Tom landed from a slowly crawling military train at a place some miles
behind the actual battleline and far west of the sector in which his
division had been fighting for a month. This division was in a great
rest camp; but Tom did not want rest. He craved excitement--something
new.
In a few hours an automobile which he shared with a free-lance newspaper
man brought him to a town which had been already bombarded half a dozen
times since Von Kluck's forced retreat after the first advance on Paris.
As Tom walked out to the aviation field, where Ralph Stillinger's letter
had advised his friend he was to be found, all along the streets the
American captain saw posters announcing _Cave Voûteé_ with the number of
persons to be accommodated in these places of refuge, such number
ranging from fifteen to sixty.
The bomb-proof cellars were protected by sandbags and were conveniently
located so that people might easily find shelter whenever the German
Fokkers or _Tauben_ appeared. Naturally, as the town was so near the
aviation field, it was bound to be a mark for the Hun bombing planes.
Sentinels were posted at every street corner. There were three of the
anti-aircraft .75's set up in the town. Just outside the place were the
camps of three flying escadrilles, side by side. One of these was the
American squadron to which Ralph Stillinger, Tom's friend, was attached.
Each camp of the airmen looked to Tom, when he drew near, like the
"pitch" of a road show. With each camp were ten or twelve covered
motor-trucks with their tentlike trailers, and three automobiles for the
use of the officers and pilots.
Tom had not realized before what the personnel of each _équipé_ was
like. There were a dozen artillery observers; seven pilots; two
mechanicians to take care of each airplane, besides others for general
repair work; and chauffeurs, orderlies, servants, wireless operators,
photographers and other attachés--one hundred and twenty-five men in all.
Tom Cameron's appearance was hailed with delight by several men who had
known him at college. Not all of his class had gone to the Plattsburg
officer's training camp. Several were here with Ralph Stillinger, the
one ace in this squadron.
"You may see some real stuff if you can stay a day or two," they told
the young captain of infantry.
"I suppose if there is a fight I'll see it from the ground," returned
Tom. "Thanks! I've seen plenty of air-fights from the trenches. I want
something better than that. Ralph said he'd take me up."
"Don't grouch too soon, young fellow," said Stillinger, laughing. "We're
thirty miles or so from the present front. But in this new, swift
machine of mine (it's one of the first from home, with a liberty motor)
we can jump into any ruction Fritzie starts over the lines in something
like fifteen minutes. I'll joyride you, Tommy, if nothing happens,
to-morrow."
It was not altogether as easily arranged as that. Permission had to be
obtained for Ralph to take his friend up. The commander of the squadron
had no special orders for the next day. He agreed that Ralph might go up
with his passenger early in the morning, unless something interfered.
The young men were rather late turning in, for "the crowd" got together
to swap experiences; it seemed to Tom as though he had scarcely closed
his eyes when an orderly shook him and told him that Lieutenant
Stillinger was waiting for him out by Number Four hangar--wherever that
might be.
Tom crept out, yawning. He dressed, and as he passed the kitchen a
bare-armed cook thrust a huge mug of coffee and a sandwich into his
hands.
"If you're going up in the air, Captain, you'll be peckish," the man
said. "Get around that, sir."
Tom did so, gratefully. Then he stumbled out into the dark field, for
there were no lights allowed because of the possibility of lurking Huns
in the sky. He ran into the orderly, the man who had awakened him, who
was coming back to see where he was. The orderly led Tom to the spot
where Stillinger and the mechanician were tuning up the machine.
"Didn't know but you'd backed out," chuckled the flying man.
"Your grandmother!" retorted Tom cheerfully. "I stopped for a bite and a
mug of coffee."
"You haven't been eating enough to overload the machine, have you?"
asked Stillinger. "I don't want to zoom the old girl. The motor shakes
her bad enough, as it is."
"Come again!" exclaimed Tom. "What's the meaning of 'zoom'?"
"Overstrain. Putting too much on her. Oh, there is a new language to
learn if you are going to be a flying man."
"I'm not sure I want to be a flying man," said Tom. "This is merely a
try-out. Just tell me what to look out for and when to jump."
"Don't jump," warned Stillinger. "Nothing doing that way. Loss of
speed--_perte de vitesse_ the French call it--is the most common accident
that can happen when one is up in the air in one of these planes. But
even if that occurs, old man, take my advice and _stick_. You'll be
altogether too high up for a safe jump, believe me!"
They got under way with scarcely any jar, and with tail properly
elevated the airplane was aimed by Ralph Stillinger for the upper
reaches of the air. They went up rather steeply; but the ace was not
"zooming"; he knew his machine.
There is too much noise in an airship to favor conversation. Gestures
between the pilot and the observation man, or the photographer, usually
have to do duty for speech. Nor is there much happening to breed
discussion. The pilot's mind must be strictly on the business of guiding
his machine.
With a wave of his hand Stillinger called Tom's attention to the
far-flung horizon. Trees at their feet were like weeds and the roads and
waterways like streamers of crinkled tape. The earth was just a blur of
colors--browns and grays, with misty blues in the distance. The human eye
unaided could not distinguish many objects as far as the prospect spread
before their vision. But of a sudden Tom Cameron realized that that mass
of blurred blue so far to the westward, and toward which they were
darting, must be the sea.
The airplane mounted, and mounted higher. The recording barometer which
Tom could easily read from where he sat, reached the two-thousand mark.
His eyes were shining now through the mask which he wore. His first
perturbation had passed and he began actually to enjoy himself.
This time of dawn was as safe as any hour for a flight. It is near
mid-day when the heat of the sun causes those disturbances in the upper
atmosphere strata that the French pilots call _remous_, meaning actually
"whirlpools." Yet these phenomena can be met at almost any hour.
The machine had gathered speed now. She shook terrifically under the
throbbing of the heavy motor--a motor which was later found to be too
powerful for the two-seated airplanes.
At fifty miles an hour they rushed westward. Tom was cool now. He was
enjoying the new experience. This would be something to tell the girls
about. He would wire Ruth that he had made the trip in safety, and she
would get the message before she went aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, at
Brest.
Why, Brest was right over there--somewhere! Vaguely he could mark the
curve of miles upon miles of the French coast. What a height this was!
And then suddenly the airplane struck a whirlpool and dropped about
fifty feet with all the unexpectedness of a similar fall in an express
elevator. She halted abruptly and with an awful shock that set her to
shivering and rolling like a ship in a heavy sea.
Tom was all but jolted out of his seat; but the belt held him. He
turned, open-mouthed, upon his friend the pilot. But before he could
yell a question the airplane shot up again till it struck the solid air.
"My heavens!" shouted Tom at last. "What do you call _that_?"
"Real flying!" shouted Stillinger in return. "How do you like it?"
Tom had no ready reply. He was not sure that he liked it at all! But it
certainly was a new experience.