The Return From Paris
For nearly an hour we had been flying in swoops and had been shot at vainly from here and there below us, when there approached in extremely rapid flight from the direction of Juvisy a French monoplane. Since it was much faster than my biplane, I must turn and seek to escape, while the major made ready my rifle and reached for his revolver. The monoplane came steadily closer and closer; I sought to reach an altitude of 2,000 meters, in order to reach the protecting clouds, but my pursuer, on whom we constantly kept an eye, climbed more rapidly than we. And came always closer and closer. And suddenly I saw at a distance of only about 500 meters still a second biplane, attempting to block my way.
Now it was time to act. In an instant my companion had grasped the situation. I darted at the flyer before us; then a turn—the major raised the rifle to his cheek. Once, twice, thrice, he fired. Then the hostile machine, now beside us, and hardly a hundred meters away, quivered and then fell like a stone. Our other pursuer had in the meantime reached a position almost over us, and was shooting at us with revolvers. One bullet struck in the body close beside the fuel controller. Then, however, impenetrable mist enfolded us protectingly; and the clouds separated us from the enemy, the sound of whose motor grew ever more distant.
When we came out again from the sea of clouds, it was toward seven o’clock. In order to get our position, we descended, but suddenly there began to burst before us and behind us and beside us roaring shrapnel shells. I found myself still always over hostile positions and exposed to French artillery. “The devil to pay again!” Ever madder grew the fire! I noticed that the machine received blow after blow, but held cold-bloodedly to my course; at the time, it did not come into my mind at all that these little pointed pieces of steel meant death and destruction. Something in mankind remains untouched by knowledge and logic!
There—suddenly before me, a yellow-white burst of flame! The machine bounds upward; at the same time the major shrinks together, blood runs from his shoulder, the wiring of one of the wings is shattered. To be sure, the motor still booms and thunders as before, but the propeller fails. An exploding grenade had knocked it to pieces, torn one of the wings to shreds, and smashed the major’s shoulder. Steeply my machine sinks to the ground. By calling up all my power, I succeed in getting the machine into a gliding flight, and I throw the biplane down into the tops of the forest trees. I crash through the branches and tree crowns. I strike heavily, and know no more what goes on around me.
When I wake again from my unconsciousness, I find Major G. lying beside me on the ground, in the midst of a group of Landwehr men. German outposts had recognized me as a friend, and had forced their way into the woods, although only in small numbers, to protect me. Major G. had suffered a severe injury to his shoulder, which made it necessary to transfer him to the nearest field hospital. I, however, had only sustained a bruise on my leg, and after the application of an emergency bandage remained with the outpost, later to find my way, by all possible—and some impossible—means of transportation, back to my troop.