To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [219]
He hid the smile, waited for the reaction, saw both young man stepping forward, eyes wide. They glanced at each other, sharing the same dismay. “It’s all right, gentlemen. You must train your eyes. The Boche won’t come up and tap you on the shoulder. You must see him before he sees you. Otherwise, when you do see him, he’ll be filling your ass with lead.”
He saw the gloom on the faces of both men.
“Next time, don’t assume the skies are empty. Assume he is there. When you’re not actually in a fight, that’s all you have to think about. Where is he? You’ll get better at it. You’ll begin to see those little black spots up there for what they are, you’ll learn to pick up movement below you, to tell what’s on the ground and what’s above it.” He let the words sink in, saw a flash of fear on Rickenbacker’s face. Good, he thought. If they don’t have the fear, they will never learn. He looked toward his own Nieuport, saw a small rip in the fabric of the fuselage, the effects of the archie on his own plane. His eyes moved forward, over the cockpit, stopped at the bare cowling that shrouded the motor. Of course, if we don’t get machine guns, none of these lessons will matter.
HIS CHOICE OF EDDIE RICKENBACKER AND DOUGLAS CAMPBELL TO make the first flight was not random. Though there was considerable contrast between the two men, both had shown Lufbery the same intangible ingredient he had occasionally seen in men like Kiffin Rockwell. It was more than intelligence, or a keen mind for learning lessons. It came from the eyes, the determination that seemed to touch Lufbery in a personal way. There was always talk, too much talk; some men were desperately impatient to begin killing the enemy. Lufbery had learned that the talk was a substitute for fear, that a man who boasts of plunging the bayonet into the enemy’s heart is deathly afraid of having the same done to him. Both young men seemed to respond to the job that lay ahead of them the way Lufbery had. There was one goal. It was never about glory and medals and impressing your buddies. Neither Campbell nor Rickenbacker made speeches about their passion for war. Like Lufbery, both men carried an intensity that some found unnerving. They all just wanted to kill Germans.
Douglas Campbell was the younger man, barely twenty-one, something that concerned Lufbery. Too often, with youth came stupidity, a stubborn inexperience about life that let the boy believe he was invincible. But Campbell was surprisingly old for his years, had come to the Ninety-fourth Aero Squadron by way of his experience flying the Curtiss “Jenny” biplane, the only aircraft produced in America that was any use at all for training the new pilots. Campbell had come east from his home in San Francisco, had then dropped out of Harvard University when Woodrow Wilson brought the United States into the war.
Edward Rickenbacker was entirely different. He was older, twenty-seven, a midwesterner, had first come to the army not as a pilot but as an engineer. Rickenbacker brought the skills of a trained mechanic, something Lufbery could immediately appreciate. But Rickenbacker had not studied aeroplane motors. Lufbery was surprised to learn that in the States, Rickenbacker was famous, especially among the other young pilots of the Ninety-fourth. Before the war, he had been a race-car driver, one of the most successful of his time, had made his name racing at an increasing number of public spectacles, such as the Indianapolis 500. Lufbery knew little about automobile racing, but he learned that Rickenbacker had already witnessed violent death, had experienced the loss of friends on the racetrack, had even flirted with death himself. There was a seriousness to the man that separated him from the younger pilots. If Rickenbacker continued to be the good student, Lufbery knew the man had all the ingredients to be an outstanding flyer.
ÉPIEZ, FRANCE—APRIL 1918
With the massive German wave rolling through the British defenses, the American