The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots Read Online Free Page A

flicker of flame from beneath the fuselage. And all at once the mechanics sprang back as with a roar a great flame shot up from the burst petrol tank. It swept back over the passenger; when it reached the pilot he moved uneasily, seemed to shake himself, fumbled with his safety belt, then jumped out just in time, his clothing on fire.
    There were cries for extinguishers, for axes to hack through the broken wings, for help to pull away the wreckage, for the ambulance – for anything and everything to save the passenger. He was still in the machine and still alive. Mercifully he did not recover consciousness – afterwards it was found that his skull had been fractured in the crash – but he kept on moving. And we were powerless. The extinguishers had no effect upon thirty gallons of blazing petrol. The strong wind blew the flames into his face. Before our very eyes he was burnt to death, roasted. It took a long time; it was ghastly. . . .
    The fire died down, smouldered awhile, went out. The wind dropped; the sun set and the sky glowed with rare beauty. But we pupils walked back to the Mess in glum silence.
    vi
    Upon the following morning all officers were summoned to the squadron office. We expected the summons, although I do not quite know what we expected to hear. I suppose that, amongst other things, we thought to be given news of the pilot in hospital, but possibly to becomplimented upon the vain efforts we had made to penetrate the barrier of fire, and upon the sang-froid we had shown afterwards. Perhaps more than anything we hoped to hear that the fire had not been so intense as our eyes had led us to believe, that the unfortunate victim had in some way been protected – by his goggles, by his flying helmet or by his leather clothing – from the devouring fury of the flames, so that there might be a chance of his recovery. Or did we hope to be told that something mysterious had gone wrong with this new aeroplane, something very startling and unusual which could not occur again, that flying was not like this, horrible, cruel?
    The Squadron-commander strode into the office, flung his cap upon the table, drew a cane chair forward. Placing one foot upon the chair, he rested an elbow on his knee.
    “With regard to this unfortunate and unnecessary happening,” he began harshly, “the first and only thing to do is to find out the causes of the accident, to see where the pilot was to blame so as to learn what lessons we may. Now in this particularly stupid case . . .”
    I thought him terribly callous.
    “A pilot must never turn down wind at a low altitude when faced with the possibility of a forced landing.
    “A pilot in difficulties after leaving the ground must keep straight on.
    “A pilot must save himself and his passengers first, not the aeroplane. It is better to smash wheels and propeller than burn a man to death.
    “A pilot must take particular care to maintain flying-speed after engine failure. . . .”
    Those were the lessons. If the manner of their teaching was hard, it was also effective.
    vii
    It was a long time between this accident and the start of my regular training in the air. After one preliminary flightmany days passed before I was again taken up. Bad weather, too few machines and instructors, too many pupils were the real causes of delay; but I began to fret and to wonder if discrimination rather than luck was not responsible for my name so seldom being called when the Longhorns stood in fantastic array upon the turf. I remembered the words heard on the evening of my arrival from the would-be adjutant: that little flying was done at Shoreham and that many pupils returned in disgust to their regiments. I had no intention of leaving the Flying Corps until I had had a fair chance of becoming a proficient pilot, but the slowness of the commencement was discouraging.
    Nearly two weeks had gone by when one evening I was noticed as I stood disconsolate in front of the sheds. An instructor saw me and