“Yes,” replied Eddie, hopeful that this was the correct reply.
“——which means no one else will get killed, doesn’t it?” he added solemnly, and Rick solemnly attested to this fact. “Well,” the lad went on, “you see me; I’m still here.”
“That’s right!” said the great Ace of Aces. “What about it?”
“Well, Captain Rickenbacker,” replied the boy with evident surprise at Eddie’s apparent density. “Look me over, Captain, I’m still alive. That is my greatest accomplishment.”
And after all, I am sure that all of our fighting men who have done actual service at the front—going through its hazards and dangers for any length of time, will agree that their greatest accomplishment is the fact that they came out of the thing alive; for while the code of military ethics at the front taught that one’s own life should be secondary to the accomplishment of one’s mission, yet there could not help but be a justifiably selfish pride after the mission was accomplished, that the participant was also alive to tell the tale.
The 30th of September was a terrible day—there was very little flying, it was foggy and the clouds were low, irregular and uncertain, while the wind was almost a gale. We had no business going out—our over-anxiety, which the French say is the greatest fault of the American soldier, to get our work accomplished was the only justifiable reason for the trip.
But even at that on the morning of September 30th the Flying Corps had no reason for being in the air unless the mission was of grave urgency, and fortunately ours was urgent for I was still adjusting our artillery on important enemy moving targets. Here is how my greatest accomplishment happened:
I arrived at the hangars shortly after daybreak and found Davis, who was assigned to fly with me, ready and waiting. I had never flown with him before, but I had heard of him and his reputation, and it was a relief to know I was to get a genuine pilot, such as Lieutenant Raymond Davis, whom we called “Uncle Joe Davis, of Danville,” since he hailed from the same well-known town as Uncle Joe Cannon.
At first, the weather was impossible, so, we had to wait for the atmosphere to clear a trifle and for the clouds to lift some, as a high ceiling in heavy artillery adjustments is not only advantageous but necessary. So, we hung around and hobnobbed and got acquainted. At about eight o’clock we decided we would try it—for the importance of impeding the retreat of the enemy as much as possible was imperative. The advance through the Argonne was proving itself to be a hard enough tussle for the doughboys, and we all felt that they certainly merited all the assistance it was possible for aviation to give them.