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hand and said that I had understood.  Then, running out of English (I suspected that Philippe had given him a quick lesson) he said in French that we would finish our reglage that afternoon.  We did, amicably.

Except for that foul-up of May 20th, my association with the French was always pleasant.  My few weeks with Squadron 40 contributed more to my real education than any year I spent in college.  I say that partly because of the hillbilly background I came from.  But I think it would still be true even if I had grown up in an Ivy League setting.

The squadron roster included the only observer I ever heard of who flew an aeroplane back to his home field bearing the body of his dead pilot.  That happened in Squadron 40 within two weeks after I left it.  The dead pilot was Denis.  The observer was a little Frenchman named Chappuis.  I remember him seated at the piano in the manor house of the Ferme d'Alger, playing the Poet and Peasant overture with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.  I heard about it from an American, McDonald, who joined Squadron 40 just after I left it.  Late in May there was heavy fighting on that sector, and squadron 40 lost much of its flying personnel.  McDonald said he was kept on the ground while it lasted.

In observation squadrons the mortality rate was somewhat higher for observers than for pilots.  I had three personal friends, observers, who were brought home dead by their pilots.  That was because the planes had single controls, in the pilot's cockpit.  To reach them Chappuis had to climb out on a wing.  In his place I don't think I would even have attempted it.  If I had succeeded I would not have known what to do.

Since I flew only twice a week or so, I had a lot of time to kill at the Ferme d'Alger.  Denis was indulgent in the matter of passes.  Twice I had leaves of 24 hours or more, once to Paris and once to Nancy, at the opposite end of the Eastern Railway.  At Nancy I ordered a tailor-made uniform, my first.  I cannot now recall why I had it made there rather than in Paris.  On the return trip from Nancy I had a little adventure, illustrating things I liked and disliked about the way the American army was run.

On the return my train, on time, stopped for 10 minutes at Gondrecourt.  It arrived at 12:50 P. M. and was due to leave at 1:00.  American installations at Gondrecourt were still growing.  There was now a fix PX right beside the railroad station.  Having lived with French for several weeks, I badly needed razor blades and cigarettes among other things.  So I went into the PX for a shopping spree.