9781782892014 by Piers

Author:Piers [Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV — THE BIG PUSH

For the last three days before the offensive the contact patrol men were not allowed to fly. There was a great deal of tension noticeable everywhere, and to get away from that we sought some diversion in our surroundings.

I went to a little French village about two miles away just to look around and talk to the natives. I found them immensely interesting and they enlightened me on many points. I inquired among other things what their sports were and in what way they enjoyed themselves. I was surprised when the old veteran of former wars, with whom I was talking, went out and brought in a bow and a quiver full of arrows.

Now, archery is an odd form of sport, though very similar to trap shooting. I had seen the Indians out on the reservations in Canada and in the States use bows and arrows, but not to a great extent, merely using them to amuse the children. But here it was considered almost a national sport. The old man explained how they held tournaments and even went to the extent of building tall lattice work masts, on the tops of which the birds were arranged. Each competitor paid so much to participate in the shooting and the receipts were given out in prizes for the birds that were brought down.

The masts or perches are as much as one hundred and twenty-five feet high, and on the top of them is placed the master bird, for which the biggest prize is given. The other targets all have a value commensurate with the difficulty in hitting them.

The old man took me out in the hop field behind the house and showed me how to shoot. I must say that he was a master at it. One of the things he hit was a jam tin at fifty yards. I tried it a good many times, but that jam tin might as well have been a mile away. I visited the old man quite often and many a bow and arrow shoot we had together.

Shooting with a bow was not his only exploit. He had been an old soldier and had fought in the war of 1870 and had many interesting tales to tell of how wars were fought before the aeroplane came into use. But he used to think it a miracle that a machine could stay up in the air at all. My efforts to make him understand why it could stay up were all Dutch to him. And as my French was not complete enough to tell him the difference between a strut and a camber rib I had to let the old man go on thinking that the good Lord or the devil had a lot to do with it. I once offered to take him up, but he looked at me and shook his old white head and replied :

“Non, mon cher ami! I am what you call ze scare for ze machine to fall on ze groun’ an’ I’m broke ma por of neck.

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