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Shortly after seven o'clock the next morning, Peter found me drunk in an armchair. "Will the Herr Leutnant really fly today?" he asked.
"Don't be silly," I blurted. "Roll out the crate and get it ready for take-off."
The Kasino orderly brought me coffee that was so hot to my mouth that I spat it out onto the trousers of a snoring squadronmate asleep on the floor. It did not awaken him.
With much effort, I stumbled out onto the airfield and looked around at the clouds hanging low in the sky. Nearby, the aircraft engine thundered during its warm-up. The wetterfrosch ("weather frog." nickname for the meteorology officer) came over with the weather charts. I waved him away: "I already know... it's all thick crap... makes no difference... we will fly anyway. Put 60 photographic plates and the radio equipment in the plane and let's go."
In fact, the situation was this: heavy, low cloud cover with light rain. Nowhere was there a patch of blue sky, a Damenhöschen (pair of panties) as we then called such a pleasantly inviting opening in the clouds that would offer more optimistic opportunities.
The noise of the engine and the clatter of test-firing the machine guns startled our commanding officer, Hauptmann (Captain) Reinhold. He came out onto the airfield and inquired: "You still want to do some flying?"
Swaying a bit, I steadied myself against the fuselage side and replied: "Leutnant Rabe is ready to take off on a long-range flight in the direction of St. Pol, Hesdin, St. Omer and the Channel coast."
"You are not only insane," he shouted over the roar of the engine, "but still drunk, as well!"
"Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann. The reconnaissance mission that has been both ordered and desired will be flown. Up there the sun is shining," I said.
"I will have you locked up if you muck up and come back with messed-up plates and a shot-up airplane," he growled.
"Jawohl! Los! (Let's go!) Hoist me into this rubble! Peter, full speed ahead!"
My mechanics, Lucka and Noll, buckled me in and I fell asleep immediately after the bumpy take-off. At 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) I became quite cool. I woke up and saw that we were flying over a broad cloud cover. At 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) I felt as though I were freezing in an ice-cold bath. Massaged by the icy airstream, I quickly sobered up. As I had set Peter on a westward course, the other side of the Front, behind La Bassée, which had been buried beneath the clouds, suddenly came into view as the clouds parted before us. Peter grinned at me happily in his little rear-view mirror. Using the back-seat controls, I throttled down the engine so he could hear me say: "Das is heute Titte mit Ei!" (Loose translation: This is the frosting on the cake!) The Old Man will be amazed. Please keep the aircraft steady at 5,000 meters... in a straight line... I want all of the photographs to be to the same scale."
"It will be done," he said, pushing the throttle forward.
As the weather over the Front and our rear areas did not allow any British aerial activity, there were no "Lords" in the air where we were. Only the first shots fired by British anti-aircraft batteries aroused their fighter pilots. I could look down at their airfields and see the Sopwith Camels and SE5s being pulled out of their hangars, being started and formed up, and then slowly clambering into the air. But for them it would be a laborious business to catch up to us at the altitude and speed we had attained with our Rumpler-Maybach engine.
Meanwhile, with a stop-watch in one hand to time each photographic plate taken in the splendid and mist-free air, in which every object casts a sharply-defined shadow so that all of the objects in each photo could be clearly discerned. I exposed 60 plates. I even had time to make note of railway traffic by time of day, location, direction and number of cars. The blue sky sparkled with a splendid cleanness that revealed, 300 meters (about 1,000 feet) below us, that we were being trailed by several flights of Sopwiths and SE5s. Just for fun, I fired some flare cartridges at them and waved at them with my hand. Small joys of bravado!
As my plates were all exposed, I motioned to Peter to head for home and yelled: "Stay at 5,000 meters. We will make it home undisturbed."
In the arrogance of my alcohol-sotted brain, I clambered over the fuselage decking, holding tightly onto the pylon between the fuselage and upper wing, and sang bawdy songs. Peter fumed at this recklessness.
Once we were over the cloud cover, I behaved myself and sat down in my folding seat in the rear cockpit. The dark laundry room of the clouds swirled around us as the pilot penetrated them carefully to keep from losing his orientation to the horizon. At 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) I was shocked to notice that I was becoming oppressively warm: the closer we came to the ground, the more active the alcohol in my blood became. By the time we got over our airfield, I felt as though I were slightly drunk.
Everyone was waiting for us. It was still raining in steady streams when Peter set the plane down at about eleven o'clock. In front of the hangar I jumped out of the airplane, and not very gracefully at that, to report to the Chief: "Back from a flight over the lines. The weather was magnificent and there were only occasional enemy anti-aircraft or fighter disruptions. The railway reconnaissance was successful and we exposed 60 plates."
Icily he replied: "We have been very anxious about that. The Armeé Gruppe, as well."
The photo-donkies grabbed the plates and Peter rolled the Rumpler into the hangar while I lay in bed during the three-hour wait for the plates to be developed and readied for evaluation. With my detailed report about traffic and other visual observations the plates were rushed off to the Gruppe (Group) Headquarters.
At dinnertime I appeared in the Kasino looking as fresh as ever. "Congratulations!" said Hauptmann Reinhold, now all smiles. "The photographs are excellent and all to the same scale. You are really to be congratulated. If it had been otherwise, I would have to lock you up for disobedience."
"Thanks most obediently," I said with an ironic smile. Then I turned to Peter and said: "For This we have earned a good bottle. If I had been sober, I surely would not have flown in this crappy weather."
Translated by Peter Kilduff.
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