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 passed 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 pass 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 pass in their
experience before another dawn brought the grey into the eastern sky.