Ad Astra - a drama about an RFC ace of WWI who'd be otherwise book marketing by Norman Weinstein
Through adversity to the stars, but the success of one's intentions, however right they may be, is hardly guaranteed, especially after the heroic Captain Elliot Parsons gets to know his charge:
PARSONS. How old are you, Owens?
OWENS. Twenty, Sir.
PARSONS. Owens, we who serve King and Country are ever truthful. Now how the hell old are you?
OWENS. Well, Sir, eighteen and five months.
PARSONS. Ah, precise we are. How much time did they give you? Nieuport, Camel, did they let you fly a real machine?
OWENS. Oh, yes, Sir, the Camel, Sir. Almost 18 hours.
PARSONS. And you survived. Good beginning. (Gesturing with his hands and arms.) Tell me now, Owens, quickly. Huns're in a two-seater bit behind you and below. You want a quick left turn to drop behind and underneath the bastards. Quick, how do you do it?
OWENS. Well, Sir, I press left on the rudder bar and . . .
PARSONS. And you're cold meat! Hun's got you. You're in a Sopwith Camel, Owens. You turned too slowly, nose probably up.
OWENS. Sir, I can't say I understand.
PARSONS. Right rudder, damn it!
OWENS. But, Sir, you said to take her left, so I . . .
Parsons's commander refuses to succumb to the arguments of Parsons, his squadron's leading flier and bearer of the Victoria Cross:
MAJOR. You know, Parsons, we Brits really aren't like the others, with their puffed-up aces and their beribboned chests and gaudy ships. We don't play the clown. We simply do what has to be done.
PARSONS. Like our first day on the Somme, what? Twenty thousand killed. "Simple walk across the sod," they told them. "Piece of cake, boys." Yes, my kid brother did what had to be done.
MAJOR. As you've told me.
PARSONS. Fine singer, tenor. I rather envied him, that I'd be the music critic and he the singer. They found enough of his face at Gommecourt (gome-koor) to know who he was.
MAJOR. Yes, I know.
PARSONS. By God, I'd rather machine-gun every last fucking war-lover than Hans.
MAJOR. I shouldn't be hearing this.