"Oh, rats!" Blaine shook his smaller companion as they neared the club door. "Stow that sort of talk and thought! Don"t do you a bit of good or those that hear you. See?"
"Still, since my last flight with you, these thing will run across my mind. What is up now ? You in on anything yet?"
"I"ve heard -- but don"t whisper a word -- that we"re on for a job of sausage driving next. Nothing sure, though."
Sausages is the slang term for gas observation balloons which go up at certain points and observe the enemy"s positions or maneuvers before and during battle on the earth below. Sausages do not fight back much but are protected by support battle planes and in other ways.
Reaching the clubroom door, they entered, Blaine pushing his comrade forward and saying with mock politeness:
"Let me present my comrade Erwin, or Orry, I like to call him. While doing the Boches the other day at Appincourte Bluff, the Boches came mighty nigh doing him. But here he is, what"s left of him. Jolly him a bit. He feels bad!" The last tweak in allusion to Orry"s remark on the uncertainty of life.
"There were a dozen or more of the air lads in the room and cigarette smoke tinged the air. Towards Erwin, now recovered after nearly a three week"s "lay-off" on account of his burns and other wounds, there was a general rush of friendly hands and voices.
"Oh, you bully l"ill boy! If I hadn"t been kept so busy would have gone round to jolly you up a bit. But I kept hearin" from you all the same."
This from Milton, or "Milt" Finzer, a Louisville lad, now in the Royal Flying Corps for more than a year. "Don"t it seem wallopin" to see you in the clubroom again!"
"Orry, you stale mutt," this from an Americanized Pole, without a trace of foreign accent, "I"m too glad to see you to talk much about it.
When we bombers got back from the raid that night and neither you nor Lafe had showed up, I felt bad enough. Later when Lafe came in with a German plane and a half dead Boche inside, we felt better. But we missed you, Orry."
"Did you really and truly miss me?" Erwin asked, this not in a spirit of doubt or incredulity, but only to hear his friend reemphasize it.
One likes at times to have welcome truisms reechoed over again. It is human nature I suppose.
"Look here, Lex Brodno, you"re a Pole --"
"Don"t spring that on me again, even in joke I am an American, it my folks did come over from Warsaw."
"Bully! We"re all one over here. That"s the way to talk!" Erwin was getting back his old-time spirits. "All one in the good old U.S. All one over here -- eh? Oh, you sinner!" The two walked over to a table, interrupted at every turn by those who wanted to welcome Orry back to the club again.
The following morning Erwin resumed his daily stunt of practice, but was heightened mightily in spirit by noticing in the hangar where he had usually gotten his machines a bright new scouting plane, small, with a tail like a dolphin"s, an up-to-date machine gun mounted along the top, just where the one pilot at the wheel could handily squint through the sights.
"Why, it"s British -- one of their latest makes," informed Erwin, much pleased. "It"s -- let"s see." He was squinting at the monogram.
"B-X-3. No. 48."
Just then Blaine and Finzer strolled up.
"Going out for a little spin, Orry?" queried Blaine, throwing open wider the hangar door. "Look at "em! Ain"t they beauts?"
There was a row of eight of these snug-built machines, all the same type and monogram, all with machine guns strapped solidly to the fuselage of each, and with motors of great power and pliability.
"You can do anything with these chaps," remarked Milt, "except fly to the moon. But these motors would take you a long way. As for stunts like diving, circling, dipping, playing dead and the like, you never saw the like. I only hope we go out soon. I learn there"s a new raid on the taps."
Blaine was nosing about one of the machines that was like the others, only a trifle larger and had an observer"s seat behind the pilot"s.
"That"s your, Sergeant?" queried Erwin, slightly emphasizing the last word.
"Bet your bottee wootees, Corporal!" Another slight emphasis on the last word. "As for yours, take your pick. They"re all exactly alike.
We must go into preliminary practice today."
For an answer Erwin mechanically rolled out the machine he had first examined, and prepared for a short flight.
"After all, all, these are much like the planes we used at Vimy last year."
"Some improvements and stronger motors added thought," said Blaine.
"Going to give it a try-out?"
"Yep! Thought I"d like to get my hand in a bit before we go out in squad formation." He nimbly vaulted into his seat over the rim of the fuselage, or the body of the machine, as two mechanics pushed forward behind the wings.
An upward flip and the alert planes rose gently into the air, and Erwin was off. His head was cool, his brain active, and more than all his hands were steady.
About this time Finzer had rolled out another plane and almost immediately rose behind Orris.
The two were at once climbing high, higher, until at an elevation of two to three thousand feet they began to circle, climb and dip in a way that reminded one of two high-flying birds playing at tag far up in the blue expanse of sky above.
Then Erwin"s machine did a flip, bringing it above the other machine and "onto its tail," the favorable position for aerial attack.
Suddenly Finzer turned his nose earthward and began a whirling dive.
Erwin followed; the other coming at once into horizontal poise, turned his nose towards Erwin -- the perfect position for pouring a rain of shot as the other pa.s.sed.
Of course all this was mere practice, the full handed exercise of the fighting aviator, through which he keeps brain, eye and hand in trim against the perilous, heroic few seconds when he must fight to save his life and machine.
Meantime Blaine, along with Brodno, the Americanized Pole, and one or two others, strolled about, lazily watching the maneuvers above, and telling stories more or less related to their and fighting experiences flying.
Presently down came the two fliers, each with heightened color and full of that fresh buoyancy which short, lively flights are apt to create.
Both were flippantly arguing as to which one had got the best of the other.
"I own up that I am a little bit stale, Milt. But you wait until we go out for squadron practice. I"ll show you!"
"Yes, you will," replied Finzer, good-naturedly caustic. "Perhaps I"ll show you another trick or two then."
And so the chaffing went on as the lads adjourned to the eating-house for lunch.
This meal over, a bugle sounded from the parade ground near the grove of trees. It was the general summons for squadron practice. As the boys filed out, each in full flying rig, they saw Commander Byers on the field, watching the mechanics roll out the machines. There were a dozen or more of the fighting planes, like those which Erwin and Finzer had used for morning practice. In the east, from over a monotonous expanse of scarred and war-torn country, came the sullen roar of artillery at the front, a stern reminder that real war was close at hand.
Each aviator at once mounted his own machine, Blaine as squad sergeant in the one he had indicated to Erwin earlier in the day.
Erwin took his, while Finzer, Brodno, and a real American lad from b.u.t.te, Montana, were a.s.signed to others of these fast, nimble, scouting planes that are really the wasps of the air, carrying their sting with them, always ready and willing to bite.
Meanwhile at each machine two mechanics, under the eye of the airman, went carefully over the mechanism until all were satisfied. Up they went, singly or in pairs, gyrating playfully, always climbing, and swooping higher, higher, until to the naked eye they became mere dots in the clear sky.
By this time it was noticeable that they had somehow divided into two squads or escadrilles; and at a signal from Commander Byers down below they began maneuvering like two hostile squadrons about to engage in aerial battle. Thereupon ensued a display of battle tactics that would have been bewildering to an unaccustomed spectator.
These vicious little fighting planes reminded one more of air insects than of birds. In their forward rushes many of them were doing more than two miles a minute.
"Watch out!" said the Commander, his gla.s.s at his eyes. "The Sergeant is going to loop."
True enough, Blaine"s machine took a nose flip. He was riding upside down. Then he was level again. The rest of his squad followed suit, then followed their leader at a daring angle, all of them straight and level again. The first plane in the other line, driven by Erwin, began to loop the loop sidewise, rolling over and over, not unlike a horse rolls over when turned out to gra.s.s. The others behind him began much the same tactics while the first line drew away as if preparing for counter moves.
Beyond, in the further sky, two opposing machines having detached themselves from the rest were playing with each other like kittens with wings. One was making rapid evolutions, the other following, and clinging to the set course in a series of whirls with its own wing-tip as a pivot.
Below, the comments went on from the staff surrounding the Commander, who would say now and then: