In answer to my weekly letters I had been hearing regularly from my wife. Hers were cheerful always, affectionate and newsy. They helped a lot. Then all of a sudden they stopped. I wrote, wrote again. No answer. I wrote mutual friends asking if she was ill. They replied that they had seen her and she seemed to be in the best of health. I wrote her again saying how worried I had been; that apparently she had not received my last two letters, or that her last to me had gone to another camp. No reply. I sent a prepaid wire. The answer came back, very much to the point: NO USE WRITING STOP FINISHED. It left me a little stunned.
Smiddy had told me to look up a friend of his at Deseronto, Basil Durant, squadron commander at 84, which I had done. I went right over to his quarters and asked him for a drink. Like his friend, Vernon Castle, Basil was one of Broadway's best dancers—he had been Joan Sawyer's partner—and a good dancer generally makes a good flier. Basil, like Vernon Castle, had rhythm. When he flew there was music in the air. He was so patient with them and, in his quiet way, inspired his pupils with so much confidence that he never did get to France. He had made himself indispensible as an instructor by turning out more pilots in a week than most instructors did in a month. I found him in pyjamas. Between Basil and a friend of Smiddy's no difference in rank existed. He located a whisky bottle—empty, and sent his orderly over to one-lung Jack Coates, millionaire C.O. of Camp Mohawk. The orderly brought us back a pinch-bottle of Haig and Haig. In half an hour Captain Coates himself followed it.
"A pal of Smiddy's, Jack," said Basil presenting me.
"All I've got to say," said Captain Coates, holding up the bottle, "is that neither of you know what to do with God's good likker."
The bottle was a quarter full. He poured what remained into Basil's glass.
"One minute, Jack," said Basil. "There's no more soda water. Ring for the batman, Rex."
"Your American hero, Farragut, said to hell with soda water!" said Captain Coates, draining the glass.
"His wife," began Basil, pointing to me, "Rex, you don't mind if Jack sees this wire?—He's having family trouble of his own."
Captain Coates took the telegram and read it aloud twice.
"Where's thet bloody batman?" he said.
I went to the door.
"Bring over two more pinch-bottles," he said when the orderly showed up. Then he came toward me and shoved the telegram in my face.
"These bloody women!" he said. "And they'd get away with it if it wasn't for John Haig."
A month later, after I had been posted back to Leaside for artillery observation training, I heard he was going to get married again.
At Leaside I had made friends with a cadet named Hacker. He was American and quite a bit older than the average cadet. He had joined the R.F.C. before America declared war, and was reputed to be a 32nd degree Mason and a rich man. He told me about the cattle ranch he and his sisters owned in the states, and said that after the war he was going to buy a couple of J.N. 4 airplanes for his own and his overseer's use. At the time I left Leaside for the S. of M.A., Hacker left for the aerial gunnery camp at Beamsville, the last stepping stone to overseas. When he had finished at Beamsville and was waiting to be sent to Jesse Ketchum for his commission, a wire came from his sisters telling him that his overseer had absconded with $70,000, and all their affairs were in a mixup. Hacker applied for two weeks leave to clean things up before going across. When it was refused he went a.w.l. He was back in ten days, and the curious thing was that nobody had missed him. But when he got back to Jesse Ketchum, Corporal McGuirk, who was there at the time, did some snooping. As a result Hacker got three months in the clink instead of his commission.
When he got out he was posted back to 82 Squadron at Deseronto to get the touch of the controls again. 82 was camping out, and Hacker and I shared the same tent. We were always together, and talked a lot about what we would do if we came out of the R.F.C. alive. If we did, it was understood that I would visit him on his ranch. For some reason the squadron commander kept him hanging around, though he reported at B flight with the rest of us every day. It went without saying that he would need a couple of hours dual flying before taking a machine up alone after a lay-off of nearly four months.
The O.C. at 82 was absent on leave. He had been temporairlytyping error in original. replaced by a very officious person, who, never having commanded a training squadron before, was determined to show everyone how it should be done.
"There's a war on," he repeated a dozen times a day.
He poked his nose into everything from carburetors to latrines.
"Why aren't you in the air?" he said to me one morning, appearing suddenly from behind.
"Waiting for a bus, sir," I said. "How many hours solo have you had?"
"Four hours and thirtyfive minutes."
"Have you looped?"
I said I had not.
"Take this machine landing now and go up to 3000 feet and loop," he said.
"Would you mind looping me a couple of times first?" I asked.
"Looping two in a bus in these machines is unsafe," he said. "But it's quite simple. Nose done till your wires sing, then pull the stick back, slowly at first, sharply the last eighteen inches....Shut off the gun when you're on your back, and ease the stick forward when you see the second horizon."
A machine was in the air at about 2500 feet. She nosed down suddenly.
"Look," said the O.C. "There goes a loop!"
Up went her nose, but she had not gathered enough flying speed to take her all the way over, and hung on her back. An object fell from the cockpit.
"Not enough speed to take him over," said the O.C. "Be sure you get enough speed to take you over."
With a sickening feeling I watched the body dropping, sometimes straight, sometimes hand over hand like a London urchin doing a cartwheel. It disappeared behind the trees. The ambulance was already halfway across the aerodrome.
"What machines are in the air, now?" asked the O.C "Only one, sir, C.314. Cadet Hacker," said the timekeeper.
When the O.C. walked away I got my flying coat and goggles. The timekeeper marked the number of the bus I was to take on his time sheet.
"Hacker?" I said.
"Hacker," he said.
"What's he doing looping first time he's been up in four months," I said.
The time keeper nodded towards the O.C.
"Busy Lizzy, there, sent him up to spin and throw a loop."
"Didn't Hacker say anything, for the love of mike?"
"You know Hacker," said the timekeeper.
"Get a move on!" shouted the O.C. "I'm waiting to see you loop."
I clambered into the bus. An ack-emma took hold of the propeller.
"Switch off!"
"Switch off!"
"Contact!"
"Contact!"
They pulled away the chocks and I was off....
At 3000 feet my dampened ardour dampened some more. I glanced dowm at the aerodrome, wondering if Busy Lizzy was still there, then at the altimeter. All I could think of was Hacker falling out on that loop. I decided to go up another 1000 feet. Three times I nosed down, but lacked the guts to throw her over, and straightened out again. I knew it had to be done and reasoned with myself that there was nothing to it. Smiddy had already looped me—but unfortunately, instead of watching the controls I had been holding onto the sides of the cockpit. Something he had once said about looping came back to me: 'If the loop is a good one you don't even need your safety-belt. Centrifugal force will hold you in your seat—just as it holds water in a bucket when you swing it around in an up and down circle'.
One hand firmly pressed against the cowling to hold me in, I nosed down....The wires began to sing and I kept my nose down till they fairly screeched... About the time my wings were due to buckle I pulled back the stick, firmly, but not too fast, and then jerked it back the last foot into the pit of my stomach... They had been quite thrilling, these Kaleidoscopic glimpses of earth, horizon, sky, earth and horizon again; but the trouble was that they did not end there. I had so much flying speed that it carried me halfway over again, and the one thing I had been set on avoiding occurred: I got on my back. But having no confidence in the old-fashioned safety-belt without shoulder straps I still had my hand pushed hard against the cowling.
"Shut off the gun when you're on your back," Busy Lizzy's order came to me in this reversement of equilibrium, But the gun had shut itself off without me... And then I was spinning. Not the way I had spun before, for this time I was underneath the machine instead of right side up. Centrilfugal force was doing its utmost to drag me out of my seat. Oil splashed into my face, hair blinding me. I let the stick go and tore off my goggles. The altimeter registered 3000 feet. I was dropping about 400 feet in a turn. I realized I was in an inside spin, and how to get out of it I had no idea. I thought of Humpty Bill in Graham's icecream parlor on Hollywood Boulevard. This was the way he had wanted to get his.
I neutralized the controls—and shut my eyes....
Presently, the unpleasant sensation of being dragged out of my seat abruptly ceased. I opened my eyes again. I was about 300 feet above the aerodrome, right side up. But something was wrong. My wings did not seem to be horizontal. Then I noticed snapped wires dangling between the center-section struts—the center-section cross-bracing wires. My wings were wobbling. I landed, or rather subsided with a slump, but sustained nothing worse than a broken undercarriage. Busy Lizzy threatened falling in two men to run me in the clink for overstepping his orders by spinning when I had been sent up to loop. Now there were only three serviceable machines left in flight B!
The ambulance corporal met me as I left the aerodrome.
"We found this on Hacker's wrist," he said. "Got your name on the back."
He handed me one of those Waltham wrist watches with a silver dial-protector. Hacker had borrowed it before he went up. The strap was blood soaked.
"It's still going," he said. "Hacker fell out at 2000 feet. Some watch!"