July 9th, 1916
You could be fooled into thinking the war was just a distant thunderstorm, a low rumble beyond the trees. It didn't feel like there was a battle here, listening to singing birds in the pre-dawn darkness.
You were awake before anyone else, not that you could sleep well last night, filled with jitters and excitement. You got dressed, your sky-blue uniform and cap: the pilots were a haphazard mix without much standardization and you'd basically had to assemble your uniform out of bits as they became available during training. You grabbed your flying leathers and goggles, both of them private purchases from America, and unable to find one of those leather caps in time you'd opted instead to take one of the winter hats your mother had knit for you as a child. Some of the instructors had been issued leathers from the Army, but it never came up during training.
Last night, having arrived late because of disruptions on the rail, you'd gotten to see your plane for the first time, and you took the time before anyone else to see it again.It was a beautiful grey-white machine with red, white, and blue cockades on the wings and a flash on the tail, and it looked like the Nieuports you'd seen in training but was slightly bigger and bulkier. There was a second gun on this one, mounted on the cowl above the engine, and a large, shiny silver cone, like the tip of a bullet, mounted in front of the propeller.
"
What plane is this, I don't recognize it?" you'd asked, pacing around the machine, and the mechanic in the tent had looked startled for a second before replying.
"
Nieuport 17. They are very new, the squadron has only just started to get them." he'd said. That rang a bell, you'd heard of this during training, but only briefly, "
It is very much like the other Nieuports, but faster. One hundred ten horsepower." That seemed almost unimaginable: the Nieuports you trained on were 80 horsepower, and the Curtiss Model D that Ruth had taught you with had only forty horsepower. This had to be one of the most powerful planes in the world. He went on to explain that the cone at the front helped it to pierce the air, and how its interrupter gear allowed it to mount two guns, but otherwise it would be very familiar to you.
The rest of the squadron was awake soon after and were shepherded, many of them still groggy (or, you suspected, hungover) to the command tent. Among them were the two other Americans who'd been driven down to the field in the same car as you, a slightly older, quiet gentleman with a trim beard from Oregon whose name you hadn't caught, and an enthusiastic and loud young man named Tom Cash, who was very concerned with telling everyone he met that he was from Tennessee. He was kind of gaunt and gangly looking, with blond hair and freckles, and you suspected he wasn't yet twenty. As you filed into the tent, you very quickly worked out from the muttered conversation that the French and American pilots were clustered together around the two small tables (they looked like dinner tables somebody had dragged out of a house), and you went to sit with the other Americans, counting quickly. Five Americans, five French.
Everyone suddenly shuffled to their feet and you followed suit in a rush, following their gaze to a major entering the tent. The officer was a fairly young fellow who, when he turned his head, was missing a chunk of his ear, and his eyes slide right past you and the other Americans as he looked you over.
"
I see our new shipment of cowboys have arrived," he said, to some snorts of laughter from the French pilots, "
Unfortunately, today will not be challenging, so we may have to put up with them for a while yet."
You glanced to your fellow pilots, none of whom were showing any comprehension (or indeed, interest) in what was being said. During training, everyone had seemed very greatful for the American volunteers, none of them had been anything like this. The Major drew the French pilot's attention to a map and started explaining, tracing his finger over the surface.
"
Simple enough, there will be a photo reconnaissance mission this morning along our section. They have their own escort, we're simply going to do a short hop over the line and see if we can't get the Boche to waste time going after us instead of them. There has been some build-up, maybe an offensive within the week at Fort Souville."
"
Got it, boss," one of the French pilots responded, his own map and a pencil out, "
Plenty of time to get the new guys acclimated."
You leaned over to one of the other American pilots, a dark-haired man with grey stubble, and whispered.
"Do you understand French?" you asked.
"A little bit. Haven't had a chance to learn much," he replied. He sounded Texan, you thought. "Don't worry about it. All we have to do is follow the lead planes."
"... that seems cruel," you said, and he sighed.
"Well, this used to be an all-Frenchie outfit, but they got in a bad scrap last month and topped off with us. Major Ardouin don't care much for that. Lowell could translate for us but, well, you're replacing him. Hasn't made much of a difference, though, just follow the leader."
"I speak French. Would you like to know what we're doing?" you asked.
"Don't care much. Michael Carver, you?"
"Martin Debios." you replied, and he nodded.
"Okay, yeah, makes sense. New York?"
"Yes."
"Lowell was from New York," he said simply, "Cigarette?"
"I don't smoke." you said.
"Start," he replied finally, looking away and striking a match.
You turned to Tom and explained the mission, and he, at least, listened.
---
You pulled on your leathers as the mechanics wheeled the planes outside, just picking it up by the tail and rolling it out into the field alongside the others. It was a strange mix of Nieuport 17s and 11s, alongside two completely different planes, long cylindrical tubes with broad, boxy wings. SPADs, you remembered those at least, you'd thought you might get assigned to fly one from the way they were talking about it in training. Most of the planes had something painted on the side and patterns on the cowls or wheels, usually in the same red, white, and blue as the roundels. Unsurprisingly, Carver had a flag of Texas on his, painted as if flying in the wind.
He noticed you looking his way, and pointed to one of the SPADs, one you noticed had a bright red line down the side of the fuselage and a red streamer on the wing. The French pilot you'd seen talking to Major Ardouin was busily climbing in. The message was clear: Follow the leader, and
that was the leader.
Your own plane, thus far unadorned, still mostly gleaming and shiny. Somebody had flown it at some point, you could tell, but clearly not much. You climbed into the seat, using a little box one of the mechanics had thoughtfully placed beside the cockpit. You took a moment to fit in properly, your leather jacket pooling around you as the mechanics started turning the propeller over. It was a snug fit even for you, but it felt exactly like the Nieuports you'd flown before save for the extra gun. There was a photograph on the instrument panel, wedged behind one of the dials, of a bespectled young woman posing for a portrait. You turned the photograph over, and there was a message there.
I will wait for you, my dear Lowell.
Oh.
"Are you ready, American?" you mechanic called, and you were shaken back to reality.
"Yes! Oui!"
"Good! Contact!"
You adjusted the fuel mix, flipped the magneto switch, and cracked the throttle just the tiniest bit open.
"Hot!"
The world filled with noise.
---
Just a few moments later, you were in the air. Your planes formed a loose sort of pack around one another, not really an organized formation, just a mob of ten planes, a swarm doing their best to stay close, but not too close. You just did your best to keep your eyes on the leader. You still didn't know his name, or anyone's name, it all seemed a surreal blur, to have arrived so quickly in this moment. But you knew well enough what you were doing, the plane handled fine and gracefully and was far,
far faster than you were used to. The whole formation had to slow to keep pace with the Nieuport 11s, which two weeks ago had felt like the fastest plane in the world and now felt like a doddering old clunker you yearned to leave behind.
The French countryside stretched out all around you, farmland and trees and towns. You could see trains criss-crossing the landscape as pillars of white smoke pulled along the rails, see carts and trucks and columns of men on roads like ants, it felt like standing over one of your maps and seeing it come to life. You could almost imagine the grid lines laid out over it, marking out the distance.
On the horizon, though, there was a hazy brown smear, and it was getting closer.
Within just a few minutes, the blur had resolved itself under the light of dawn into pillars of dark smoke and a sort of awful fog of cordite and filth which hung over it. You'd heard in newspapers that the front line was a scar or wound torn in the earth and it had sounded like poetic license, but now you couldn't think of anything else. It was as though the countryside here had just all up and died and decayed, it was the rotting corpse of a landscape, spilled ink over your map. Somewhere down there was a fort, but if it was there you couldn't tell it apart from the mud.
That said, you were already at 1500 meters altitude but you could still just make out the zig-zagging patterns of trenches from the way debris and light flowed around them, the muzzle reports of artillery batteries and the enormous eruptions where the shells of the other side landed. It occured to you, vaguely, that you shared airspace with some of those plunging shells: you weren't sure how high up artillery rounds went, but you felt gripped by a sudden terror that one of them might, by happenstance, find you.
As you crossed over the friendly side of the line, you saw something else, something new. It looked for all the world like a bank of morning fog blowing in over the line, but the closer you got to the enemy side of the line the less that seemed the case. The fog had a distinct yellow-green tint, and as your angle changed you saw it was streaming out from distinct points along the German side of the trench.
Poison gas. Like they'd used as Ypres, like had killed your cousin. You glanced around to your fellow pilots before noticing the flight leader signalling
up, and you pulled the stick a bit farther back. You'd learned in training that the enemy had guns designed to attack airplanes, but you saw no signs of them as you passed over the trenches, finally once again seeing green landscape. Occupied France.
This was enemy territory. They could be anywhere.
---
Roll 2d10+1 for Encounter. This is a Keen + Visibility roll, with added bonuses because of your altitude (+1 for every kilometre) and because you are on their side of the line and more wary.
You are currently at 1800 metres (6000 feet) and going 150 km/h.
