THE STRANGE WARNING
"Open it, Jack, and see what the message is," urged Tom, as his chum
stood with the scrap of damp paper held between his fingers, having
allowed the sagging little toy balloon to fall at his feet.
Jack was thinking just at that moment of the other message his companion
and he had found attached to the homing pigeon. But of course they could
not possibly have any sort of connection!
He opened the small bit of paper. It had some writing in lead pencil.
Once it had doubtless been plain enough, but the dampness must have
caused it to become faint. Still, Jack could make it out without much
difficulty. This was what he read aloud, so that Tom and the other pilot
could hear:
"_Look carefully to your planes; examine every part. There is
treachery in the air!_"
"That's all, fellows," said Jack, much puzzled, as he turned the paper
over and over, looking for some signature.
"No name attached, Jack?" asked his chum.
"Nothing whatever to tell who wrote that warning. Here, take a look at
it, Tom. Your eyes may be sharper than mine and see something I've
missed."
But Tom and the other pilot both failed to throw any light on the matter
after examining the paper thoroughly. They exchanged stares. Then Jack
laughed, a little queerly.
"This is certainly a mystery," he went on to say, trying to take the
thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then
neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the
escadrille could be up to a prank?"
Tom shook his head. The other pilot also exhibited positive signs of
doubt in connection with such a thing.
"The boys often have their little jokes, and we are a merry bunch much
of the time, just to change off from the nervous strain we're living
under," the man observed. "But I'm sure not one of them would dream of
doing a thing like this. It would be a mean trick."
"Then both of you are inclined to believe this warning was meant in all
seriousness, are you?" continued Jack, no longer grinning as before.
"Yes, I do," Tom instantly announced. "It seems a bit childish, sending
it in such a queer fashion; but then perhaps it was the only way open to
the person. There was one chance in ten that it would be found; but you
know sometimes we can't choose our way of doing things, but must
accommodate ourselves to circumstances. This toy balloon being handy
suggested a possible way of getting the warning to you, Jack."
"But why me any more than you, Tom, or any other fellow in the
escadrille?" continued Jack, sorely bewildered.
"That's something we can only guess at," he was told. "Evidently this
person had your name, and knew you were working here with the Lafayette
boys. Try to think of some one you may have done something for to make
him feel grateful to you. Could it have been that boyish-looking German
prisoner we talked with the other day, and for whom you bound up a badly
damaged arm, Jack?"
"Oh! that boy!" exclaimed the other, and then shook his head. "No, it's
impossible. You see the poor chap could hardly talk halfway decent
English, and I'm sure he never could write my name like this. Besides,
Tom," Jack went on triumphantly, "I never bothered to mention to him
that I had a name. To him I was simply an American flying for France."
"Anybody else you can think of?" persisted Tom, for it seemed to him
that it meant considerable to try to discover who had sent the message
by such a strange channel.
Jack pondered. Then all at once he looked up with a light in his eyes.
"You've thought of something!" exclaimed the other pilot eagerly.
"Well, it might be possible, although I hardly believe she'd be the one
to go to such trouble. Still, she had children, she told me, at her home
in Lorraine, back of Metz; and this is a child's toy, this little
hot-air balloon."
"Do you mean that woman you assisted a week or so ago? Mrs. Neumann?"
asked Tom, quickly.
"Yes, it was only a little thing I was able to do for her, but she
seemed grateful, and said she hoped some day to be in a position to
repay the favor. Then later on I learned she had secured permission to
cross over to the German lines, in order to get to her family. She is a
widow with six children, you know, a native of Lorraine, and caught by
accident in one of the sudden furious rushes of the French, so that she
had been carried back with them when they retreated. At the time she had
been serving as a Red Cross nurse among the Germans. It was on that
account the French allowed her to return to her family. They are very
courteous, these French."
Tom was listening. He nodded his head as though it seemed promising at
least.
"Let's figure it out," he mused. "Which way was the wind coming from
last night, do either of you happen to know?"
"Almost from the north," the other aviator instantly responded. "I
chanced to notice that fact, for other reasons. But then it was almost
still, so the little balloon could not have drifted many miles before
the heavy atmosphere dragged it down until finally it landed in the
field."
"Well, that settles one thing," asserted Tom. "It came from back of the
German lines, don't you see?"
"Yes, that seems probable," admitted Jack.
"Your unknown friend was there at the time," continued Tom, in his
lawyer-like way, following up the trail he had started; "and hence
apparently in a position to know that some sort of plot was being
engineered against one Jack Parmly. Don't ask me why _you_ should
be selected for any rank treachery, because I don't know."
"And this person, this unknown friend of mine," Jack added, "wishing to
warn me so that I might not meet a bad end to-day, sent out this message
in the hope that it might fall back of our lines and be picked up. Tom,
it makes me have a queer feeling. I almost think I must be asleep and
dreaming."
"No, it's real enough. We may never know who the writer of this note is;
but we can heed the warning just the same, and go over to examine our
planes minutely. Whoever it was, spelled your name correctly. I've
studied the writing, but it seems to be assumed, and clumsy. There was a
reason for that too, as well as the writer failing to sign a name."
"What sort of reason?" queried Jack.
"Fear that in some way the message, and the balloon, might fall into
German hands and lead to unpleasant results," Tom continued. "We know
about how those Huns would serve any one who tried to spoil their plans.
They believe in frightfulness every time, and it might mean death to the
writer. This she evidently knew full well."
"Just why do you say 'she' when you speak of the writer?"
"Oh, I have an idea that Mrs. Neumann may be the mysterious friend who
is taking such desperate chances to send you a warning. Anyway,
something about it seems to say it isn't a man's handwriting. Besides,
neither of you may have noticed it, but there's a faint odor, as of
perfume, adheres to that bit of paper, though the dampness has taken it
almost all out."
Jack looked astonished at such shrewd reasoning.
"Well, you are certainly a wonder at seeing through things, Tom," he
hastened to say. "And so of course that settles it in my mind. Mrs.
Neumann sent this message to me; though how she could have learned that
there was anything treacherous going on beats my powers of reasoning."
"But don't you think it would pay to learn if there's any truth about it
all?" asked the other pilot, whose curiosity had been stirred up by such
a strange happening.
"Yes, let's all go over to the hangars and have the planes out for a
regular inspection," said Tom. "If mischief has been done the chances
are it would be in a part not usually examined by the mechanician before
a flight. Then again the damage, if there is any, might be so covered up
by the shrewd schemer that it would not be noticeable."
There were always cars going to and fro, for pilots came and went from
time to time; so the trio quickly found themselves being whirled along
over the road so often traveled in their daily work.
"How about that fellow they chased late yesterday afternoon, who was
loitering about the hangars and acting in a suspicious way?" asked the
friendly pilot, as they rode along. "More than a few of the fellows say
he must have been a spy, and up to some mischief, because he slipped off
so slickly."
"I had him in mind all the while," said Tom. "And if any mischief has
been done, of course we can lay it at his door; though just how he
managed to work we'll perhaps never know."
"I caught sight of him, too," Jack remarked; "and I only wish now I'd
had a good look at the chap who owned those pigeons to-day, so as to
tell if they were one and the same, which I believe to be a fact."
Just then Tom gave his chum a kick with the toe of his shoe. This
suddenly reminded Jack that he was treading on forbidden ground, since
they had resolved not to say anything to a third person concerning the
adventure of that afternoon.
The other member of the escadrille was looking interested. He understood
that Tom and Jack must have met with some singular adventure; but since
they did not see fit to take him into their confidence he was too polite
to ask questions, feeling there must be a good reason for their silence.
Presently they arrived at the hangars. It was now almost sunset. The
fliers were coming down one by one, their labor for the day having been
accomplished. It had been a pretty arduous day, too, and two members of
the escadrille had new honors coming to them, since they had dropped
enemy planes in full view of tens of thousands of cheering spectators,
after thrilling combats high in the air.
One had also passed through an experience that few aviators can look
back to. He had started to drop rapidly when, at almost ten thousand
feet altitude, his motor was struck by a missile from a rival pilot's
gun. When halfway down, either through a freak of fortune or some
wonderfully clever manipulation on the part of the pilot, the machine
righted, and he was enabled to volplane to safety, though considerably
bruised and cut up through hasty landing.
Jack quickly had his little Nieuport out of the hangar, and the three
airmen began a minute inspection. For a short time nothing developed
that had a suspicious appearance. Jack, in fact, was beginning to
believe the warning might after all be in the nature of a fake, or else
the spy had not found a favorable chance to do his foul work before
being frightened off.
But presently Tom gave utterance to an exclamation.
"Found anything, Tom?" asked Jack eagerly.
"Yes. Come around here, both of you!"
When the others joined Tom he pointed to where an important wire stay
had been dextrously filed so that it must snap under a severe wrench or
strain, such as commonly comes when a pilot is far afield, and wishes to
execute a necessary whirl.
Jack shivered as he took in the meaning of that partly severed stay. If
it gave way while he was far above the earth it must spell his certain
doom!