Aces Up Part 23

A thin, tired smile came to McGee's freckled face, a face almost hidden under the bandages that completely covered his head.

"All right," he said. "First question--will I fly again?"

"Of course! In four or five weeks you'll be good as new."

"Four or five weeks! What--"

"Careful now, or you'll use up all your questions. When you set that Camel down in a sh.e.l.l hole she flipped over and your head was slightly softer than a big rock that happened to be handy. I would have bet on the rock being softest, but it seems I'd lost. You went blotto. A bunch of soldiers dragged you out from under what was left of that Camel--which wasn't much. Then an ambulance brought you back here. This hospital is about five kilos from squadron headquarters, and I've been back here twice a day for the past five days, worrying my head off for fear you'd never come to."

"Five days?" Red responded, his voice indicating his disbelief.

"Yep, five days. Three days pa.s.sed before you even opened your eyes. Try and land on your feet, next time."

"The nurse tells me my left arm is broken," McGee said. "Wonder how I got that?"

"You've used up all your questions," Larkin told him, laughing, "and I've used up all my time. I want to be good so that Old Saw Bones will let me see you to-morrow night."

"Wait," McGee began, but the nurse interposed herself.

"No more to-night," she said. "In a day or two you can talk as much as you like."

The next two or three days pa.s.sed slowly for McGee. Each night Larkin came back from squadron headquarters in a motor cycle side car, but his stays were so brief that Red had no chance to get any but the most fragmentary news.

As for news from the front, he could drag nothing from the nurses or from Larkin, and when he inquired after members of the squadron Buzz would reply with an evasive, "Oh, they're all right," and shift the conversation into the most commonplace channels.

Ten days of this, and the surgeon gave his O.K. to the use of a wheel chair, which was pushed around the grounds by one of the hospital orderlies. The grounds were extremely beautiful, the hospital having been a famous resort hotel before the exigencies of warfare required its conversion into one of the thousands of hospitals scattered throughout France.

Great beech and chestnut trees covered the lawn, and to one side was a miniature lake, centered by a sparkling fountain, on whose wind-dimpled surface graceful, proud swans moved with a stately ease that scorned haste or show of effort.

On the second day of exploration in the wheel chair, Larkin came in the afternoon and, relieving the orderly, pushed Red's chair down to a deep shaded spot by the side of the pond.

"I can't see why they won't let me walk around," McGee complained.

"There's nothing wrong with my legs."

"No, but they're not so sure about that head, yet. Another few days and you'll be running foot races," Larkin a.s.sured him.

"How long does it take a broken arm to heal, Buzz?"

"Two or three weeks--maybe four. You had a bad break. Maybe a little longer. You're lucky, after all--maybe."

"What do you mean, lucky?" Red looked at him quizzically.

"Well, some of the boys haven't gotten off so easy."

"See here, Buzz, I'm tired of s.n.a.t.c.hes of news. Tell me all you know about--about everything. Back here the war seems so far away--and unreal. Except for all these wounded men, and the uniforms, I'd never think of it. No guns, no action, no--no dawn patrols. I feel like a fish out of water. But there must be some little old war going on up there.

I've heard about Chateau-Thierry, by piecemeal. Boy! It was the big show starting the very morning I got it, and we didn't even know it. Just my luck to get forced down at a time like that!"

"Maybe not so tough," Buzz answered. "A Blighty, if it doesn't cripple, is not so bad. Our casualties have been nearly forty per cent, from one cause or another."

"No!" Red exclaimed in surprise.

Larkin nodded, dourly. "They sure have! We've been up against von Herzmann's Circus most of the time, and that fellow hasn't any slouches on his roster. That was one of his outfit that cracked your engine."

"Really? Did you get him?" Red asked, his face alight with interest.

Larkin shook his head. "No luck. I ducked to follow you. But Fouche got him--his first that morning."

"That morning? You mean he--"

"Got another one, a flamer, just back of Chateau-Thierry. That boy is some flyer! He's an ace already."

McGee's delight was genuine. "That's great! Never can tell, can you? I didn't think much of his work." He hesitated, wanting to inquire about the others but held back by that statement of Larkin's to the effect that casualties were above forty per cent. He feared he would ask about someone whose name was now enrolled in that sickening total.

"What about--Yancey?" he tried.

Larkin laughed. "Oh, that Texas cyclone is as wild as a range horse and is due to get potted any minute. In fact, he's overdue. He's a balloon busting fool, and no one can stop him. He has nine of them to his credit and every time he goes out he comes back with his plane in shreds and just barely holding together. You'd think it would cure him, but he eats shrapnel. Has two planes to his credit, but he doesn't go in for planes.

He cuts formation exactly like you used to, Shrimp, and goes off high, wide and lonesome, looking for sausages. He got one just this morning, and I give you my word his ship looked like a sieve when he came in. The Major threatens to ground him if he doesn't quit cutting formation, but he's only bluffing. He's as proud as the rest of us."

"So Cowan is all right?" Red asked.

"He sure is _all right_," Larkin enthused. "He's an intolerable old fuss budget and hard to get along with when on the ground or out of action, but he's square, he's developed into a real commander, and he's got sand a-plenty. He's coming down to see you to-morrow--and that's going some for Cowan. He likes you a lot."

Red colored, and to change the subject, asked, "What about Hampden?

Didn't I see him go down just before I caught it?"

"Yes. Flamer. Poor devil!"

To Red's mind came the picture of Siddons, fleeing from the field of action a few minutes before the tragic death of the only man in the squadron who really called him friend. Friend, indeed!

"I suppose Siddons is still on top," McGee said, somewhat bitterly. "His kind never get it."

A troubled look spread over Larkin's face. "You know," he began slowly, "none of us can figure out that fellow. He didn't get back to the squadron that day until just at dark. The news of Hampden's death seemed to daze him, but he didn't say a word. Two days later he left the squadron, and we thought he was gone for good--grounded for keeps or sent home. But yesterday he turned up again, big as life. If Cowan is displeased, he doesn't show it. We can't figure it out."

"I can!" McGee flared, then suddenly remembered that Cowan had charged him with absolute secrecy concerning the discoveries he had made.

"Well then, what's the dope?" Larkin asked.

"Oh, he's got a heavy drag somewhere," Red replied, remembering that he had pa.s.sed his word to Major Cowan. "What about Hank Porter?" he asked, to shift the subject.

Larkin shook his head, dismally. "Another one of Herzmann's Circus filled him full of lead, but he tooled his ship back home before he fainted from loss of blood. He's in a hospital for the rest of the war.

May never walk again."

McGee decided to do no more roll calling for the day. It was altogether too depressing. For a while they talked of lighter, commonplace things and then fell into that understanding silence that is possible only with those whose friendship is so firmly fixed that words add little to their communion.

Watching the swans that moved around the central fountain in stately procession, McGee fell to thinking how little those lovely creatures knew of tragedy and sorrow. Theirs was a world secure in beauty, unmarred by the things which man brings upon himself, and this was true because they knew nothing of avarice or grasping greed. Could it be that man, in all his pride, was one of the least sensible of G.o.d's creatures?

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