writing a plain tale, for I have kept my diary
faithfully, from day to day, and can set down our adventures, such as
they are, pretty much as they occurred. But Drew has bewitched me. He
does not realize it, but he is a weaver of spells, and I am so
enmeshed in his moonshine that I doubt if I shall be able to write of
our experiences as they must appear to those of our comrades in the
Franco-American Corps who remember them only through the medium of the
revealing light of day.

Not one of these men, I am sure, would confess to so strange an
immediate cause for joining the aviation service, as that related to
me by Drew, as we sat over our coffee and cigarettes, on the evening
of our first meeting. He had come to France, he said, with the
intention of joining the _Legion Etrangere_ as an infantryman. But he
changed his mind, a few days after his arrival in Paris, upon meeting
Jackson of the American Aviation Squadron, who was on leave after a
service of six months at the front. It was all because of the manner
in which Jackson looked at a Turkish rug. He told him of his
adventures in the most matter-of-fact way. No heroics, nothing of that
sort. He had not a glimmer of imagination, he said. But he had a way
of looking at the floor which was "irresistible," which "fascinated
him with the sense of height." He saw towns, villages, networks of
trenches, columns of toy troops moving up ribbons of road--all in the
patterns of a Turkish rug. And the next day, he was at the
headquarters of the Franco-American Corps, in the Champs Elysees,
making application for membership.

It is strange that we should both have come to France with so little
of accurate knowledge of the corps, of the possibilities for
enlistment, and of the nature of the requirements for the service. Our
knowledge of it, up to the time of sailing, had been confined to a few
brief references in the press. It was perhaps necessary that its
existence should not be officially recognized in America, or its
furtherance encouraged. But it seemed to us at that time, that there
must have been actual discouragement on the part of the Government at
Washington. However that may be, we wondered if others had followed
clues so vague or a call so dimly heard.

This led to a discussion of our individual aptitudes for the service,
and we made many comforting discoveries about each other. It is
permissible to reveal them now, for the particular encouragement of
others who,