Truly enough, word had come from the missing aviator, or, if not
directly from him, at least from his captors. The German airmen, falling
in with the chivalry which had been initiated by the French and English,
and later followed by the Americans, had seen fit to inform the comrades
of the captured man of his whereabouts.
“Where is he? What happened to him?” asked several, as all crowded
around Tom and Jack to hear the news.
Jack, reading the note, told them. The missive was written in very good
English, though in a German hand. It stated that Harry Leroy had been
shot down in his plane while over the German lines, and had fallen in a
lonely spot, wounded.
The wound was not serious, it was stated, and the prisoner was doing
as well as could be expected, but he would remain in the hands of his
captors until the end of the war. The reason his whereabouts was not
mentioned before was that the Germans did not know they had one of the
Allied aviators in their midst.
Leroy had not only fallen in a lonely spot, but he was made unconscious
by his fall and injuries, and when he recovered he was lying near his
almost demolished plane.
He managed to get out his log book and other confidential papers, and
set fire to them and the plane with the gasoline that still remained in
the tank. He destroyed them so they might not fall into the hands of the
Germans, a fate he knew would be his own shortly.
But Harry Leroy was not doomed to instant capture. The blaze caused by
his burning aeroplane attracted the attention of a peasant, who had not
been deported when the enemy overran his country, for the young aviator
had fallen in a spot well back of the front lines. This French peasant
took Harry to his little farm and hid him in the barn. There the man,
his wife, and his granddaughters, looked after the injured aviator,
feeding him and binding up his hurts. It was a great risk they took,
and Harry Leroy knew it as well as they. But for nearly two weeks he
remained hidden, and this probably saved his life, for he got better
treatment at the farmhouse than he would, as an enemy, have received in
a German hospital.
But such good luck could not last. Suspicion that Americans were hidden
in the Frenchman's barn began to spread through the country, and rather
than bring discovery on his friends, Leroy left the barn one night.
He had a desperate hope that he might reach his own lines, as he was now
pretty well recovered from his 'Injuries, but it was not to be. He was
captured by a German patrol. But by his quick action Harry Leroy had
removed suspicion from the farmer, which was exactly what he wished to
do.
The Germans, rejoicing over their capture, took the young aviator to the
nearest prison camp, and there he was put in custody, together with some
unfortunate French and English. The tide of war had turned against Harry
Leroy.
So it came about that, some time after he had been posted as missing and
when it was surely thought that he was dead, Harry Leroy was found to be
among the living, though a prisoner.
“This will be great news for his sister!” exclaimed Jack, as the note
dropped by the German airman was read over and over again.
“Yes, she'll be delighted,” agreed Tom. “We must hurry back and tell
her.”
“And that isn't all,” went on Jack. “We must try to figure out a way to
rescue Harry.”
“You can't do that,” declared a French ace, one with whom the air
service boys had often flown.
“Why not?” asked Tom.
“It's out of the question,” was the answer. “There has never been a
rescue yet from behind the German lines. Or, if there has been, it's
like a blue moon.”
“Well, we can try,” declared Jack, and Tom nodded his head in agreement.
“Don't count too much on it,” added another of their friends. “Harry may
not even be where this note says he is.”
“Do you mean that the Germans would say what isn't so?” asked Tom.
“Of course! Naturally!” was the answer. “But even if they did not in
this case, even if they have truly said where Leroy is, he may be moved
at any time--sent to some other prison, or made to work in the mines or
at perhaps something far worse.”
Tom and Jack realized that this might be so, and they felt that there
was no easy task ahead of them in trying to rescue their chum from the
hands of the Germans. But they were not youths who gave up easily.
“May we keep this note?” asked Tom, as he and Jack got ready to depart.
Having fallen on the camp of the escadrille with which they were
formerly quartered, it was, strictly speaking, the property of the
airmen there. But having been told how much the sister of the prisoner
would appreciate it, the commanding officer gave permission for Tom and
Jack to take the glove and note with them.
“Let us know if you rescue him, Comrades!” called the Frenchmen to the
two lads, as they started back for their own camp.
“We will,” was the answer.
Nellie Leroy's joy in the news that her brother was alive was tempered
by the fact that he was a German prisoner.
“But we're going to get him!” declared Tom even though he realized, as
he said it, that it with almost a forlorn hope.
“You are so good,” murmured the girl.
Jack and Tom spent a few happy hours in Paris, with Nellie and
Bessie--the last of their leave--and then, bidding the girls and Mrs.
Gleason farewell, they reported back to the American aerodrome, where
the young airmen were cordially welcomed.
There they found much to do, and events followed one another so rapidly
at this stage of the World War that Tom and Jack, after their return,
had little time for anything but flying and teaching others what they
knew of air work. They had no opportunity to do anything toward the
rescue of Harry Leroy; and, indeed, they were at a loss how to proceed.
They were just hoping that something would transpire to give them a
starting point.
“We'll have to leave it to luck for a while,” said Torn.
“Or fate,” added Jack.
“Well, fate plays no small part in an airman's life,” returned Tom.
“While we are no more superstitions than any other soldiers, yet there
are few airmen who do not carry some sort of mascot or good-luck piece.
You know that, Jack.”
And even the casual reader of the exploits of the aviators must have
been impressed with the fact that often the merest incident--or accident
is responsible for life or death.
Death often passes within hair's breadth of the intrepid fliers, and
some of them do not know it until after they have made a landing and
have seen the bullet holes in their machine--holes that indicate how
close the missiles have passed to them.
So, in a way, both Tom and Jack believed in luck, and they both believed
that this same luck might point out to them a way of rescuing Harry
Leroy.
Meanwhile they were kept busy. After the big battle in the air matters
were quiet for a time on their sector of the front. The arrival of new
fliers from America made it necessary to instruct them, and to this Tom,
Jack and other veterans were detailed.
Then began a series of what Jack called “stunts.” In order to inspire
the new pupils with confidence, the older flying men--not always older
in years--would go aloft in their single planes and do all sorts of
trick flying. Some of the pupils--the more daring, of course--wished to
imitate these, but of course they were not allowed.
The pupils were first allowed merely to go with an experienced man.
This, of course, they had done at the flying schools in the United
States, and had flown alone. But they had to start all over again when
on French soil, for here they were exposed, any time, to an attack from
a Hun plane.
After they had, it was thought, got sufficient experience to undertake
these trick features by themselves, they were allowed to make trial
flights, but not over the enemy lines.
Tom and Jack gave the best that was in them to these enthusiastic
pupils, and there was much good material.
“What are you going to do to-day, Jack?” asked Tom one morning, as they
went out after breakfast to get into their “busses,” as they dubbed
their machines.
“Oh, got orders to do some spiral and somersault stunts for the benefit
of some huns.” (“Hun,” used in this connection, not referring to the
Germans. “Hun” is the slang term for student aviators, tacked on them by
more experienced fliers.)
“Same here. Good little bunch of huns in camp now.”
Tom nodded in agreement, and the two were soon preparing to climb aloft.
With a watching group of eager young men on the ground below, in company
with an instructor who would point out the way certain feats were done,
Torn and Jack began climbing. Presently they were fairly tumbling about
like pigeons, seeming to fall, but quickly straightening out on a level
keel and coming to the ground almost as lightly as feathers.
“A good landing is essential if one would become a good airman,” stated
the instructor. “In fact I may say it is the hardest half of the game.
For it is comparatively easy to leave the earth. It is the coming back
that is difficult, like the Irishman who said it wasn't the fall that
hurts, it was the stopping.”
“Give 'em a bit of zooming now,” the instructor said to Tom and Jack.
“The boys may have to use that any time they're up and a Boche comes at
them.”
“Zooming,” he went on to the pupils, “is rising and falling in a series
of abrupt curves like those in a roller-coaster railway. It is a very
useful stunt to be master of, for it enables one to rise quickly when
confronting a field barrier, or to get out of range of a Hun machine
gun.”
Tom undertook this feature of the instruction, as Jack signaled that his
aeroplane was out of gasoline, and soon the former was rolling across
the aviation field, seemingly straight toward a row of tall trees.
“He'll hit 'em sure!” cried one student.
“Watch him,” ordered the instructor.
With a quick pull on the lever that controlled the rudder, Tom sent
himself aloft, but not before a curious thing happened.
On the ground where it had been dropped was a tunic, or airman's
fur-lined jacket. As Tom's machine “zoomed,” the tail skid caught this
jacket and took it aloft.
Tom did not seem to be aware of this, though he must have felt that his
machine was a bit sluggish in the climbs. However, he went through with
his performance, doing some beautiful “zooming,” and then, as he was
flying high and getting ready to do a spiral nose dive, the tunic
detached itself from his skid and fell.
Just at this moment Jack came out from the hangar and, looking aloft and
noting Tom's machine, saw the falling jacket. His heart turned sick
and faint, for, unaware of what had happened, he thought his chum had
tumbled out while at a great height. For the tunic, turning over and
over as it sailed earthward, did resemble a falling body.
“Oh, Tom! Tom! How did it happen?” murmured Jack.
The others, laughing, told him that it was nothing serious, but Jack
looked a bit worried until the empty jacket fell on the grass and, a
little later, Tom himself came down smiling from aloft, all unaware of
the excitement he had caused.