“i’ve been getting a line on you.”
when the lieutenant delivered himself thusly the boys were sure and positive that he had all the details of the fight, and wonder only was left as to how serious a breach of discipline the officer would consider a battering match on the parade ground.
what was their surprise, then, when the lieutenant went on to say, aiming the stem of his meerschaum at a group of officers—high officers apparently—which at the moment made a ground circle of slim, polished boots about a zeppelin taking in its flying cargo of gas:
“colonel muller, over there, has just been telling me the story of a couple of boys he met in america who beat anything of the age in the matter of expert flying. i mentioned that the crew of one of our seaplanes had picked up a pair of kids who, they claimed, were navigating alone in an airship big enough to keep the best of them guessing. the colonel has expressed a wish to look you over. he’s great for aviation.”
[216]
“gee! i believe that this muller was with colonel mccready when we made that record flight in texas. you remember, the tall one, with the monocle, and hair and mustache the color of a ten-dollar gold piece.”
the lieutenant had walked down the canvas row to ascertain the further wishes of the colonel, giving billy this chance to search the memories of his chum and himself.
“come to think of it,” replied henri, “i do recall seeing a man like that, but it is no sure shot that it is the same one.”
“we’ll soon know, anyhow.”
billy saw the lieutenant raise a beckoning finger, and the boys hurried to present themselves.
facing colonel muller, the boys, in their ill-fitting gray tunics and rawhide boots, hardly hoped for recognition. they knew their man in an instant.
the colonel had a long memory, too, for he immediately exclaimed:
“hello there, boy aviators, as colonel ‘mac’ called you; you’re a long way from home, i see.”
it was a matter of pride and satisfaction to the boys that the big soldier could place them, even in the disguise of an aviation camp outfit.
turning to the lieutenant, the colonel inquired: “have you put these youngsters through the paces yet?”
[217]
“no, colonel,” replied the lieutenant, “they have been working in the oil-can brigade chiefly, but from the way they handle the parts i suspected they were out of the apprentice class.”
“why, they are builders as well as demonstrators,” explained the colonel. “teach them anything about aircraft? i guess not.”
by this time all of the officers were sizing up the objects of the colonel’s unusual comment.
the helpers, with open mouths, had gathered at a respectful distance, but near enough to hear what was going on, and marveled that the great colonel should condescend to familiar terms with boys whom they claimed as of their class and number. max, the malignant, was in the front row, and none the happier for the new honors conferred upon the fellow-workers whose very presence galled him.
“trim them up a bit,” said the colonel to the lieutenant, pointing to the slop-chest clothing in which the boys were attired, “and send them over to headquarters this evening.”
“you’ve made a ten strike,” observed the lieutenant, as he sent the boys to a military clothier in the town with a written rush order.
“we could register from annapolis now and get across with it,” laughed billy, as they awaited the pleasure of an orderly at headquarters. the boys had been “trimmed up a bit,” and neatly garbed in gray looked as fine as middies on parade.
[218]
“ah, here you are; come in,” invited the colonel. “gentlemen,” turning to others in the room, “here are the young airmen about whom i was talking. this aviation business, i confess, is a hobby with me. why, just think of boys this age not only able to completely assemble one of these wonderful machines, but to drive them, under ordinary circumstances, so expertly that safety aloft is about as equally assured as in a railway journey.
“behold one of the natural enemies of your craft,” continued the colonel, directing the boys’ attention to a smart-looking young soldier, a lean, keen fellow, with captain’s straps, lounging on a sofa nearby. “he’s a fellow who turns balloon cannon loose on about every plane that hasn’t a black cross on its yellow stomach. that’s one of the reasons why a military aviator would have as much chance of getting life insurance at lloyd’s as would a snowball of holding together in the furnace room of a cruiser.”
“we’ve seen some of the steel noses turned up at us,” volunteered billy.
“don’t believe they were exactly of my kind,” interposed the gunman on the lounge. “these are new ones, just out, and they reach further than any other make. we can haul them around at the tail of an automobile at the speed of about sixty miles an hour. come along when we pull out of here[219] and i’ll show you what a spin of a wheel will do in aiming the little daisy on the steel truck.”
“don’t let him ever catch you asleep on your perch,” joked the colonel, “or there will be a bird funeral in the aviation family.”
when the lieutenant passed the word among the helpers to hustle the a?roplane shipment, it was noticeable that billy and henri served no longer in the pulling and hauling end of the job. they were held at the elbow of the directing force, and vested with the power to give orders in the hangar instead of taking them. this change of class met with no rebellion among the apprentices, for they reckoned that the newcomers must be of extraordinary ability to be so quickly advanced, and, further, it was soon recognized that even the lieutenant had no aircraft knowledge superior to his young assistants.
“i believe,” acknowledged this officer, “that i have you beaten in only one branch of the profession, the zeppelin branch, i mean, and that, i suppose, is only due to the fact that this invention is exclusively german.”
“that’s mighty kind of you to say this,” returned henri, “but billy and i feel that you can yet set us straight on a good many points in these foreign planes, and we would be glad to have a chance to dig into zeppelin instruction.”
“i don’t know about that last,” was the uncertain answer of the lieutenant.
[220]
“what’s the matter with max, i wonder,” observed henri, as the last crate of the shipment was rolled down to the docks; “he must be raising a pair of wings on his shoulders.”
“if you had seen the side glance he gave me to-day, you would leave the wings out of your calculations.”
billy felt that max quiet was more to be feared than max boisterous.
“sorry to see colonel muller leave, i tell you.”
“so was i, henri; but he said that only a bullet would prevent our meeting again.”
the colonel had also told billy that henri and himself had only entered the side door of germany, and there was a big chance of their seeing more of the country.
among the several satisfactory results of their reunion with the colonel, one bobbed up that very afternoon, when lieutenant hume stated that a new lot of machines were to be set up and jockeyed, and, as nearly all of the aviators had gone with the last shipment, the boys could take a turn in the air every day, if they so desired.
“if they desired!” did thirsty ducks need a second invitation to visit a pond?
as there were no double-deckers, or biplanes, in the fresh invoice, billy and henri were to work separately in the war monoplanes, those with the[221] birdlike wings and curved tail rudder piece, the smaller birds that whirred and whined.
two of these machines had been carefully groomed and set in order for an early morning flight, and the boys retired with all the assurance in the world that they could give the helpers such a practical illustration of scientific planing that there would remain no doubt in the minds of these groundlings as to the merit and right of the newcomers’ promotion.
silence reigned in the house of canvas, and no hostiles to guard against, sentinels were not stationed, and only occasional inspection required during the night.
it was midnight. stealthy hands parted the flaps of the entrance to the big tent, and a stocky figure, but light-footed, darted across the floor of hardened clay to the stalls where the monoplanes were set for motion.
an electric light tube flashed into a box of tools, and the intruder was speedily operating with a chisel at the propeller end of the monoplane, in which was placed the repair kit, numbered 16—charged in the hangar record to one billy barry.
the furtive visitor, apparently satisfied that he had accomplished his purpose, replaced the chisel and closed the tool box. he took the further precaution of picking up every chip or shaving that had dropped during the use of the chisel edge.[222] then, with a final sweep of the electric tube, the stocky shape flitted through the canvas door into outer darkness.
would that there was some warning word in dreamland to sound in the ear of sleeping billy barry. an assassin hand had set a death trap with cunning intent to conceal the peril therein until a moment too late to baffle the devilish design!
