Originally Posted by Wulfe
Ah, Fullofit, Gaston is the war's leading ace and the darling of France! The press want to know everything he's up to! Either that, or Esc N.31 have a very enthusiastic fan club. Probably the latter...


Wulfe where are all the women?
Carrick, you're not looking at the bigger picture. From holes in the roof you get leaks. From leaks in the roof Germans get the sniffles. That's just one step away from the Spanish Flu!


17 May, 1916
Senard, Verdun Sector
Escadrille N37
Capitaine Gaston A. Voscadeaux
27 confirmed kills

Gaston sat in his usual spot on the bench in front of the hangars. His wound was itching like crazy and he kept scratching it with a tip of a long twig. He knew his leg was telling him the wound was healing, but did it have to tell him all the time? It was colder today and the sun was obscured from view by large clouds.
“- It looks like it’s going to rain.” He announced while raising his head up to look at the clouds.
“-Mhumm.” Capitaine Marcel Feierstein, Escadrille’s CO, responded without paying attention or raising his gaze from the dossiers he was perusing. Even he had enough of sitting in the office and joined Gaston on the bench.
An intermittent rumble of an injured aero engine could be heard in the distance. It was getting closer. Soon, a battle damaged Nieuport began to circle the airfield trailing a plume of black smoke. The two men followed it with their eyes, wondering who it was.
“- Who went up this afternoon?” Gaston wanted to find out through the process of elimination.
“- Dagonet, Barnay, de Gueser and Tsu.”
“- Well, that doesn’t narrow it down at all.” Gaston was disappointed.
The sick machine was losing altitude by making large dips when the engine momentarily lost power. The smoke behind followed in a wave pattern. It finally reached the landing field and dropped heavily. The tailskid dug into the ground and the plane tipped ever so slightly on one wheel. This was enough to spin the entire airplane 180 degrees on the spot. It finally came to a stop after an unnatural wobble from one wheel to the other. The engine was spinning down and the smoke engulfed the entire machine. Caporal Etienne Tsu jumped out of the cockpit coughing. The smell of the smoke reached Gaston as well, irritating his throat.
“- I bet you it was this new Boche machine. What did you call it? Go Fish?”
“- No, no Gaston. A Walfisch. At least that’s what Deuxième is telling us.” Feierstein was lost in his thoughts. None of the two men were excited one bit by the extraordinary scene that has just played out in front of them. In fact, it seemed to look normal and the two paid it no more attention.
“- You know Marcel, we need new airplanes. Better than this Wolfish.”
“- Walfisch. Funny you should say that. I was speaking to OBD about this the other day.” The CO’s eyes lit up at the mention of new machines.
“- OBD?” Gaston never heard of it.
“- Yes, the Offensive Bureau of Defence. Don’t interrupt.” Marcel was irritated by Gaston’s ignorance. “They were telling me we should be receiving new airplanes in TWO WEEKS!”
“- C’est magnifique! Any idea what these new planes are like?” Gaston was excited like a schoolboy at recess.
“- No clue, but I’m willing to bet that they will be better than this Walfisch everyone is scared of.” Feierstein assured him.
“- What does it even mean, this Woolfish?” Gaston wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“- Walfisch means Whale in German.”
“- Oh là là! Those Germans can’t even name their planes properly.” Gaston was disenchanted.
Caporal Tsu was coming over to where the two men were sitting after he finished helping to douse his Nieuport’s engine with buckets of water.
Gaston yelled to his Oriental friend. “- Hey Etienne, got a smoke?”


"Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From out of my arse take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again."