After following Billy and Henri in their perilous and thrilling night
ride, it has occurred that they should have first been properly
introduced and their mission in the great war zone duly explained.
Only a few weeks preceding their first adventure, as described in the
initial chapter, they were giving flying exhibitions in Texas, U. S. A.
“That’s a pair for you!” proudly remarked Colonel McCready to a little
group of soldiers and civilians intently looking skyward, marking the
swift and graceful approach through the sunlit air of a wide-winged
biplane, the very queen of the Flying Squadron.
With whirring motor stilled, the great bird for a moment hovered over
the parade ground, then glided to the earth, ran for a short distance
along the ground and stopped a few feet from the admiring circle.
“That’s a pair for you!” repeated Colonel McCready, as he reached for
the shoulders of the youth whose master hand had set the planes for the
exquisitely exact landing and gave a kindly nod to the young companion
of the pilot.
“I’ll wager,” continued the colonel delightedly, “that it was a
painless cutting of Texas air, this flight; too fast to stick anywhere.
Fifty-five miles in sixty minutes, or better, I think, and just a
couple of kids--size them up, gentlemen--Mr. William Thomas Barry and
Mr. Henri Armond Trouville.”
Billy Barry adroitly climbed out of the little cockpit behind the
rudder wheel and patiently submitted to the colonel’s hearty slaps on
the back. Billy never suffered from nerves--he never had any nerves,
only “nerve,” as his Uncle Jacob up in the land where the spruce
comes from used to say. Billy’s uncle furnished the seasoned wood for
aëroplane building, and Billy’s brother Joe was boss of the factory
where the flyers are made. Billy knew the business from the ground up,
and down, too, it might be added.
And let it be known that Henri Trouville is also a boy of some parts
in the game of flying. He loved mechanics, trained right in the shops,
and even aspired to radiotelegraphy, map making aloft, and other fine
arts of the flying profession. Henri has nerves and also nerve. He
weighs fifty pounds less than Billy, but could put the latter to his
best scuffle in a wrestling match. Both of them hustled every waking
minute--the only difference being that pay days meant more to Billy
than they did to Henri.
No brothers were ever more firmly knit than they--this hardy knot of
spruce from Maine, U. S. A., and this good young sprout from the lilies
of France.
* * * * *
There’s a pair for you!
“Say, Colonel,” said Billy, with a fine attempt at salute, “if I didn’t
know the timber in those paddles I wouldn’t have felt so gay when we
hit the cross-currents back yonder. I----”
“Yes, yes,” laughed the colonel, “you are always ready to offer a trade
argument when I want to show you off. Now you come out of your shell,
Henri, and tell us what you think of the new engine.”
“There is sure some high power in that make, sir,” replied Henri.
“Never stops, either, until you make it.”
“All you boys need,” broke in Major Packard, “is a polishing bit of
instruction in military reconnaissance, and you would be a handy aid
for the service.”
“While I am only factory broke, Major,” modestly asserted Billy, “Henri
there can draw a pretty good map on the wing, if that counts for
anything, and do the radio reporting as good as the next. What a fellow
he is, too, with an engine; he can tell by the cough in three seconds
just where the trouble is. If I was going into the scout business,
believe me, I might be able to make a hit by dropping information slips
through the card chute.”
The dark-eyed, slender Henri shook a finger at his talkative comrade.
“Spare me, old boy, if you please,” he pleaded. “Gentlemen,” turning
to the others, who were watching the housing of the aëroplane, “this
bluffer wouldn’t even speak to me when the altitude meter, a little
while ago, registered 3,000 feet. Then he had a wheel in his hands;
down here he has it in his head!”
“Bully for you, comrade,” cried Billy. “I couldn’t have come back that
neatly if I tried. But then, you know, I have to work to live, and you
only live to work.”
With this happy exchange the boys moved double quick in the direction
of quarters and the mess table.
Colonel McCready, with the others proceeding to leisurely follow the
eager food seekers, in his own peculiar style went on to say:
“There’s a couple of youngsters who have been riding a buckboard
through some fifty miles of space, several thousand feet from nowhere,
at a clip that would razzle-dazzle an eagle, and, by my soul, they act
like they had just returned from a croquet tournament!”
Our Aviator Boys had grown fearless as air riders. They had learned
just what to do in cases of emergency, in fact were trained to the
hour in cross-country flying. Rare opportunity, however, was soon to
present itself to give them a supreme test of courage and skill.
Little they reckoned, this June evening down by the Alamo, what the
near future held in store for them.