In tune with the times, he was fascinated by early experiments in flight and, at the age of twelve, attempted to construct an airborne bicycle. He also read avidly—his particular favorites were Jules Verne and Hans Christian Andersen—and began composing poetry at an early age. It was a habit that continued in later life. He thought nothing of telephoning his friends at three in the morning, and while he was in North Africa during the war he force-fed Benzedrine to his patient mistress so she would stay awake long enough to read through all five hundred pages of his work in progress.
That has not much improved my opinion. He supported himself on money that he borrowed from his mother, often lodging simply but eating lavish dinners in the grand houses to which his family name provided access. Even before the start of the First World War, France held more flying licenses than the United States, England, and Germany together, and by the French aeronautics industry was one of the biggest in the world.
The work was dangerous and demanding, the discipline rigorous, and the solitude unbroken. In his books, the descriptions of the hours spent alone in the cockpit are intensely evocative, as he recalls piloting his craft from Toulouse to Casablanca and Dakar, at the mercy of sandstorms, snow, and freak winds, flying low through mountain passes and over mile after mile of desert, where Moorish tribesmen shot at the tiny planes as though they were partridges.
Although the Breguet 14 was the most reliable aircraft of the time, it was pitifully frail by current standards, with a wooden propeller, an open cockpit, and a range of well under four hundred miles; it had no radio, no suspension, no sophisticated instruments, and no brakes.
Planes regularly broke down or crash-landed, and airmen were taken captive and held hostage for weeks at a time by tribesmen. Maps were crude, and pilots navigated by following landmarks—a row of trees, a farmhouse, a field, a river. It was easy to get lost in heavy rain or fog, or just in the dark, and weather predictions were often fatally unreliable.
With each new plunge the engine began vibrating so violently that the entire plane was seized with angry trembling. Fabien needed all his strength to control it. His head ducked far down inside the cockpit, he kept his eyes glued to the artificial horizon; for outside he could no longer distinguish earth from sky, lost in a welter of primeval darkness. At this very moment the storm opened above his head and through a rift, like mortal bait glittering through the meshes of a net, he spied several stars.
At a single bound, as it emerged, the plane had attained a calm that seemed wondrous. There was not a wave to rock him, and like a sail-boat passing the jetty he was entering sheltered waters. In he began military service and learned to fly, later being commissioned as an air force officer.
From his experiences he drew the novel that launched his literary career in , Courrier Sud Southern Mail. Here he portrays the pilot's solitary struggle against the elements and his sense of dedication to his vocation, stronger even than love. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
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