THE PROWLERS
THE officer must have thought there was a great attraction over at the
field hospital for certain members of his air squadron, considering the
frequency of the calls upon him for permission to visit there.
However, he granted the request without hesitation, though Jack thought
there was a quizzical gleam in his eyes as he turned and took a good
look at the younger of the "friends" whom the lad said he wished to
pilot to her temporary quarters.
Besides, the two Air Service boys happened to be prime favorites of his,
and consequently he was in a humor to go far out of his way to grant any
reasonable request either of them might make.
So presently they were seated once more in the ambulance along with the
nurses and heading for the spot where the humble sheds and tents stood
which constituted the American field hospital in that sector of the
Argonne.
"Now tell me all that's happened since I saw you last, Jack," demanded
Bessie, with a little show of authority that amused, yes, and also
pleased the other; for boys like to be domineered over at times by a
pretty tyrant.
"Couldn't begin to do it in this little ride, Bessie," he assured her.
"But I'll take the first chance I can find to spin the whole yarn."
"I'm certain you boys have been carrying on up here with your usual
rashness," she told him. "I've had my heart in my throat, so to speak,
every day, when the news would filter in from our front, together with a
partial list of the lost, for fear I'd see one of your names there. And
when some particularly daring feat of a Yankee air pilot was mentioned I
could just picture you or Tom as the hero."
At that Jack laughed, although feeling highly complimented.
"Thank you, Bessie, for being such a fine little champion!" he
exclaimed. "But we don't claim to be the equal of a lot of the clever
aces now strafing the Boche along our American sector. Of course we meet
with our little adventures in the course of our daily work; but they've
been mere trifles beside some of the fine things others of the boys have
done."
"Well," Bessie told him, "knowing you as I do, Jack, I wouldn't accept
your judgment in the matter. Your friends are better able to decide
that."
"Here we are already at the hospital," put in Mrs. Gleason. "I couldn't
write to Nellie just when we were coming, for that depended on when we
could get transportation. But she had told me she could put us up
temporarily until we found quarters with the Y. M. C. A. outfit. She
will be surprised to see us, and I hope pleased, too."
"I warrant you she will be delighted," asserted Jack confidently.
Great was the surprise of Nellie and Tom when Jack and the Gleasons
burst upon them. Harry was at another part of the temporary makeshift
building talking to an orderly at the time.
Such subdued chattering as followed. Jack, seeing that Bessie and Mrs.
Gleason were very tired, did not mean to linger long. Bessie would
probably speedily take up her duties at the hut, and consequently he
could see her every evening if he chose.
So the three boys a little later on once more turned their faces in the
direction of the camp. As they walked along they found much to talk
about, although it might have been noticed that Tom and Harry did most
of the exchanging of opinions, Jack seemingly being too much engrossed
with his thoughts, a fact that caused the others to pass many a
significant glance back and forth.
It chanced that some question arose, bringing out quite a warm
discussion concerning a certain appliance which Harry was trying out on
his battleplane, and of which a friend was the inventor.
"I've tested it twice now, Tom, and no matter what you say I believe it
will do the business," Harry stoutly affirmed.
"That may be," Tom answered him. "Mind I'm not stubborn enough to
condemn a thing I don't quite understand; but I'd want to be shown
before I owned up beaten in the argument. Somehow, it doesn't seem
possible to me that it can work."
"That's what they all told Columbus before he started on his trip into
that unknown western sea," jeered Harry. "Poor old Fulton, too, was
laughed at when he said he could make a boat go through the water
without sails or oars. And what of Morse sending telegrams hundreds of
miles by using a wire and a battery?"
"Oh, I know that's so," retorted Tom, unwilling to back down. "But I
refuse to believe this will work automatically without ever a hitch. An
air pilot's life hangs in the balance, and if it fails to make
connections it's good-night for him."
"I warrant I can convince you inside of five minutes after you've
examined the contrivance!"
"All right then, I'll take you up on that."
"When will you go to my hangar with me?" demanded the other, at which
Tom laughingly answered:
"Any time you say--right away, if you feel like it. I'm a firm believer
in the old saying, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do
to-day.' Besides, Harry, I admit that you've got my curiosity aroused."
"Call it a bargain, then!" snapped the other, not to be outdone. "Won't
take twenty minutes in all, and perhaps I can give you something to
sleep over."
"Seems to me," Jack remarked, with a yawn, "you fellows are bound to
keep on the go all night long. What with that raid, and our chase after
the Hun, then the trip to the field hospital for various purposes, and
now back once more to the hangars, just to settle a disputed question,
you're keeping things moving pretty well."
"Oh, well," remarked Tom, "you can climb into your little bed, such as
it is in these strenuous days, Jack--and dream."
Jack did not reply. Perhaps he considered that it would be wise not to
appear to notice these sly thrusts on the part of his chum. Perhaps he
did not care who noticed that he and Bessie were such good friends.
So when they arrived in camp he turned aside to seek his sleeping place
under a khaki-colored tent, while the other boys continued along the
trail leading to the field of the hangars, which had so recently been
the objective of the Boche bombing raid.
It took the boys considerably longer to pass from one to the other place
than on the occasion of their last trip; but then the night now was
comparatively quiet, and no hostile squadron hovered overhead to drop
terrible engines of destruction from the sky and arouse a furious
bombardment in return, from the batteries of anti-aircraft guns below.
Harry was still feeling ugly toward the enemy who could show such
disregard for all the accepted rules of civilized warfare. He continued
to vent these feelings as he walked along, unable to get it out of his
mind. But this could be understood since he had a sister in an exposed
hospital, whose life was in danger from the barbaric acts of the Hun
fliers.
"They seem nowadays to take a savage delight in bombing hospitals, and
then finding all sorts of excuses for doing such a thing," he told Tom.
"I declare, they put me in mind of a cruel wolf more than anything
else."
"On my part," his companion immediately asserted, "I'd liken them to a
mad dog, snapping and snarling as he runs along the street, but it shows
how desperate they feel their cause to be."
"Guess you're right, Tom. I humbly apologize to the wolf," chuckled the
other quickly. "He's had a bad name out West, but on the whole those
cow-punchers must call him a clean fighter alongside some of these
Huns."
"Well, here we are at the field," observed Tom. "Now I'm waiting to be
shown, if I'm not from Missouri. And, Harry, understand that I'm open to
conviction. If I find that you've got something wonderful here, I'll
frankly acknowledge the fact, and eat humble pie."
"I know you will. That's why I'm so eager to show you what a fine thing
my friend Jason has got up in this little trick. My hangar lies over
this way. Come along and----"
Harry stopped in the middle of the sentence, stopped walking too, and
laid a hand on his companion's arm.
"What did you see?" asked Tom in a whisper; for somehow he sensed the
fact that Harry had made some sort of discovery calculated to thrill
them both.
"Stand still, Tom!" hissed the other. "I didn't like the way that chap
dodged down over there. Couldn't have been one of the guards, for they
stick to their posts. I wonder now if one of those Boche planes dropped
a spy close to our field here!"
The idea was in line with Tom's reasoning. According to his mind the
Germans were getting desperate, and ready to attempt the rashest of
enterprises in the hope of checking this daily advance of the Yankees
under Pershing.
As much of the success of the latter depended on the work of their
flying squads in discovering the hidden machine-gun nests, and betraying
their position to the gunners, it stood to reason that the Germans felt
an ever growing hatred toward the airmen. Hence that night raid which
had been so neatly parried. Yes, Tom could easily believe what his
comrade suggested.
"Show me where you saw the sneak, Harry," he pleaded, as they continued
to crouch in the semi-gloom; for after that recent attack from the skies
almost every light about the aviation field had been extinguished, and
they felt obliged to depend on the stars to show them where the various
hangars lay.
"Notice that extra high hangar over there," came the soft reply. "That's
Beresford's, you know, where he keeps his monster four-man plane. The
Huns may have got wind of something unusual, and are plotting to destroy
his jumbo aircraft before he smothers them in a fight. There, did you
see that again?"
"It was a man slipping across from one shadow to another, as sure as
anything," breathlessly admitted the second watcher.
"No fellow would act that way unless he wanted to keep from being seen,
would he?" asked Harry.
"You're right there. Oh! I saw a second one follow him then, Harry!"
"Yes, there's a pair of the creepers. That makes me believe more than
ever they were aboard one of those bombing planes, Tom."
"It might be they fell when one of the Hun raiding planes was knocked
out," suggested the other, as an idea struck him. "Only one went down in
flames, I remember now. Those in the other may have managed to make a
safe landing, and bent on hitting us a crack before trying to get back
to their lines, they've crept into the camp here."
"Carrying some grenades, I'd like to wager, which they can use in
kicking up a big row, under cover of which they'll scoot off," Harry
went on.
"We must put a peg in their plans then," whispered Tom. "It'd be a shame
to let them do what their pilots failed in, and blow up a part of our
hangar field here."
"If they do they'll go up with the planes then!" Harry gritted between
his set teeth. "Come, let's move on and corner the Huns!"
This suited Tom. Discretion might have caused them to alarm the camp and
in this way cause the prowlers to disappear. But ambition, on the other
hand, had fired the hearts of the two boys. They saw an opportunity to
get in a telling blow by capturing those two spies. It was a chance to
gain a little fresh glory, as well as to protect the monster plane of
Beresford.
Accordingly they commenced to move forward, bending low and taking
advantage of every dense shadow that came in their way. Their objective
was the hangar that afforded shelter during the night to the novel and
as yet untried monster plane, of which so much was expected, and rumors
concerning which might have even sifted into the enemy lines.
Of course both Tom and Harry were keenly on the alert for the first
fresh sign of the prowling enemy, whose designs they had set out to
balk. Very probably the Huns would resist desperately, and there might
be a fight. Tom felt his heart beat tumultuously, but such a thing as
fear did not enter into his calculations.