Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board
working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a
self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying _through_
the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet
to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on
its girders, were two of his pet projects.
On a Sunday in August of 1918 there were assembled around his
drafting-board an interested and receptive audience of four--Peters,
an ensign attached to the "lighter-than-air" section; Madden, a
pilot on his way up from Italy to the Northern Bombing Group; Erskine,
a lieutenant in the Operations Division; and Matthews, a chief yeoman.
"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here
frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_.
And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was
tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the
beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it,
but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out
to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know
because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and
everything.
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