Air Service Boys in the Big Battle Part 11

"And that isn't all," went on Jack. "We must try to figure out a way to rescue Harry."

"You can't do that," declared a French ace, one with whom the air service boys had often flown.

"Why not?" asked Tom.

"It's out of the question," was the answer. "There has never been a rescue yet from behind the German lines. Or, if there has been, it's like a blue moon."

"Well, we can try," declared Jack, and Tom nodded his head in agreement.

"Don't count too much on it," added another of their friends. "Harry may not even be where this note says he is."

"Do you mean that the Germans would say what isn't so?" asked Tom.

"Of course! Naturally!" was the answer. "But even if they did not in this case, even if they have truly said where Leroy is, he may be moved at any time--sent to some other prison, or made to work in the mines or at perhaps something far worse."

Tom and Jack realized that this might be so, and they felt that there was no easy task ahead of them in trying to rescue their chum from the hands of the Germans. But they were not youths who gave up easily.

"May we keep this note?" asked Tom, as he and Jack got ready to depart.

Having fallen on the camp of the escadrille with which they were formerly quartered, it was, strictly speaking, the property of the airmen there. But having been told how much the sister of the prisoner would appreciate it, the commanding officer gave permission for Tom and Jack to take the glove and note with them.

"Let us know if you rescue him, Comrades!" called the Frenchmen to the two lads, as they started back for their own camp.

"We will," was the answer.

Nellie Leroy's joy in the news that her brother was alive was tempered by the fact that he was a German prisoner.

"But we're going to get him!" declared Tom even though he realized, as he said it, that it with almost a forlorn hope.

"You are so good," murmured the girl.

Jack and Tom spent a few happy hours in Paris, with Nellie and Bessie--the last of their leave--and then, bidding the girls and Mrs.

Gleason farewell, they reported back to the American aerodrome, where the young airmen were cordially welcomed.

There they found much to do, and events followed one another so rapidly at this stage of the World War that Tom and Jack, after their return, had little time for anything but flying and teaching others what they knew of air work. They had no opportunity to do anything toward the rescue of Harry Leroy; and, indeed, they were at a loss how to proceed.

They were just hoping that something would transpire to give them a starting point.

"We'll have to leave it to luck for a while," said Torn.

"Or fate," added Jack.

"Well, fate plays no small part in an airman's life," returned Tom.

"While we are no more superst.i.tions than any other soldiers, yet there are few airmen who do not carry some sort of mascot or good-luck piece.

You know that, Jack."

And even the casual reader of the exploits of the aviators must have been impressed with the fact that often the merest incident--or accident is responsible for life or death.

Death often pa.s.ses within hair's breadth of the intrepid fliers, and some of them do not know it until after they have made a landing and have seen the bullet holes in their machine--holes that indicate how close the missiles have pa.s.sed to them.

So, in a way, both Tom and Jack believed in luck, and they both believed that this same luck might point out to them a way of rescuing Harry Leroy.

Meanwhile they were kept busy. After the big battle in the air matters were quiet for a time on their sector of the front. The arrival of new fliers from America made it necessary to instruct them, and to this Tom, Jack and other veterans were detailed.

Then began a series of what Jack called "stunts." In order to inspire the new pupils with confidence, the older flying men--not always older in years--would go aloft in their single planes and do all sorts of trick flying. Some of the pupils--the more daring, of course--wished to imitate these, but of course they were not allowed.

The pupils were first allowed merely to go with an experienced man.

This, of course, they had done at the flying schools in the United States, and had flown alone. But they had to start all over again when on French soil, for here they were exposed, any time, to an attack from a Hun plane.

After they had, it was thought, got sufficient experience to undertake these trick features by themselves, they were allowed to make trial flights, but not over the enemy lines.

Tom and Jack gave the best that was in them to these enthusiastic pupils, and there was much good material.

"What are you going to do to-day, Jack?" asked Tom one morning, as they went out after breakfast to get into their "busses," as they dubbed their machines.

"Oh, got orders to do some spiral and somersault stunts for the benefit of some huns." ("Hun," used in this connection, not referring to the Germans. "Hun" is the slang term for student aviators, tacked on them by more experienced fliers.)

"Same here. Good little bunch of huns in camp now."

Tom nodded in agreement, and the two were soon preparing to climb aloft.

With a watching group of eager young men on the ground below, in company with an instructor who would point out the way certain feats were done, Torn and Jack began climbing. Presently they were fairly tumbling about like pigeons, seeming to fall, but quickly straightening out on a level keel and coming to the ground almost as lightly as feathers.

"A good landing is essential if one would become a good airman," stated the instructor. "In fact I may say it is the hardest half of the game.

For it is comparatively easy to leave the earth. It is the coming back that is difficult, like the Irishman who said it wasn't the fall that hurts, it was the stopping."

"Give 'em a bit of zooming now," the instructor said to Tom and Jack.

"The boys may have to use that any time they're up and a Boche comes at them."

"Zooming," he went on to the pupils, "is rising and falling in a series of abrupt curves like those in a roller-coaster railway. It is a very useful stunt to be master of, for it enables one to rise quickly when confronting a field barrier, or to get out of range of a Hun machine gun."

Tom undertook this feature of the instruction, as Jack signaled that his aeroplane was out of gasoline, and soon the former was rolling across the aviation field, seemingly straight toward a row of tall trees.

"He'll hit 'em sure!" cried one student.

"Watch him," ordered the instructor.

With a quick pull on the lever that controlled the rudder, Tom sent himself aloft, but not before a curious thing happened.

On the ground where it had been dropped was a tunic, or airman's fur-lined jacket. As Tom's machine "zoomed," the tail skid caught this jacket and took it aloft.

Tom did not seem to be aware of this, though he must have felt that his machine was a bit sluggish in the climbs. However, he went through with his performance, doing some beautiful "zooming," and then, as he was flying high and getting ready to do a spiral nose dive, the tunic detached itself from his skid and fell.

Just at this moment Jack came out from the hangar and, looking aloft and noting Tom's machine, saw the falling jacket. His heart turned sick and faint, for, unaware of what had happened, he thought his chum had tumbled out while at a great height. For the tunic, turning over and over as it sailed earthward, did resemble a falling body.

"Oh, Tom! Tom! How did it happen?" murmured Jack.

The others, laughing, told him that it was nothing serious, but Jack looked a bit worried until the empty jacket fell on the gra.s.s and, a little later, Tom himself came down smiling from aloft, all unaware of the excitement he had caused.