moments. It looked for all the world like a silk stocking.
There was a very good photograph of a rotary-engined biplane fighter, taken broadside-on and in flight. It had the R.F.C. roundels and a design of black and white chequers on the engine cowling and the front fuselage. It was a very small machine, to judge by the size of the pilot’s head, with a single pair of struts between the wings. I guessed it to be a Sopwith Camel, but I was by no means sure, because I never saw one. It had two machine guns mounted on the top cowling. The pilot’s head was turned towards the camera and it might have been Johnnie Pascoe, though it was difficult to say. The aeroplane was doped a khaki colour, very clean and smart. It looked like a brand-new aeroplane, taken by some official photographer.
So many photographs of the First War, all framed and hung close in a group upon one wall! There were too many for me to take them all in. All dated from before my earliest flying days, but they brought back for me the memories of that first enthusiasm that has lasted from my boyhood. They brought back memories of slow-revving engines blipping on the switch, of clouds of castor oil sweeping in blue clouds, of the slipstream over the grass, of taut doped fabric drumming beneath one’s fingers, of the smell of acetone in the hangar. They brought back memories of the rush of air over one’s head beyond the leather of the flying helmet, of the freshness on one’s face as one put up the goggles before going in to land, of carefully judged gliding turns on the approach, of the final sideslip in over the hedge, of soft landings upon grass. So many joys that lay behind me, half forgotten, a part of my youth.
They had been part of Johnnie Pascoe’s youth, too, even more than mine. He must have learned to fly, I thought, in 1916 or thereabouts, fourteen years before I did. If I still sensed the drama, the adventure of it all – how much moremust he! Probably that enormous pusher two-seater with the engine behind the: pilots was what he had learned to fly in – would that have been a Farman? A Rumpety? That thing with the long skid in front of the undercarriage – well, I knew that one. That was an Avro 504K. I had been up for a joyride in an Avro when I was a boy of twelve, the first flight that I had ever made. When Johnnie Pascoe learned to fly it was probably still a front-line operational type, with a top speed of about seventy miles an hour.
When he had learned to fly, flying had been the greatest adventure the world had to offer, an adventure that led almost certainly to death. In the First World War the casualties in training pilots had been staggering, because the aeroplanes were cheap and easily made, the pilots were needed in a hurry, and nobody understood much about flying training. When they were sent to France they were sent as soldiers, and the duty of a soldier was to fight and go on fighting. In that war there was no relief for a pilot after a fixed number of missions. A pilot went on flying two or even three missions on every fine day till he was killed, or else so seriously wounded as to need a spell in hospital. That had been the pattern of Johnnie Pascoe’s youth – the greatest and most stimulating adventure in the world leading to death willingly accepted. That had been the mental pattern of his life when that laughing photograph with Judy had been taken, in front of the rotary-engined fighter. Everything that he had done in his first youth must be related to that pattern. I could just get an inkling of it, perhaps, because I had entered the same world myself fourteen years later. Marian Forbes would never have a clue, not if she lived to be a hundred.
She was a bitter, spiteful woman, but she was so because it was beyond her capacity to understand. Whatever had happened between Johnnie Pascoe and his Judy had happened very soon after the First War. It must have meant enormousreadjustments in his mind when the war ended.
There was a very good photograph of a rotary-engined biplane fighter, taken broadside-on and in flight. It had the R.F.C. roundels and a design of black and white chequers on the engine cowling and the front fuselage. It was a very small machine, to judge by the size of the pilot’s head, with a single pair of struts between the wings. I guessed it to be a Sopwith Camel, but I was by no means sure, because I never saw one. It had two machine guns mounted on the top cowling. The pilot’s head was turned towards the camera and it might have been Johnnie Pascoe, though it was difficult to say. The aeroplane was doped a khaki colour, very clean and smart. It looked like a brand-new aeroplane, taken by some official photographer.
So many photographs of the First War, all framed and hung close in a group upon one wall! There were too many for me to take them all in. All dated from before my earliest flying days, but they brought back for me the memories of that first enthusiasm that has lasted from my boyhood. They brought back memories of slow-revving engines blipping on the switch, of clouds of castor oil sweeping in blue clouds, of the slipstream over the grass, of taut doped fabric drumming beneath one’s fingers, of the smell of acetone in the hangar. They brought back memories of the rush of air over one’s head beyond the leather of the flying helmet, of the freshness on one’s face as one put up the goggles before going in to land, of carefully judged gliding turns on the approach, of the final sideslip in over the hedge, of soft landings upon grass. So many joys that lay behind me, half forgotten, a part of my youth.
They had been part of Johnnie Pascoe’s youth, too, even more than mine. He must have learned to fly, I thought, in 1916 or thereabouts, fourteen years before I did. If I still sensed the drama, the adventure of it all – how much moremust he! Probably that enormous pusher two-seater with the engine behind the: pilots was what he had learned to fly in – would that have been a Farman? A Rumpety? That thing with the long skid in front of the undercarriage – well, I knew that one. That was an Avro 504K. I had been up for a joyride in an Avro when I was a boy of twelve, the first flight that I had ever made. When Johnnie Pascoe learned to fly it was probably still a front-line operational type, with a top speed of about seventy miles an hour.
When he had learned to fly, flying had been the greatest adventure the world had to offer, an adventure that led almost certainly to death. In the First World War the casualties in training pilots had been staggering, because the aeroplanes were cheap and easily made, the pilots were needed in a hurry, and nobody understood much about flying training. When they were sent to France they were sent as soldiers, and the duty of a soldier was to fight and go on fighting. In that war there was no relief for a pilot after a fixed number of missions. A pilot went on flying two or even three missions on every fine day till he was killed, or else so seriously wounded as to need a spell in hospital. That had been the pattern of Johnnie Pascoe’s youth – the greatest and most stimulating adventure in the world leading to death willingly accepted. That had been the mental pattern of his life when that laughing photograph with Judy had been taken, in front of the rotary-engined fighter. Everything that he had done in his first youth must be related to that pattern. I could just get an inkling of it, perhaps, because I had entered the same world myself fourteen years later. Marian Forbes would never have a clue, not if she lived to be a hundred.
She was a bitter, spiteful woman, but she was so because it was beyond her capacity to understand. Whatever had happened between Johnnie Pascoe and his Judy had happened very soon after the First War. It must have meant enormousreadjustments in his mind when the war ended.
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