Air Service Boys Flying For Victory Part 14

SELECTED FOR SPECIAL DUTY

"REMEMBER," Tom said again very solemnly, "this is a dead secret, Jack."

"Not a whisper will get away from me, I give you my word on that,"

hastily replied the other. "And my word is as good as my bond, any day."

"So it is. I only cautioned you as I did because the same secrecy was impressed on me at the time I was taken into the matter. That was why I couldn't give even you a hint. But it's all right now. As to your question, Jack, it might happen that we would get separated from the rest of the bunch on the return journey, and, if so, why, you see, we could take a little spin around the district where that other chateau lies."

"Yes," added Jack thoughtfully, but with a gleam in his eye, "accidents are apt to happen in even the best regulated families; and it isn't very strange for aviators to get a little mixed in their bearings."

"Especially," Tom went on to say without the ghost of a smile, "when on a night-bombing expedition; for a thousand things are apt to come up, all calculated to bother the best of pilots, and throw him out of his reckoning."

"Why, we've been through that mill more than a few times, you remember, Tom. I could mention at least three occasions when we couldn't tell where we were and had to go it blind for a time. Fortunately, we got home all right where some fellows might have been less lucky."

"Well, that's all I'm going to tell you now, for the reason that it's the extent of my own information," Tom wound up with. "And since the hour is growing pretty late I reckon two tired fellows I know had better be getting over to their bunks."

"One thing more, Tom," urged the other.

"All right, but hurry along, for I saw Bessie looking this way as if she had something to say; and you interrupted our conversation in a very interesting part."

Jack grinned, and said:

"It will stay interrupted, too, for I am going to have the last word with Bessie. But I was wondering whether the officers would want us to work to-morrow, and keep up this flying for victory business, as the boys have taken to calling the work we're doing here over the Argonne these days?"

"Oh! How careless of me to forget to tell you about that! No, all of those who have been selected for this enterprise are to get a holiday to-morrow, so they can be fresh for the night work. We're to lie around, take things easy, eat doughnuts as fast as the Salvation Army girls can fry them, and get in trim for strenuous work."

Jack sighed.

"Suits me all right," he admitted. "Haven't had much vacation for three weeks or so now, and it gets a bit monotonous buzzing over those treetops, asking Fritz to pop away at you so as to coax him to betray his warm nest down below, and then making signs to our boys so as to locate it for them."

"All of us who haven't been piloting bombing planes will feel about the same way, Jack. I know a day off is going to make me feel fresh and dandy.

"Besides," went on Tom, as if incidentally, "there's a fellow over at the hospital that I'm interested in. His name is Fred Lincoln, and he was hurt yesterday in one of the skirmishes in the woods. I couldn't find out how bad his wounds were, but he was having me take some letters of his only three days ago, telling me then he had a queer feeling he was going to get his before long, and asking me to send them home for him if it happened."

"I remember Fred," said Jack, looking sorry to hear the news. "He's a fine boy at that. He was married only a week before the draft took him.

Said the war had nothing to do with his getting spliced, as they had been engaged for two years. I hope he comes through. Remember me to him; and also to his nurse--if she happens to be named Nellie."

"Sure. Are you off to bed now?" as the other turned away.

"In five minutes or so, after I've spoken to Bessie," came the answer.

Jack was as good as his word, and the two chums were soon preparing for another night's sound sleep, hoping they would not be aroused by any disturbance, such as had occurred on that other night.

In this at least they were lucky. The Germans had evidently suffered so severely on account of that other raid they did not care to repeat it.

So the night pa.s.sed altogether in peaceful fashion; that is, for such times of warfare, where hundreds of thousands of fighting men, backed by unlimited batteries and monster guns, were daily grappling in what was destined to go down in history as the most extraordinary, as well as the most protracted, engagement of the entire war.

The boys were up early, and Harry Leroy seemed surprised when told that the two air service boys did not expect to fly that day.

"Something's up, I warrant," he told them bluntly, "and you're bound to keep a tight upperlip about it. All right, I wouldn't ask you to whisper just one word to me; only I feel sore because they have left me out of the game. But I never was lucky in drawing prizes. I'll go out and vent my spleen on some Fritz who happens to get in my way."

When the airmen trailed in toward noon on that October day, first, rumors reached Tom and Jack, and then came the plain story connected with Harry's extraordinary conduct on that wonderful morning.

Other pilots said the boy seemed to be possessed of a spirit such as they had never known him to show before. He hunted out the Boche wherever he could find him, forced him to give battle, and then simply played with him, no matter if he chanced to be one of the best-known German aces.

Two he had sent down in flames, for which he would receive due credit; and there were reports that he had also made as many more drop to the earth in a condition of impotence.

"Why," said a pilot who recounted some of these happenings to the air service boys, "Harry seemed possessed of a reckless spirit that will be the death of him yet unless he curbs it. He'll soon have the entire Boche escadrille on his tail, crazy to fetch him down. And if he keeps up this sort of work and lives, he'll soon make our leading ace look to his laurels."

When Harry came in finally he looked flushed, but triumphant.

"What's all this we hear about your carrying-on this morning?" demanded Jack, almost immediately.

"Oh, I just made up my mind that I'd got to have a special day of it, that's all," replied the other carelessly. "They wouldn't let me go along with you chaps, and I had to do something to let the ugliness get out; so I put it up to Fritz. And, say, I've had a glorious time, too."

He refused pointblank to tell them anything more at the time, so they had to pick up all their information through other channels; but then it was not so hard to do that, since nearly every working aviator had taken note of Harry's remarkable work that morning.

Then came the afternoon.

Both Tom and Jack might have considered that time dragged, only for the fact that they could pa.s.s the hours in a pleasant fashion. Tom managed to get over to the field hospital to see his wounded friend, Fred Lincoln. And, really, he did spend as much as ten minutes trying to cheer that individual up, for Fred had lost an arm, and was feeling blue over his future home-going to his young wife.

As for Jack, he haunted the Y. M. C. A. dugout and wrote letters home until he could not think of another person who would want to be remembered. It was a great day of rest to those hard-working air pilots, though from the look on their faces when they were greeting the incoming aviators one might have thought they rather envied them their latest achievements.

Such is the force of habit.

At last came night, and the two air service boys thrilled with the realization of what great things were apt to come to pa.s.s in their experience before another dawn brought the grey into the eastern sky.

CHAPTER XV

OVER THE ENEMY'S LINES

IN all there were twenty planes starting out on that momentous expedition to "strafe the Kaiser," as Jack called it. Half of these were monster bombing machines of a late model, capable of carrying more of the deadly explosives than had ever before been attempted.

The others were battle planes, guided by the most expert pilots, some of whom were already famous aces. These were men whose names had become household words over in America, heroes of the ma.s.ses, whose pictures always evoked storms of applause whenever shown on the screen in the motion picture houses.

Tom owed the fact of his having been selected to guide one of the bombers, instead of a fighting machine, to the fact that one man had fallen sick, and was thus placed out of the running. In casting around for an efficient subst.i.tute they had picked Tom.

The start was made an hour before midnight. This was done in order to lead the Boche to believe that the night would pa.s.s without unusual occurrences.

Quietly, every man who had been called to duty presented himself at his special station equipped for work. The hostlers, under the supervision of the officer in command at the aviation field, had seen to it that every detail had been looked after. Tanks were filled, and each plane carefully examined for defects that might imperil the lives of those who were to trust themselves to its reliability.

As customary, the pilots and observers themselves took one last survey of certain particular features where experience told them there was the most reason to antic.i.p.ate trouble.

Not a single plane but stood up under the test, which spoke well for the infinite care taken in their manufacture, as well as the handling they had received since being placed in action.