came back for further instructions so this time I
undertook her education. I took her down on the beach and gave her a
short lecture. She's young and innocent all right--but ambitious.

March 30th

I came down to London and was told that Spads are being washed out at the
front and replaced with Dolphins so I am ordered to Hounslow to learn to
fly them. Springs came down from Ayr with me. Captain Horn is a flight
commander out there in the squadron that the great Major Bishop, V.C.,
D.S.O., M.C. is organizing to take overseas. He wants the three of us to
go out with him. They are letting Bishop pick his own pilots and he went
with us to the U.S. Headquarters to try and arrange it. Col. Morrow said
it couldn't be done. The whole staff nearly lost their eyes staring at us
when we strolled out, arm and arm with the great Bishop.

He has a very pretty chauffeur and I made a date to take her to a dance
Saturday night. All the cars in England are driven by girls.

The Lieutenant came down from Ayr and gave his party at Murray's. Gawd,
it was terrible! He wouldn't have anything but individual bottles of
everything. He was certainly determined to be a good fellow and everybody
obliged him by getting soused to the eyeballs. He ended up the night
sitting on Lillian's doorstep singing love songs through the keyhole.

I went to a big dance and managed to collect a redhead. She gave every
indication of being ready to burn my fingers so I left while the door was
still open. I had lunch with her the next day and she sure is a
good-looking woman. But my grandfather told me never to get mixed up with
a redheaded woman who wears black underwear.

Springs went back to Ayr after a very unsatisfactory conference with a
major at headquarters, who is an officer all right but even an act of
Congress couldn't make him a gentleman.

I hear that Nial and Lavelle and Jake Stahl are in the hospital pretty
badly smashed up.

April 2nd

Springs came back down last night and has orders to go overseas to an
S.E. squadron. I got Bishop and we went into London and he arranged to
have him sent out to Hounslow when he reports to the Yard.

I have taken an apartment at the Piccadilly Mansions and am quite hot
these days.

April 6th

The dirty deed is done. Springs came out here mad as a hornet because
they told him at the Yard that he was no good and would have to have some
more instructions before he could go overseas. He didn't tumble at all
and insisted that he was a damn good pilot and offered to prove it. But
they had a report on him that was unsatisfactory so sent him out here. He
didn't find out until he got to Hounslow that Bishop had had that report
sent in. Now to grab off Cal as he passes through.

April 7th

Sanford, Kissel, Zistell, Whiting, Frost, Tipton, Campbell and Hamilton
are going out on Camels to regular British squadrons just as if they were
R.F.C. pilots. The Hun has played hell with the troops in France and they
need help. So we are to be commissioned at once and sent out to the
R.F.C. as they need us. I got my commission to-day and Cal's is here too.

Everybody is discouraged over the continued bad news that comes through.
It's clear now that the war will be won or lost in the next two months.
You certainly have to hand it to the British for keeping a stiff upper
lip.

Cal arrived this morning from Ayr and we had everything fixed at the Yard
like a greased chute.

We arrived at Hounslow in triumph and a one lung taxi. Bishop says he
doesn't care where we stay--so we are going to get some place in town and
spend our last days on this earth in peace and comfort. Halley says she
can get a house for us for less than one suite at the Court. That would
be warm.

April 8th

We have a house! You can't laugh that off! Halley had a friend, a
Lordship, who had a four-story house in Berkeley Square that he was
willing to rent to us for ten pounds a week. We also have a cook and
butler. Gangway!

We moved in and gave a big party Saturday. Major Bishop, Nigger Horn,
MacGregor, MacDonald, Capt. Benbow and Capt. Baker came in from Hounslow
for dinner and Col. Hastings and Col. Hepburn of the Canadian General
Staff.

We found out too late that we couldn't get any meat without meat coupons.
And there was little else we could buy. We got around the food problem
easily. All we had cooked was soup and fish. Then we made a big tubfull
of eggnog and a couple of big pitchers of mint julep. To make sure that
no one got beyond the fish course, we shook up cocktails too.

Our guests arrived about six and we started doing bottoms-up in rotation.
It was a riot.

Springs was at the head of the table and served. Everybody had a bottle
of port and a bottle of champagne. The butler brought in a big platter of
fish and Springs served them by picking them up by the tail and tossing
one to each guest as if they were seals. At the end of the fish course, I
was alone at the table. The rest were chasing each other all over the
place.

His Lordship has a wonderful collection of ancient war weapons. Before
going to the theatre, where we had a box, all these ruffians armed
themselves with swords, machetes, shillelaghes, maces, clubs, bayonets,
sabers, pikes, flintlock pistols and various daggers and dirks. They
looked like an arsenal. It's a wonder they weren't all arrested. Cal
dropped a club on the bass drum in the middle of the show and Benbow
nearly fell out of the box. Springs and Vic Hastings and I improved the
idle hours by taking a Turkish bath and joining the rest of them later
back at the house, as fresh as a spring morning.

April 11th

Springs has given birth to another idea. It may be all right. Some of his
are good and some are awful bad. Information has been received that the
Germans have developed a parachute that can be used from an aeroplane.
Springs got all excited about it and went to see Calthorpe the inventor
of the Guardian Angel parachute that all the balloonitics use. Caithorpe
is working on the idea. Springs offered him two thousand dollars if he
would make one for him according to his idea. Caithorpe said he couldn't
do it as the War Office wouldn't let him work for individuals, but that
he would be glad to have any assistance or ideas. Springs offered to test
out Caithorpe's and take it to the front for further tests and they are
working on the same idea.

Caithorpe's idea is to have the parachute arranged in the trailing edge
of the wing like an aileron.

The trouble with that is that it is liable to foul on the tail and it
would take some time for the pilot to get out of his seat and get the
straps on. And he would have to get out in a spin or a steep dive.
Caithorpe is developing it primarily for the big planes where there is a
crew and all of them could possibly get out except the pilot.

Springs wants one made to fit on an S.E. where the steamline for the
pilot's head is on the top of the fusilage. Then the pilot could wear the
harness all the time and all he would have to do would be to unfasten his
safety belt and jump. The objection to that again is the possibility of
fouling. He figures on having a long cord between the parachute and the
plane so that it would be free of the plane before it started to open. As
the pilot fell away from the plane the cord would open the parachute and
then the pilot could cut loose. It might be very difficult for the pilot
to cut loose and Calthorpe figures on doing it with a series of rubber
bands or an unravelling device.

I like the idea. It would certainly help at the front. Most pilots are
killed by structural defects or by having the plane catch fire in the
air. It would also be a great device for testing.

Springs tried to get permission from the U.S. Headquarters to go ahead
with it but they said nothing doing.

We also hear rumours of a new machine-gun invented by a Russian which
uses larger bullets than the present ones and they are little shrapnel
shells. This war is getting more dangerous every day. There is only one
other American at Hounslow, Loghran from North Carolina.

April 12th

We've all been up in Dolphins and they aren't so hard to fly but are very
tricky. They have the two hundred and twenty horse-power Hispano motors
and the prop is geared which reverses the torque. They don't turn as well
as an S.E. but better than a Spad. There's one great danger with them.
They have twenty-four inches of back stagger and the top wing is very
low. They have no centre section and your head comes up through the top
wing where the centre section ought to be. If anything goes wrong and it
turns over, the whole weight of the plane will rest on your head. If you
crash, the gas tank is right at your back like in a Camel and your legs
are up under the motor. There's not much hope for the pilot. Capt. White
was landing last week and a tire busted and the wheel gave way and he
turned over. The plane caught fire and he was nearly burned to death
before we could get him out. They spin very easily from a left-hand turn.
Cal gives me the willies by always taking off in a left-hand climbing
turn.

I heard a funny story about Tracy Bird. Two old maids got frightened at
the air raids in London and moved out to the country. The third day they
were there Tracy crashes into their roof in an Ak.W. and lands in their
room. They were so frightened they moved back to London. Tracy wasn't
hurt.

April 13th

Roberts and Al came around to the house last night after Murray's closed.
Sheila and Peggy and the Queen Bee and the Brainless Wonder were all
here. We were doing a little serious drinking and Al and Sheila got to
cussing at each other. Al was coming back pretty hard and Sheila was
determined she was going to have the last word. I didn't like it. I can't
bear to hear a man use bad language to a woman. I told him to shut up. He
kept on and I told him again to shut up. He said something to me and we
both jumped up and I saw blue for a moment. I took a swing at him and I'd
have killed him if Springs hadn't jumped between us and my fist hit his
shoulder and he hit Springs in the back. All three of us went down on the
floor and got tangled up in the bearskin rug and Cal jumped on me. We got
up and shook hands. Damn my temper anyway! It gets away from me in spite
of all I can do.

Middleditch and Pudrith have been killed on D.H. 4's. The Lord sure is a
good picker!

Stratton got smashed up. He was in a Camel and his machine-gun ran away
so he crashed to keep from shooting another machine.

April 14th

There's a new order out from Headquarters that no U.S. pilot can come to
London without orders. Now isn't that nice? Here we are stationed within
the city limits, the tube station is right at the entrance of the field
and yet we are forbidden to go down to the centre of the town. In other
words we are confined to our quarters as if we were under arrest.

The U.S. Army is a great institution. I have been treated like an
enlisted man for ten months though I was never supposed to be one. But I
didn't expect the treatment to continue after I became a 1st lieutenant.
I suppose if we ever get to be captains, the regulars will all be
colonels and captains will be enlisted men still. We all realized that
there was a war on and that Washington was too busy to give us our
commissions as they promised and we did the best we could in the
meanwhile in the best of spirits. We lost our seniority and our pay. A
man that was in the same class with me at Ground School and who wasn't
good enough to come over with us, went to a flying-field and got his
commission in six weeks and came over here and was put in charge of some
of us. We have all the responsibilities that the British pilots have, we
have to do the same work they do, we die the same way they do, we accept
orders from the same officers they do when it comes to duty, yet we have
none of their privileges. It isn't fair. If Bishop can order me to go up
and get killed, which he can, he should be able to give us permission to
go into town, which he can't.

I'm glad I had the pleasure of knowing Major MacDill and Colonel Morrow
but I can't understand what they are doing in the army. They are
gentlemen! There was a major out here yesterday that certainly couldn't
qualify. If we had to choose between fighting the Prussian Guard and the
West Point Alumni Association, I know where at least two hundred and ten
aviators would assemble.

I guess majors are like children around eight and ten. They are just
passing through an ugly age. And these present ones have been hatched so
recently that their gold leaves itch.

We are going to the front and get killed off like flies. Two or three get
killed in England every week. Yet these great Moguls are so afraid that
we will have a little fun before we do go West that they have forbidden
us to come to London to see a show or join our friends and try to forget
for a little while what is going to happen to us. It's an outrage. They
think we are so much dirt. We went to the American Officers' club for
lunch for a while. They ought to call it the majors' and admirals' free
lunch. They think we have leprosy. The club is just around the corner
from the house and is very convenient and the food is good but I don't
like the company. When Lord Leaconsfield donated his house for the
purpose I didn't hear anything said about what officers were to be
allowed in it. Well, we should worry.

I'd rather eat one meal with Bishop than have Admiral Sims and General
Biddle pay my board eternally. Thank God the British can recognize a
gentleman despite his rank.

These little tin majors give me a pain. They can't find enough aviators
in France to cuss at, so they have to run over here every little while
and show off their authority by cussing us out before the British. And I
must say for the British that they resent it as much as we do.

I'm an American and I'm proud of it but I'm damned if I can take any
pride in the boobs that are running the flying corps. For instance how
can we fly when our necks are being choked off by these  1865 model
collars? The staff must think they are still in Mexico wearing O.D.
shirts.

Springs called up and got permission to go down to Headquarters. He came
back with three sets of orders for us to go to the dentist until we get
our teeth fixed. I guess that will see us through. Dwyer certainly is a
friend in need. He said he's heard about our house unofficially and that
we'd better keep it quiet. We will.

Loghran has gone to Turnberry.

We are all broke at the moment and have all cabled home for funds. Cal
has a rich grandmother and he and Springs got together and composed a
letter to her that was a masterpiece. They told her about the young
aviator that had been over here for six months and had been broke and had
a rotten time. Then he went out to the front and his father sent him five
thousand dollars for a birthday present but he was killed before he had a
chance to get leave and enjoy it. If Springs isn't hung first he'll be a
great writer some day. That letter was the work of a master hand.

Wheelock and Berry crashed a Bristol Fighter at Ayr and it caught fire.
Wheelock was in the back seat and had a broken arm but managed to get out
of the wreckage. Berry was in the front seat and couldn't get out so
Wheelock went in after him and pulled him out. Both were badly burned.

April 18th

Gawd, what a life! We get up at noon, breakfast and go to Hounslow on the
tube if it's a good day, if not we go down to the Savoy bar and join the
gang there. At six we are back at the house unless there's a party at
Murray's. Vic Hastings usually comes around before dinner with Col.
Hepburn or Cecil Cowan or Nat Ayres and we all go out to dinner after
getting well oiled. Vic sent around a couple of cases of Canadian Club
from Canadian H.Q. yesterday. That ought to last at least three nights.
We went down to see His Lordship's own private wine merchant when we
first moved in and he keeps us supplied with some marvellous 1880 port.
At least he says it's port. I call it the "answer to a drunkard's
prayer."

Then we usually get in our evening dancing at Murray's or the Elysee and
then all come back to the house when they close. Anywhere from five to
twenty-five of the old detachment usually drop in and we simply can't
keep up with our engagements.

We had a full-blooded Sioux Indian in the squadron but he killed himself
yesterday by spinning into the ground from a left-hand turn.

Nigger Horn had a crash. He was flying an S.E. and had just got off the
ground when the engine conked. He was headed straight for the town and
couldn't turn back. It looked as if he was going to crash into a crowded
street but he stuck his nose down and deliberately dove between two
little brick buildings on the edge of the field. The buildings tore his
wings off clean and he and the fusilage slid, along.

Springs has a new girl and my Gawd, what a beautiful thing she is. But
she's so stupid it's ludicrous. Nothing but a doll. He says he's
suffering from a reaction. The last one had too much brains.

April 20th

It looks like we were going to be delayed. 84 squadron on the same field
at Hounslow is ready to go over but the factory is short on Dolphins as
they have been using all the new ones to replace Spads at the front. They
have taken our Dolphins and we have to refit with S.E.'s. I'm not sorry
to get S.E.'s but I hate the delay. If we don't get to the front pretty
soon there won't be much use in taking us--we'll be too busy fighting off
the purple crocodiles.

Mathews, Oliver, Eckert, Newhall, Gile and Hammer are ready to go out to
the front to-day. There was a big party last night and we went to a dance
at the Elysee Gardens. The whole flying corps was there and all tight as
a nun's corset. Hash and Springs held their usual reunion. Springs has
something wrong with his left eye and when he drinks too much it closes.
I went downstairs in the bar and found Hash holding Springs's eye open
with his hand so he could have another drink to Old Nassau. When they
meet in hell those two will organize a Princeton reunion.

Cecil gave a dinner party in honour of Peggy and the Doll the same
evening. This is a new Peggy--the third. This one came as a present in
Murray's the other night. Vic and Barney and Dora were there too. Then we
all went to the dance. We decided to go back to the house about one
o'clock and the Doll was dancing with some Englishman and Springs and I
went out to get her. She didn't want to leave and her partner got the
idea that she was objecting to me breaking in. He got very nasty about it
and told us to run along and gave me a gentle push. I saw red and took a
long swing. Springs saw me swing and jumped in the way. I knocked him
flat and then Cal grabbed me. Gosh, it's funny how we three stick
together in a crowd. But I wish they'd jump on the other fellow for a
change. That's three times they've jumped on me in a fight. We need
better team work! Hash has the right idea. He's about six feet four and
an old Princeton tackle. He saw the argument and came up and towered over
this fellow while Cal was holding me and looked him over and said,
"Listen here, young fellow, wh