Bombs for the General (Short Story)

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There was no high tribunal on the Toul front in the early summer of ‘18 to pass judgment on whether or not you had the stuff to stick in combat work. You had one chance, just one, to make good and bang! as fast as that it was over. If you stood the test you had long hours, a wracking grind and perhaps a hero’s death to look forward to; if you failed you went back. It mattered not how swell a guy you were nor whom you knew at G.H.Q.—back you went.

Quite a few were going back in those days. They lacked some sort of spark or callousness, something was missing. Few had the inclination, nobody the time, to help them discover what it was.

Up in Flanders the harassed Haig had just issued his desperate “backs to the wall” order; from Arras to Luneville the Boche were raising hell and out on the Somme somebody had pot-shotted Richtofen and his triplane into immortality. Thus inspired, the Allies banged into the air with every crate they could muster—the Baron was gone—recklessly determined to drive Jerry out of the sky... and at the Toul airdrome General Gerard and Billy Mitchell were hanging the green and red ribbon of the Croix de Guerre on Peterson, Meissner and a promising young lieutenant named Rickenbacker...

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