Читать книгу High Adventure. A Narrative of Air Fighting in France – WW1 Novel онлайн

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But, most wonderful of all to us then, we saw a strange, new avion—a biplane, small, trim, with a body like a fish. To see it in flight was to be convinced for all time that man has mastered the air, and has outdone the birds in their own element. Never was swallow more consciously joyous in swift flight, never eagle so bold to take the heights or so quick to reach them. Drew and I gazed in silent wonder, our bodies jammed tightly into the cab-window, and our heads craned upward. We did not come back to earth until our ancient, earth-creeping conveyance brought up with a jerk, and we found ourselves in front of a gate marked “École d'Aviation Militaire de B——.”

After we had paid the cabman, we stood in the road, with our mountain of luggage heaped about us, waiting for something to happen. A moment later a window in the administration building was thrown open and we were greeted with a loud and not over-musical chorus of

“Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light—”

It all came from one throat, belonging to a chap in leathers, who came down the drive to give us welcome.