STRIKING IT RIGHT.
How to bring about the flying assignment that would put them on the
trail of the otherwise doomed Cossack was the next problem to engage the
young aviators.
The boys well knew that aeroplane connection was being constantly
maintained between Warsaw and the center of Russian operations at Brest
Litovsk, one hundred miles east, even though numerous telegraph
instruments, in the schoolhouse there occupied as headquarters by the
mighty commander, ticked messages every minute day and night.
No weather conditions served to check modern aircraft, and hostile
wire-cutters had nothing but the laugh due them when it came to
intercepting or destroying aeroplane communication.
How much they would be compelled to tell to create an emergency for
their journey, the boys had no fixed idea.
"Let's try it first on the lieutenant," suggested Billy, "and if he
doesn't see the way, have a talk direct with Colonel Malinkoff."
"Whatever is to be done must be done at once," declared Henri.
So they jointly proceeded in search of the aviation chief.
As though a change of luck had succeeded the recent adverse fortune
assailing the lads, whom should they meet in crossing the aviation
grounds but Salisky and Marovitch, the scouts and special messengers
lately back from important mission to the front.
"Joy of my heart," was the hail of Salisky, at sight of the pilots who
had made the record flight from Petrograd, "if here isn't the salt of
the earth in two good packages."
His companion observer showed equal pleasure in greeting the lads, and
the four of them had a busy moment voicing questions and answers.
"Thought you had skipped with the Cossacks," bantered Salisky; "the big
chief of the riders put me through a regular course of sprouts in trying
to get a line on you. I knew precious little, except that you were the
right stuff and more than full hands in an aeroplane. Did he find you?"
"Not that anybody knows about," replied Billy, "but we would like to
find him just now."
"You would have a noble chance of making that discovery if you were
going with us," put in Marovitch.
"Where are you going?" was Henri's eager query.
"In two hours we will be in full sail for Brest Litovsk," announced
Salisky.
The boys each took an elbow grip on the speaker.
With one voice they cried: "Count us in on the flight, if you can!"
"Suits me all right," promptly agreed Salisky, "but it is the lieutenant
who names the pilots, and we are hunting for him now."
"He's the very man we have been looking for ourselves," said Billy, "and
we are more in a hurry than ever to get hold of him. Come along."
The aviation chief had just emerged from the house quarters of a brother
officer when the searchers surrounded him, Salisky presenting a written
order, and the boys with difficulty refraining from putting their
request in advance of the reading.
Indeed, the lieutenant had barely comprehended the text of the official
billet before Henri was talking in one ear and Billy in the other. It
was breach of discipline for which any of the veterans in the aviation
corps would have forthwith been called down, but exuberant youth could
not be denied.
The upshot of it was that the young aviators carried their point, having
the hearty endorsement of the two men directly responsible for the
success of the mission assigned to them.
"Talk about striking it right," rejoiced Billy as Henri and himself were
getting into suitable outfit for a long drive in the cold; "it certainly
seems as if our good fairy were on the job to-day."
"Maybe it was good intent that had something to do with the shaping of
this venture," added Henri. "It isn't just like we were backing this
effort with a solely selfish motive. If we have nothing to gain we might
have everything to lose."
"Come to think of it in that light," said Billy, "if we don't gain as
much as the point at which we are aiming, it is somebody else that will
lose--the Cossack will be minus his life."
A corporal was calling from the hall below, and the pilots hastened to
report themselves at the hangars where the military biplanes--the famous
No. 3's--were in trim for instant flight.
Salisky and Marovitch were ready and waiting, and at the signal from the
aviation chief the aeroplanes were off like a shot, soon to be in touch
with the directing power of the biggest army under one command in the
world's history of warfare--the Russian forces maneuvered by Grand Duke
Nicholas along a battle front of 1,500 miles.
Yet in all the legions before them the hooded pilots, holding hard to
the compass-set course of the winged cyclones, would first have eyes for
but one equestrian figure, scarlet clad, with a sleeping death coiled in
his hand.
From the observers behind them the Boy Aviators had withheld all mention
of the original incentive for this particular service--but the time was
approaching when this confidence must be extended. As well address an
Eskimo in Arabic as to trip the tongues the lads knew over the language
knowledge of Nikita, the wild horseman.
They must speak through the city-bred Muscovites with whom they were
traveling--friends in need.
The main thing was to locate immediately the man they would warn and
save, and with this end in view, a plea had been made to the observers
to give note if in the sweep of their glasses they caught the ground
picture of the crimson cavalcade.
But not once during the flight was there even a snapshot of anything
like that picture--and it must needs be a waiting game, to be finished
with the journey's end.