DON HALE
WITH THE
FLYING SQUADRON
By W. CRISPIN SHEPPARD
_Author of_
“DON HALE IN THE WAR ZONE”
“DON HALE OVER THERE”
“THE RAMBLER CLUB SERIES,” ETC.
Illustrated by H. A. BODINE
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
1919
COPYRIGHT
1919 BY
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
Don Hale with the Flying Squadron
[Illustration: He shut off the engine and dove]
Introduction
“Don Hale with the Flying Squadron” is the third of the “Don
Hale Stories.” It follows “Don Hale in the War Zone,” and “Don
Hale Over There,” and tells what happens to Don after he
relinquishes his dangerous post as an ambulance driver for the
Red Cross on the western front.
But Don’s new duties are of a far more dangerous nature; and
during his training in the aviation school and after he finally
becomes a full-fledged member of that most famous of all flying
squadrons, the Lafayette Escadrille, he has interesting
experiences and enough exciting adventures to last even the most
spirited youngster an entire lifetime.
It may be safely said, however, that the account is not
overdrawn; indeed, in the air service, in which most valiant
deeds have been performed, it would be hard to exaggerate the
perils which beset the “cavalry of the clouds” on every side.
To add to the interest of Don’s experiences with the escadrille
there is a certain mystery connected with several characters
which is not solved until the end of the story.
In the next book of the series, “Don Hale with the Yanks,” is
told the further adventures of the young combat pilot after he
has been transferred to the American air service. He sees much
of that memorable conflict—one of the turning points of the
great war—when, at Chateau Thierry, the German drive for Paris
was halted by the victorious Americans.
W. Crispin Sheppard.
CONTENTS
I—THE GREENHORN
II—NEW COMRADES
III—SPIES
IV—“PENGUINS”
V—TRAINING
VI—DUBLIN DAN
VII—THE VRILLE
VIII—THE HERO
IX—THE ACE
X—CORPORAL DON
XI—THE LAFAYETTE
XII—ABOVE THE CLOUDS
XIII—THE FARMER
XIV—THE BOMBARDMENT
XV—A BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS
XVI—THE EMPTY HOUSE
XVII—A MYSTERY
XVIII—THE RED SQUADRON
XIX—THE PERILOUS GAME
XX—HAMLIN
XXI—THE ARREST
XXII—THE TRIAL
Illustrations
He Shut Off the Engine And Dove
“Spies Are Everywhere”
“There Are Other Games Just As Dangerous”
“The German Lines Must Not Be Crossed”
His Passage Was Unexpectedly Blocked
Don Hale With the Flying Squadron
CHAPTER I—THE GREENHORN
A rickety-looking cab, containing two passengers and much luggage, and
driven by a gray-haired _cocher_, drew slowly up to a high iron gate and
came to a halt. And the wheels had scarcely stopped before two young
chaps, with exclamations of deep satisfaction and relief, literally
tumbled out of the ancient vehicle and stared about them.
“Well, Don, here we are at last!” cried the elder.
“Yes, George. And this is certainly one of the greatest moments of my
life. Tomorrow I start my training to become a pilot,” exclaimed the
other, such a degree of enthusiasm expressed in his tone as to make the
wrinkled cab driver turn, survey him with a curious grin, and comment in
the French tongue:
“I guess that’s the way most of them act until something happens.”
But the boys scarcely heard him.
Surmounting the iron gate, inside of which an armed sentry was slowly
pacing, this inscription in large, bold letters, stood out against the
sky:
“ÉCOLE D’AVIATION MILITAIRE DE BEAUMONT.”
“I certainly hope the Boches won’t get you, young monsieur,” continued
the driver. “But, if you don’t mind, I’d be glad if you’d will your life
insurance to me.”
“I’ll think about it,” laughed the boy. He deposited several pieces of
silver in the palm of the hand held toward him, then began the task of
getting his luggage off the vehicle. By the time this was done the
sentry had opened the great iron gate.
With a hasty good-bye, the boys turned toward the soldier and producing
several important-looking papers handed them to him.
And while the proceeding was underway this series of comments passed
between five young men, attired in the horizon blue uniform of the
French poilu, who were strolling inside the great enclosure not far
away:
“Well, well! What have we here?”
“No doubt a couple more pilots.”
“But, if I’m not mistaken, one of them is actually wearing the stars and
wings insignia of the air service on his uniform. He’s a corporal.”
“So he is! Such a young chap, too!—looks, for all the world, like a
high-school boy on his way home from the place of demerit marks and
ciphers.”
“Let’s give ’em the grand quiz.”
It took the sentry only an instant to scan the papers and nod his head
in approval, and another instant for the newcomers to gather up their
possessions and head for the group of five.
“Step up and give your names, boys.” The speaker was a tall, angular
youth with bushy red hair and twinkling blue eyes.
“Don Hale,” answered one of the newcomers.
“George Glenn,” replied the other.
“Of the Lafayette Squadron?”
“Exactly! And on a couple of days’ furlough.”
And one of the natural but not very agreeable ways of the world was
exemplified then and there; for Don Hale, the prospective student of the
great military flying school, immediately found his presence totally
ignored, while his companion, member of the most famous escadrille of
the aviation service, began to receive the homage and admiration due to
one who had attained such an exalted position in life. To be a member of
the Lafayette Flying Corps was indeed a signal honor—an honor coveted
above all things by the majority of the American aviation students.
Don Hale, smiling a little to himself, thereupon seized the opportunity
to examine the view outspread before him.
And what the boy saw made him draw a deep, long breath, like one who has
just experienced a feeling of vast satisfaction and pleasure. It was an
immense level field, or rather a series of fields. Far in the distance
long rows of low canvas hangars and tents stood out in faint gray tones
against the background of earth and sky. Nearer at hand were lines of
rather dingy-looking wooden structures—the barracks—and isolated
buildings used for various purposes, while dominating all rose a tall
and graceful wireless mast.
Far more interesting to the American lad, however, was the sight of
several airplanes performing evolutions in the distant sky. The sun had
descended in the west and its cheerful rays no longer touched the earth,
but every now and again one or another of the graceful flying machines
caught the glow, and, as if touched by a fairy’s wand, became
transformed for the moment into a flashing object of silver and gold.
Don Hale felt his pulse quicken. How wonderful it was to be up in the
heavens, soaring with all the ease, the grace, the certainty of a huge
bird of the air! It made him long for the time to come when he, too,
would have his ambition fulfilled! Presently a deep gruff voice broke in
upon his meditations.
“Better come down to earth, son.”
The red-headed chap had spoken.
“Sure thing!” laughed the new student. “What’s that, sir—my last job,
you ask? Oh, driving a Red Cross ambulance near the Verdun front.”
“I must say we seem to have met a couple of real heroes,” chuckled the
other. “And now, to show you that I haven’t forgotten my Fifth Avenue
manners, I’ll introduce these would-be flyers, most of whom as yet
haven’t risen above the grasshopper stage of the game.”
Thereupon, with many chuckles, he presented Gene Shannon, Cal Cummings,
Ben Holt and Roy Mittengale, adding that his own name was Tom Dorsey.
“Glad to know you all!” declared Don Hale, heartily.
“So am I,” exclaimed George.
“Very gratifying indeed, I’m sure!” laughed Dorsey. “We all hope that
later on some people about whom we are hearing a whole lot won’t be so
glad to meet us.”
“Oh, you coming aces!” grinned Ben Holt.
“Hooray, hooray, for the future cannon-flying express!” chuckled
Mittengale. Then, turning toward Don, he said: “I suppose that the day
you didn’t run into at least a half dozen or so hair-breadth escapes
must have seemed like a pretty dull one?”
“I had all the close calls I wanted,” confessed the former ambulance
driver.
“And yet you are now going in for something which at times ought to make
that Red Cross work look like little rides of joy. Ever take a spin in a
plane?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, boy! There’s some job ahead of you, then.” Mittengale laughed.
“You’ll have to get right down to business.”
“You can just better believe I will!” declared Don, enthusiastically.
“I’m mighty anxious for the time to arrive when I can go up to
business.”
“It may never come,” suggested Ben Holt. “’Tisn’t everybody who is
fitted to be an airman. One or two bad spills—an airplane ready for the
scrap pile, or a student now and then killed on the training field, and
it’s all off with some!”
“If you don’t look out, Holt, we’ll elect you chairman and sole member
of our committee on pessimism,” laughed Dorsey. “Say, son,”—he
addressed Don—“I suppose you have all your papers?”
“Yes, and owing to my father having been a member of a Franco-American
aviation corps I didn’t have much trouble in getting them,” returned
Don. “He’s now an instructor in an American aviation school.”
“What did they do to you? I’d like to know if your experiences were like
my own.”
“Well, here’s the story,” laughed the new _élève_[1] pilot. “I hoofed it
to the recruiting office, which is located in the Invalides at Paris,
filled out a questionnaire, signed a document requiring me to obey the
military laws of France and be governed and punished thereby; then,
after that agony was over, the medical man took me in charge. I just had
to show him that I was able to balance myself on one foot with eyes
closed, jump straight up from a kneeling position, and also walk a
straight line after having been whirled around and around on a revolving
stool until all the joy in life seemed to have gone.”
[Illustration: “Spies are Everywhere”]
“Ugh!” grunted Dorsey. “The very recollection of that ordeal makes me
wish to recollect something else.”
“The kind of air-sickness you get by the unearthly dips and twists of an
airplane has sea-sickness beaten to a frazzle,” commented Ben Holt,
pleasantly.
“Then I’m not anxious to make its acquaintance,” grinned Don. “I had a
few nerve tests, too, made in a pitch-dark room, which weren’t
altogether pleasant. Among other things, a revolver was unexpectedly
fired several times close beside me.”
“It’s tough, how they treat a perfectly respectable chap,” chirped Cal
Cummings.
“My, what a relief it was to receive a service order requiring me to
report to the headquarters of the Flying Corps of Dijon!”
“That’s an old story with us,” drawled Mittengale. “Once there, you had
to answer a lot more questions. Then you paid a visit to the ‘Vestiare,’
where the soldiers are outfitted. A uniform, shoes, socks, overcoat, hat
and knapsack were passed out, and thereby, and also perforce, another
chapter added to your brief but eventful history.”
“Besides all that, I received a railroad pass to come here, and also
three sous, representing that many days’ pay,” chuckled the new
candidate. “The salary I’ve already squandered,” he confessed, with a
grin.
“Awful! The French Government should be told about it,” exclaimed Gene
Shannon, laughingly. “But now, son, perhaps you would like to begin a
new chapter by paying the captain a very necessary call?”
“To be sure!” said Don.
He stooped over, preparatory to gathering up his belongings, when
Shannon stopped him.
“Leave the department store there, Don,” he remarked. “We’ll send some
of the Annamites over to wrestle with ’em. Now come along.”
The “Annamites,” both Don and George knew, were the little
yellow-skinned Indo-Chinese, who had journeyed from far-off Asia to give
their services to the French Government.
Led by Tom Dorsey, the crowd began to pilot the new student and his chum
toward headquarters. To Don Hale it was all wonderfully interesting. The
boy was filled with that eager curiosity and anticipation which is one
of the glorious possessions of youth. A new life—indeed a startlingly
strange life, would soon be opening out before him—one that held vast
possibilities, and also terrifying dangers. Whither would it lead him?
“I say, young chap”—Ben Holt’s voice broke in upon his
thoughts—“you’ve got to mind your eye in this place. No talking back to
officers; no overstaying your leave, eh, Monsieur Nightingale?”
“Oh, cut it out!” snapped Mittengale.
“Yes, there’s a chap who knows!” Holt chuckled. “One day Roy thought
he’d enjoy a few extra hours in Paree—result: a nice little chamber two
stories underground; a rattling good wooden bench, but uncommonly hard,
as a bed; a bottle of water for company and eight days of delightful
idleness, to meditate upon the inconsiderate ways of military men.”
“It was well worth it,” growled Mittengale. “Some tender-hearted chaps
smuggled in paper and I wrote sixty-four pages of my book entitled ‘Life
and Adventures of an Airman in France!’”
“An airman in France!” snickered Ben. “There’s nerve for you! Why, he
hasn’t even been above the three hundred foot level yet.”
“Well, that’s just about two hundred and seventy-five feet higher than
your best record,” retorted Mittengale, witheringly. “Don’t talk, you
poor little grasshop.”
Don Hale paid no attention to these pleasantries, for, at that moment,
one of the distant machines circling aloft, now dusky, gray objects,
sometimes but faintly visible in the darkening sky, began to volplane.
Down, down, came the biplane, in wide and graceful spirals, toward the
earth. A few more turns and the wings were silhouetted faintly for the
last time against the sky; another instant and they cut across the turf
in still swiftly moving lines of grayish white.
“Good work, that!” cried Don, breathlessly.
“Fine!” agreed George.
“Won’t I be jolly glad when I can manage a machine like that!” Don
happened to glance at his chum’s face, and was surprised to see a swift,
subtle change come across it, an almost sad expression taking the place
of his usual buoyant look. “What’s the matter, old chap?”
“I was thinking what a dangerous life you are about to begin, Don. As
some of the boys in the squadron say: ‘Death is often carried as a
passenger by the airman.’”
“And you engaged in the very same work yourself!” laughed Don. “There’s
consistency for you! I understand, though, just how you feel about it,
George. Honestly, at times, I’ve worried a whole lot about you. But”—a
determined light flashed into his eyes—“we must ‘carry on’ the big job
before us.”
“That’s the way to look at it,” acquiesced George, heartily. “You have a
cool head and steady nerves, Don; and you’ll be called upon to use all
your wits, all your courage and resourcefulness, as never before in the
whole course of your life. Great adventures are ahead!”
“Better wait until he gets out of the ground-class before talking that
way,” grinned Ben Holt, dryly.
“Don’t discourage the infant class, Holt,” put in Dorsey. “Now, boys
”—he turned to face Don and George—“that good-sized building you spy
just across the field is the headquarters of the captain and
moniteurs—teachers we call ’em in the good old lingo of the United
States. By the way, know much French?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Don.
“Good! Frankly speaking, some of these chaps here do not.” Dorsey
chuckled mirthfully. “Their efforts sound weird and wild. And sometimes
it has the effect of making the moniteurs act wildly and weirdly.”
“The idea of Dorsey talking about French!” scoffed Ben Holt. “Why, he
can’t even speak English. An Englishman’s the authority for that.”
“One’s shortcomings should never be mentioned in polite society,”
grinned Tom. “And now, Don, while you’re over there parleying the
parlez-vous we’ll get a bunch of the Oriental Wrecking Crew, the
Annamites, to lift your traps.”
“As a rule, I rather object to having my things lifted,” laughed Don.
“But this time it’s all right.”
“You’ll find our crowd, with a few additions equally handsome, in the
big barracks—the third from the end. Now scoot.”
While Don and George didn’t exactly “scoot,” they nevertheless
immediately left the group and made good time toward the building
indicated. Within a few minutes they entered and were conducted by an
orderly to the captain’s sanctum.
If Don had expected any effusive greeting or words of commendation for
his willingness to give his services to aid the cause of France he would
have been greatly disappointed. The captain, very alert and
authoritative in manner, greeted the two boys in a casual, disinterested
sort of way, and examined Don’s papers.
Then came the usual number of formalities and an order to report to the
sergeant on the aviation field on the following morning.
Don Hale was now duly enrolled as an _élève_, or student pilot, in one
of the most important of the great Bleriot flying schools in France.
-----
Footnote 1:
Élève—pupil.