After this he learns to steer a course by compass, gets practice in machine-gun firing and dissembling while in mid-air, and then he is ready at last for the great adventure across the water. One fine morning he will set out on a brand-new war-machine for somewhere in the north of France.
The great war has brought in its trail horrors innumerable, but, as if in compensation, has brought to light all that is best in our men.
The heroism and courage of the airmen were without precedent, but none the less admirable. Those stripling pilots of the air that flew undaunted over shell-fire in all weathers and at all times have opened up a chapter in our history that nothing can rival.
Who can define the psychology of these young men who can meet death as an old acquaintance and pass him, mocking, by--who laugh at fear, and make a jest of danger? Is it that they are without nerve entirely, or is it rather a pose, a lovable bravado that hides their true feelings? Is it that they are rather less devoid of fear than their brothers in the trenches? Hardly. We have known them, you and I, reader, in the last few years, but under a different guise--as happy, laughing schoolboys, as young men plunging into life, the “flanneled fools and muddied oafs” of Britain, and suddenly they have become men, ready and eager to share a man’s burdens and responsibilities, yet no whit altered; but deadly in earnest when there is work to be done on the other side.
Undoubtedly the air does affect a man to a degree, and endows him with that strange malady, flying temperament, that makes him reckless, and, to a certain extent, headstrong; occasionally to get out of hand, and to find rules and discipline chafing and irksome. But then the air has a call of its own that few can resist; that runs through a man’s veins like flame, and whispers courage and defiance into his ear, that invites his sympathy, his love, his esteem. But the air is a fickle mistress, and woe betide he who dares to slight her or make free at her expense; he must pay the penalty, and that penalty is--death.
Every known sensation is experienced in flying: joy--the joy of youth astride the dull old world, accomplishing what previous generations dared not to attempt; excitement, to feel the cool air brushing one’s cheek, and whistling past one’s ears; fear, danger, hope and despair; all are crowded into this one brief hour of life.