In the Line of Duty by H.P.S. Greene
Lieutenant Tommy Lang, newly commissioned in Paris straight from ambulance service without ever attending ground school, arrives by truck at the muddy American flying field of Issy-la-Boue in central France. Reporting to the personnel office, he is assigned a bunk in the flying officers' barrack among men who trained differently than he did—ground school graduates and those with prior stateside flight instruction—creating cliques reminiscent of the old rivalries at the French school at Tours between the Foreign Legion, stray gobs, Paris-enlisted ambulance drivers, and ground school men. Ignorant of Army customs, Tommy wanders to an out-of-bounds café, buys drinks for a man he doesn't realize is an undercover M.P., and becomes an object of ridicule among the flying lieutenants, particularly Long John and Fat, once the story circulates. He learns the field's harsh realities: no messkit, freezing barracks, foul mess hall food served by German prisoners who mock the American officers, and no baths permitted since the post's quarantine. Assigned to Section 13 for training on rotary motors and machine guns despite his extensive prior rotary-motor flying experience, Tommy also discovers a mock personnel notice listing a lieutenant as "Transferred... to Death in Line of Duty," a standing joke phrase used whenever a flyer is killed. Meanwhile, Major Herman Krause, the blustering commanding officer, and his adjutant discuss assigning an inexperienced officer to command an incoming squadron of mechanics, the 946th Aero Squadron, settling on Tommy due to his earlier commission date. Tommy takes command, delegating all real responsibility to his sergeant-major per Long John's advice, enjoying the comforts of a private office and stove while signing paperwork without question. This arrangement collapses when he brings a corporal's disputed pay deduction to the adjutant's attention and Major Krause overhears, erupts about grammar and the word "pants," and, upon learning Tommy has never drilled troops, relieves him of command and sends him back to the open-ended barrack. Freed from squadron duties, Tommy continues flying training, progressing from twenty-three-meter Nieuports toward the faster eighteens, anticipating eventual transfer to Field 5. After weeks of quarantine without a bath, he develops scabies. Learning by telephone that a pilot has crashed fatally at Field 5—mistakenly believing at first it might be himself, given the shared mustache with the dead man, who is actually his taller friend Phil—Tommy seizes on Krause's earlier order transferring the dead lieutenant "to Death in Line of Duty," a document addressed with his own name based on a clerical mix-up, and uses it as a pretext to slip away. He hitches a ride into the quarantined town of Issy-la-Boue and rents a room, evading M.P.s. There he meets a decorated French ace serving in the American Air Service, disillusioned at being pulled from combat to train pilots while Krause ignores his advice. The two commiserate over wine, and the ace shields Tommy from an M.P. lieutenant who tries to check his pass. Tommy spends three days living comfortably with the ace, taking sulphur baths twice daily until his scabies clears. Preparing to return, Tommy deliberately walks out without a pass, gets picked up by the M.P. lieutenant and a sergeant, and is brought before Major Krause. When accused of going absent without leave, Tommy produces the transfer order reading "Transferred from Section 13 to Death in Line of Duty," pointing out that since he could not comply with an order to die in the line of duty, he tried to come as near to it as he could by leaving the post to avoid embarrassing Krause. Confronted with his own order and unable to court-martial Tommy without exposing himself, Krause fumes helplessly and dismisses him.
By H.P.S. Greene · First published 1928 · Genre: Military Fiction, Satirical Fiction, War Fiction · 7,640 words
First lines
A heavy truck lumbered slowly along a road in central France. On both sides of the road was an uninspiring vista of brown fields, stretching away as far as the eye could reach, and only occasionally broken by small clumps of small scrubby trees. On the seat of the truck beside the driver sat a little man with a drooping mustache. This droopiness was evidence that he had come there by way of Paris. When he reached the French capital the mustache had been smartly waxed.
Finally he addressed the driver out of sheer boredom.
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Genres
- Military Fiction — The narrative centers entirely on military operations, hierarchies, and regulations at an American air field, with Tommy's conflicts arising directly from military protocol and command structure.
- Satirical Fiction — The text consistently mocks military bureaucracy, incompetence, and absurd regulations through Major Krause's irrational orders, the adjutant's pedantry about grammar, and the ironic ending where Tommy exploits Krause's own orders to escape court-martial.
- War Fiction — The story is set during World War I at an active flying field where pilots are trained and deployed for combat, with references to combat deaths and front-line operations.
- Historical Fiction — The narrative is grounded in specific WWI-era details, military terminology, equipment (Nieuports, Le Rhone motors), and the historical context of the American Air Service in France.
Tags
World War I · France · military aviation · pilot training · American Air Service · satire · dark comedy · bureaucratic absurdity · coming-of-age · initiation · hazing · social cliques
What this Textopian page supports
In the Line of Duty is listed on Textopian as a short story by H.P.S. Greene, dated 1928 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: H.P.S. Greene
- Date: 1928 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Military Fiction, Satirical Fiction, War Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age Fiction
- Length: 7,640 words
- Structure: 1 section, 154 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for In the Line of Duty by H.P.S. Greene
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