Tam o’ the Scoots

Sergeant-Pilot Tam came out of a Glasgow workshop, mended an aeroplane engine one day, and finished up in the Royal Flying Corps flying single-seat scouts, which in his broad Scots come out as scoots. Edgar Wallace built ten linked episodes around him: the wordless friendship Tam forms in the air with an enemy flier he has never met, the coming and strafing of the German ace Müller, a new anti-aircraft gun so deadly the fliers name it Annie, the vicious sister of Archie, the officer’s commission Tam never wanted, a reprisal raid, a last load. Tam tells his own dogfights in the language of the penny dreadfuls he devours, Deadwood Dick and all, which is how Wallace keeps the losses bearable. Published in 1918 and dedicated to Quentin Roosevelt and all airmen fallen in clean fighting.