Covington Clarke

1

Three nights later, while members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been having a great deal of fun at his expense. Yancey now saw another chance.

“Old Fuss Budget is goin’ to have you shot for impersonatin’ an officer in that scarecrow riggin’,” he taunted. “You should have kept your old uniform on, like McGee.”

“Huh! Robinson didn’t have one small enough for McGee,” Larkin retorted. “They only have men’s sizes in the American Army. What’s wrong with this uniform?”

“Uniform?” Yancey repeated. “Oh, I thought it was a horse blanket.”

Larkin thumbed his nose at Yancey as he passed through the door with McGee. He knew the Major 158would have a long wait if he stayed to get ahead of Yancey.

Major Cowan appeared to be in an unusually happy frame of mind.

“I’ve good news for you,” he announced as they entered the headquarters hut. “In losing Carpenter, McWilliams and Rodd, we have gained you two. And instead of the bawling out I expected, I was congratulated for unusual foresight. The order assigning you to this squadron will be down to-morrow. I hope you are as well pleased as I am.”

“Of course we are,” McGee answered for both. “We wouldn’t feel so much at home anywhere else. I’m sorry, of course, to come as a replacement for any one of those other chaps. They were fine fellows.”

“Of course,” Cowan responded, heartily. “Their loss demonstrates the value of experience. There was no reason at all for the collision between Carpenter and McWilliams. They simply forgot there was anyone else in the air. A tough break.”

“Any break is a tough one when you don’t come back,” Larkin said.

The Major seemed to see him now for the first time. “Where in creation did you get that gunny sack you’re wearing?” he demanded.

Larkin grinned, foolishly. “From Lieutenant Robinson, sir.”

159“What’s it supposed to be?”

“A uniform, sir.”

“Thanks. I didn’t know.” He turned to McGee, who still wore his British uniform. “Didn’t Robinson have any more masquerade costumes?”

“Not my size, sir.”

“Oh, you go in for size? I see Larkin doesn’t. Why don’t you get uniforms?”

“We haven’t had a chance, sir,” Larkin answered. “There is no tailor around here, so I chinned Robinson out of this enlisted man’s issue. Perhaps,” he offered, smiling, “the Major will give us a pass to Paris to have uniforms made.”

“The Major will not! We’ve some real work ahead. But–”

The door opened and Siddons entered.

“But don’t put that thing back on in the morning,” Cowan completed. “Your British uniform is at least presentable.”

“You sent for me, sir?” Siddons spoke from the doorway, his voice having the quality of one who is extremely bored–especially bored with being sent for.

“I did.” Cowan’s voice was crisp. The ends of his moustache began twitching jerkily. “I suppose you wonder why I have said nothing to you about your failure to rejoin the squadron the other day after you cut out at Vitry?”

160“Why, no sir,” Siddons responded, perfectly at ease. “You said that if any of us developed trouble that delayed us, to come on here at the earliest possible moment. I was here when you arrived.”

“So you were.” Cowan was making a stern effort to control his temper. “And it is true that I gave you orders to come on here should delaying trouble develop. But,” he shot a quick, silencing look at McGee, “I conducted a little investigation into your landing at Vitry, Lieutenant, and I discovered that you took off again within an hour.”

Siddons started, almost imperceptibly. His face colored, for a moment, but he quickly assumed his habitual nonchalance. It goaded Cowan to an inward fury, but he controlled himself well.

“I suppose you can think of some reason why I shouldn’t ground you,” Cowan said.

“Why, no sir. No reason at all.”

“Then I can!” the Major snapped. “You like joy-riding, eh? Like to tour France, eh? Very well, I’m going to give you a bit of it to do.”

He turned and walked over to a large wall map. “Take a look at this–all three of you,” he said. “This is a detailed map of our sector. G2 believes that the Germans are planning to strike north of here, perhaps just south of Soissons. One of their reasons for this suspicion is that information has reached G2 to the effect that Count von Herzmann’s Circus has 161pulled out from Roncheres. Where is he now? That’s the question! The Intelligence sharks at Great Headquarters believe that if we can locate his new base we will know something more about the plans of the enemy. As a result, every squadron along this front has been ordered to make an effort to locate his new position. Personally, I am of the opinion that Larkin winged him the other morning, and as a result his Circus has been withdrawn, pending his recovery.”

Larkin shook his head regretfully. “I wish I could think so, Major. I’d like to boast that I had given von Herzmann a little lead poisoning. But I don’t think so. The tracers showed that my burst was going into his motor. I winged that, all right, but he didn’t fly like a wounded man.”

“Modest enough,” Cowan approved. “It seems that G2 thinks the same thing. They have reason to believe that he is in the neighborhood of this point here,”–he put a finger on the map–“where the railroad between Soissons and Chateau-Thierry crosses the Ourcq.”

He turned now directly to Siddons, his eyes cold and piercing. “Lieutenant Siddons, you seem to be a most excellent map flyer. You find your way here alone, and you tour this part of France with admirable ease. To-morrow morning, if the visibility is good, you will take off at dawn, cross the line above Bouresches, push on toward Bonnes and as far inland 162as the railroad crossing on the Ourcq–if possible. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, sir.” Siddons was as unconcerned and unruffled as though he had received an order to fly to Paris.

“You will get the greatest possible altitude before crossing the line, and you are to avoid combat. Your mission is to bring us information, if possible, concerning the location of enemy ’dromes–and especially von Herzmann’s base. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

One could not but admire the cool confidence of the fellow. His complacency was not what Cowan had expected.

“If you think the risk is too great, alone,” Cowan said, after watching his face for any hint of quailing, “I will send two other planes with you. They might help reduce the odds in case of unavoidable combat.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Siddons replied. “In fact, one plane has a better chance to escape combat, especially if there are some clouds to duck into. Anything else, sir?”

Cowan made a clicking sound with his tongue. The fellow wasn’t human; he was an iceberg!

“That is all. And I wish you luck.”

“Thank you, Major. And thanks for the mission.” He gave McGee and Larkin the pitying look of one who has just drawn the grand prize in an open competition, 163and without another word turned quickly and passed through the door.

Cowan’s face had a baffled look. “Well,” he finally said, “he acts like a gamecock, anyhow.”

“Do you realize the danger of the mission?” McGee asked.

“It’s not for me to consider that angle,” the Major replied. “G2 wants information, and I am under orders to help supply it. Danger? Yes. That’s war. If we lose–well, I’d rather not discuss it.”

At that moment the door opened. There, framed against the night, stood Nathan Rodd! In salute he brought a gauze-wrapped hand to his head, a head so thickly swathed in bandages that only his face was showing and his service cap sat perched at a ridiculous angle.

“Lieutenant Rodd reports for duty, sir,” he said.

Cowan, McGee and Larkin had stood transfixed, as men might who thought they were seeing a ghost. But Rodd’s words, concise and strikingly characteristic of the taciturn Vermonter, snapped them into action. This was no ghost!

“Rodd!” Major Cowan exclaimed, and rushed across the room to grip Rodd’s unbandaged left hand. “You here?”

Rodd considered it unnecessary to waste words on so stupid a question. He merely offered his hand, when the Major released it, to McGee and Larkin, 164who were pounding him on the back in great glee.

“We thought you were dead,” Cowan said.

“So did I–until I woke up,” Rodd answered.

Cowan, noting the pallor of his face, pressed him into a chair. “Tell us about it,” he urged. “Were you badly hurt? What happened? Didn’t you crack up–”

Rodd lifted his good hand in protest. “One question at a time, Major. That German found my motor and it conked. I regained control just in time to level off, but not in time to miss a tree. After that I don’t know what happened. Came to, flat on my back, fifty feet away from my plane. It was burning. That’s all there is to it.”

“All there is to it!” Cowan snorted. “You’re not sending a telegram. Words won’t cost you anything. Where have you been since then?”

“Hospital. Waiting for a chance to skip out.”

“You mean–you ran away from the hospital?”

Rodd nodded.

“You are crazy, man! Why did you leave?”

“I don’t like hospitals.”

“But you are hurt! Is your head badly injured?”

“Cut.”

“And your hand?”

“Cut.”

Cowan could not escape laughing. McGee and Larkin joined in.

165“I’m not laughing at your injury, Lieutenant,” Cowan explained, “but at your way of telling it. If that should happen to Yancey he’d write a book about it. Of course, I’m delighted to see you alive. I had the good fortune to wipe out the one that shot you down. He went down spinning.”

“See him crash?” Rodd asked.

“No. Things were pretty thick. I didn’t have time to watch.”

“Didn’t kill him,” Rodd announced.

“What!”

“He made a better landing than I did. He was trying to bring me to when some Frenchies came running up and nabbed him. Decent fellow. The Frenchies treated him pretty rough. Put the screws to him, I guess.”

“See here,” Cowan leaned forward in his chair, “either tell all this story, or back you go to the hospital. You say the French questioned him?”

“French Intelligence did. Pretty game fellow, they said.”

“But he talked?”

“Had to. That was von Herzmann’s Circus.”

“We know that. Anything else?”

“Yes. He said they knew all about our plans, and were out gunning for us.”

Cowan’s face colored, but with confusion more than anger.

166“Anything else?” he asked crisply.

“Well–the Frogs found out something else, but,” he cast a quick, furtive glance at McGee and Larkin, “but I guess I’ve talked enough. Someone is talking too much, that’s certain.”

Cowan had seen the glance, and the inference irritated him. “These officers have proved their loyalty by service, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” was Rodd’s meatless reply.

McGee felt genuinely hurt, but at the same time he recognized the fact that Rodd’s statement was all too true.

“Rodd is quite right, Major,” he said, and arose from his chair. “If he has any real information, it belongs to you alone–or to G2. If you’ve nothing further, Larkin and I will be going.”

“No, nothing further.”

“No orders for to-morrow morning?”

“No.”

“May I speak to you a moment–privately?”

“Certainly.”

They moved over near the door.

“You gave Siddons a mission I would like to have, Major. Any objections if I take a little joy-ride in the morning?”

Cowan’s eyes narrowed. “Where?” he asked.

“Over the lines. I’d like to do a little looking for myself.”

167“With Larkin?”

“No, sir. Alone. Don’t even want Larkin to know I’m going. I think I know where to locate von Herzmann’s Circus.”

“What are you driving at, Lieutenant?”

“Major, if I told you half of what I think I know, you’d call me crazy.”

“Hm-m! Well, I can’t give you permission to go–but I will not be looking for you before noon.” His sly wink told Red all that he wanted to know.

“Yes, sir. Good night, Major. Good night, Rodd. The gang will be mighty glad to see you back, old hoss! Come on, Buzz, let’s go to bed.”

Outside the door Larkin’s fuming rage exploded. “Say, what did that tongue-tied sap Rodd mean by that dirty dig? If his head wasn’t already in a sling, I’d–”

“Calm yourself, brother!” Red laughed. “If you had landed on your head from as high a point as he did, and then found out it was all brought about through a leak, you’d be suspicious of everyone too.”

“Maybe so,” Larkin answered, somewhat mollified. “What were you buzzing old Fuss Budget about?”

“I’ll tell you that to-morrow night–maybe.”

“Humph!” Larkin snorted. “I guess Rodd’s disease is catching. You’re tongue-tied too!”

Without reply Red led the way across the flying 168field to their hut. Entering, he began fumbling around in the dark for a candle stub. Larkin took up the search, by the aid of flickering matches, but the candle was nowhere to be found.

“It’s a fine war!” Larkin growled, as he began undressing in the dark. “All the letters from the States bear the postmark, ‘Food Will Win The War.’ I guess the Army is trying to save on candles, too.”

2

Before sunup the following morning McGee awoke and began quietly dressing. He did not want to awaken Larkin. When he had finished dressing he tiptoed cautiously across the floor, opened the creaking door ever so slowly and closed it with the same care.

Dawn was just streaking the east. A few birds were offering their first roundelays; the grass and trees were wet with a light rain that had fallen during the night, and to the northeast the distant guns were rumbling their morning song of hate–evil dispositioned giants, guttural in their wrath when dawn awoke them to a new day of devastation. Two or three sleepy-eyed air mechanics were making their way toward the hangars.

McGee stood for a moment outside the hut, studying the sky, which was a patchwork of clouds scattered 169across grey splotches that would turn to blue with the coming of the sun. Evidently the sky had been quite overcast during the night, but the clouds were broken now, though by no means dispersed.

It was an ideal morning for crossing the lines. Convenient cloud banks were excellent havens in case of surprise, and Archie fire was less accurate when the gunners had to contend with a ship that plunged into concealing clouds and out again at the most unexpected places. Of course, those same clouds offered concealment for enemy planes, but a pilot crossing the lines alone is considerably advantaged by such a sky as McGee was now studying approvingly.

As McGee started toward the hangars he saw that some of the ground crew were wheeling out Siddons’ Nieuport. Well, the Major had stuck to his resolution and the order had gone through.

“Where’s Lieutenant Siddons going?” McGee asked the Ack Emma who was making a careful check of the plane.

“Don’t know, sir. Got orders last night to have her ready.”

“Did Sergeant Williams get orders for my plane?”

“Yes, sir. Are you and Siddons goin’ over on patrol, Lieutenant?”

“I can’t answer for Siddons,” McGee evaded. “You’d better ask him.”

“Huh! A lot of good it would do. Honest, Lieutenant, 170that fellow talks less to us than a cigar store Indian talks to the customers–and that’s less than nothin’. He thinks we’re worms!”

McGee was about to offer his sympathies when another crew, under Sergeant Williams, came rolling the Camel out to the line. McGee began checking it over with the same minute care which had doubtless gone a long way toward making him an ace. He left inspection to no man. His air mechanic, knowing this, was equally careful in his work. This diminutive lieutenant was as mild as an April morning so long as all was well, but when something went wrong he could say more than a six foot Major-General.

“All set, Sergeant?” McGee asked, finishing his inspection.

“All set, sir. I just put a new valve in that wind driven gas pump. The guy that invented that trick should have been tapped for the simples. Why don’t you hang this thing on a church steeple, Lieutenant, and get one of those Spads?”

“Well, I rather dislike entering a church from the steeple, and I’m sort of partial to this old crate. She’s tricky on the ground, but I’m used to her ways and she’s a Lulu upstairs.”

He swung into the cockpit and the Sergeant stood at the prop.

“Switch off?”

“Switch off!”

171The sergeant pulled over the propeller two times.

“Contact, sir.”

“Contact.”

The motor caught, and after it had idled a few minutes McGee began revving it up.

Just then he noticed Siddons come from around the corner of the hangar, carrying what appeared to be a canvas covered pillow. Seeing McGee’s plane on the line he stopped in surprise, then proceeded to his plane, where he fitted the pillow into the seat, patting it in place as a woman pats a divan pillow. Then he came across to the side of McGee’s plane.

“Did you get orders, too?” he shouted.

McGee cut the gun. “No,” he answered truthfully. Satisfied that this would not end the questioning, he added, “The Ack Emma has made some repairs. I’m going to give her a test.”

“Oh, I see. Thought maybe I was going to have the pleasure of your company–and your help. Nice morning for my little jaunt, isn’t it?”

“Bully!” McGee looked at him closely to discover any hint of fear. It simply wasn’t there, and Red was forced to the mental admission that he had never seen such a cool, confident manner displayed by any pilot going over for the first time. “Good luck!” he called, and again began revving his motor.

Siddons turned back to his own plane, and with the most casual inspection, and with no comment to 172the mechanic, crawled into his cushion padded seat.

McGee, satisfied with the sound of his own motor, nodded to the wing boys to remove the chocks, and taxied to a quick take-off. At two or three hundred feet he turned, came back across the ’drome and headed in the general direction of Paris, climbing steadily and maintaining the direction until to the watching ground crew he became lost to view.

Then McGee swung north and began working back eastward. He passed to the west of La Ferte, and having gained an altitude of fifteen thousand feet, headed directly for the front, intending to cross the line to the north of Belleau and proceed toward Fere-en-Tardenois. Then, if fortune favored him, he could decide upon a deeper thrust into enemy territory.

The cloud strata was exceptionally deep and yet ragged enough to provide frequent glimpses at the world below. The one great danger lay in the fact that he might any minute come unexpectedly upon a German pursuit group. It was probable, however, that on such a morning they would be operating at a lesser altitude.

The trenches, as he crossed the line, were only faintly discernible, the detail obscured by the blue ground haze so common to the eyes of the pilot operating at high altitudes. But the strip of barren land on each side of the trenches gave visible evidence of the grimness of the struggle far below, and here 173and there along the line, miniature geysers spouted fan-shaped eruptions of earth with a grotesque, unexpected suddenness. Then a second later a new pock-mark on the face of an already over-tortured earth showed where the shell had exploded.

It was fascinating to watch. Nerve-racking and ear-splitting as it must be to the mud-splashed creatures in the trenches below, from on high the land within the neighborhood of the zig-zag trenches took on the appearance of a pot of boiling mush–here a crater, there a crater, springing into being with an amazing suddenness that lured the observer into the game of guessing when the next crater would appear.

McGee was engaged in exactly such mental speculation when he was brought to the realization of his own nearness to war by the plane-rocking explosion of a well-placed Archie. Then two other giant black roses bloomed directly in his path. Now he was presented with his own guessing game. Where would the next one be?

He swerved sharply left and dived toward a neighboring cloud. A cloud, while seeming from below to have both form and substance, is in reality but little different from a dense ground fog. It is enveloping, misty, eerie, and cuts off all visible contact with the world. If it covers a large air area, then the pilot may face some nice problems in correct and stable navigation, but if it is only a patch, he drives straight 174along his course, knowing that he will plunge out into the sunlight with the same suddenness with which he left it. Clouds are particularly welcome when Archie gunners begin to plaster the air with high explosive shells.

As McGee came out of this cloud, his attention was drawn to a number of black bursts some three thousand feet below, but which clustered around a lone Nieuport flying at a forty-five degree angle to the line of flight which McGee was pursuing. That Archie crew knew their business, and McGee thought they appeared uncomfortably near the Nieuport. Then, as he watched, the Nieuport did a strange thing. Instead of making a sudden change in direction or a quick dive, either of which would compel the gunner to make another quick calculation in his range, it merely rolled once, then dipped twice, and proceeded on its way. The Archie fire ceased as suddenly as it had commenced.

McGee streaked across another open patch of sky and entered another cloud. Coming out of this one he again spotted the lone Nieuport and corrected his own line to correspond with that of the lone flyer below. Now, studying it more closely, and with more time, he felt sure that it was Siddons’ plane. One thing certain, the red, white and blue cockades established it as an American manned plane, and who, save a novice, McGee reasoned, would roll and make a 175slight dip to escape Archie fire. That particular battery must have been too convulsed by laughter to continue their fire. Had that stupid pilot, whoever he was, forgotten what he had been told concerning Archie fire?

With the same surprising suddenness with which Archies always proclaim their presence, three more black puff balls inked the air directly ahead of the Nieuport. They were off the mark, but they furnished data for other guns which began filling the air. Evidently the gunners had not yet seen McGee, who was much higher and considerably behind the Nieuport, for they were concentrating on that plane.

To McGee’s surprise the Nieuport again rolled, then dipped twice, and the guns below immediately ceased firing. McGee decided it was time to seek the seclusion of a nearby cloud and while driving through it, do a little thinking.

What he had just witnessed was enough to make any experienced pilot think. Someone, flying a Nieuport, had a most novel way of treating with anti-aircraft gunners. He merely rolled over, straightened out, dipped twice, and the guns promptly left off their quarreling. No one could be stupid enough to reason that such manoeuver would discomfit the gunners, and yet in this case the effect was more efficacious than any manoeuver yet invented.

McGee smiled at the stupidity of the thought. It 176was effective only because it was a signal, prearranged and understood by the anti-aircraft gunners. The pilot of that Nieuport was in communication with the enemy, and McGee believed that man to be Siddons!

It all came to him in a flash. Who, better than Siddons, could have supplied the enemy with the information that brought them over to bomb the green squadron when they were stationed near Is-Sur-Tille? Someone supplied it, for Cowan had found in the pocket of the German flyer whom he, McGee, had brought down, an order disclosing the very fact that the raid had been planned on Intelligence reports. And where had Siddons gone that day after landing at Vitry on the slenderest excuse? The French Major said he had taken off within an hour. And the very next morning the squadron stumbled into a net spread by von Herzmann, and but for the timely and unexpected arrival of a large group of French Spads the harvest would have been great indeed. Could it be that Siddons had crossed the lines the previous afternoon, escaping Archie fire by a simple code of air signals, and disclosed the entire plan to the enemy?

McGee felt a hot wave of ungovernable anger sweep over him. He no longer had any doubts whatsoever. Two and two make four. Siddons was a traitor to his country. To his country? No, doubtless he was one of the many who had been trained for years 177against this very hour of need. On false records he had gained admission to the American Air Force, and now–

McGee came out of the cloud into the clear sunlight, and began searching the sky for the Nieuport. It was not to be seen. He flew on, encountered other clouds, came out again, but the Nieuport had miraculously disappeared.

McGee flew steadily northeast until he spotted an exceptionally large group of enemy planes, working up from the direction in which he was headed.

It was time to turn around. He was quite too far into enemy territory to feel comfortable, and that swarm of planes made him unusually homesick, even though they were far below him.

But just as he banked into a left turn he noticed that they were nosing down, sharply. He flew along the misty edge of a cloud, watching closely. Down, down, they went, becoming mere specks against the blue-grey ground haze.

They were about to make a landing! There could be no doubt of it, though at this distance and altitude he could not make out their hangars. On down they dropped, until at last they seemed to be engulfed by a greyish sea that shut out all definite form.

McGee had come for information, and here it was within his grasp if he were only willing to take a chance.

178The strata of clouds against which he was flying stretched in the general direction of the place where he had lost sight of the large flight of planes.

He ducked into the clouds and drove along until he estimated that he was somewhere in the right neighborhood.

Coming out into an open sky he located a considerable forest far to his right and another one several kilometers directly ahead. Directly between these a ribbon of white marked its twisting course. That would be the Ourcq, and the forest beyond would be the Forest de Nesles. And–yes, there just beyond the river was a town–which McGee concluded must be Fere-en-Tardenois–and a little way from its outskirts a group of drab square blocks that caught and held his eyes.

Too much ground haze to make them out. Well, a chance is a chance, he reasoned, as over went the Camel’s nose in a long dive.

Twice he checked the dive, only to dive again. He hated to give up altitude, but he was determined to get a look.

After the third dive, and the loss of several thousand feet, he made out the drab-colored canvas hangars of a German ’drome, and poised on the open field was a veritable swarm of little moths appearing to be drying their wings in the sun. Three of them began racing along the ground and bounded into the 179air. At the same minute an Archie battery opened from the town. The burst was wide of McGee’s plane, but there was no mistaking their sincerity nor the fact that those three harmless appearing moths below were climbing to the attack.

Red gave his Camel all he thought it could stand as he climbed for the protecting clouds. Information was of no value if sealed by a dead man’s lips. He had learned far too much this morning to chance any fight with anyone that could possibly be avoided.

The Archie fire continued until he had regained the clouds, and even then two or three more shells burst harmlessly somewhere ahead in the grey mist wall. He changed his direction sharply and roared along on a full throttle.

His heart was racing with his motor. He felt convinced that the ’drome he had located was a new base for the squadron he had just seen, for were they not coming up from the interior? Doubtless he had stumbled on to a movement of some importance. Just how important he could not know, but G2 would be delighted with such information. Could that squadron, he wondered, by rare good fortune be the Circus of the famed von Herzmann?

Over Etrepilly an Archie battery hurled aloft a smashing, plane-staggering burst of black puff balls. A jagged piece of steel tore through his left wing. Too close, that!

180He dived steeply. More shells burst above him. Above, but still uncomfortably close. Those gunners were real marksmen.

Suddenly he thought of what he had seen the lone Nieuport do. It might be worth trying. Acting on the impulse he rolled, straightened out, then dipped twice. One more shell came screaming aloft and then the batteries became abruptly silent.

Well, that was that! There could be no question now as to the movement being a prearranged signal. Archie gunners would not ordinarily leave off firing at any such stupid performance–they would chuckle while they locked the breach on another shell, and forthwith blow that fellow into Kingdom Come.

McGee was in high fettle as he streaked across the lines south of Belleau and laid a course for home. He had a great deal to report, and someone, flying a lone Nieuport, was going to have a great deal of explaining to do.

When McGee swooped low over his own hangar, preparatory to a landing, he was surprised to see Siddons’ Nieuport resting on the tarmac. So he was back so soon!

Larkin was the first to greet McGee when he crawled from his plane.

181“Where’ve you been?” he demanded.

“Oh, just up for a little test,” McGee replied, assuming an air of indifference.

Larkin pointed to the jagged hole through the fabric of the left wing.

“Don’t kid me!” he said. “Where’d you pick up that little souvenir?”

“I’ll tell you later,” McGee answered and started toward the Major’s headquarters.

Larkin seized his arm and spun him around. “You’ll tell me one thing right now, little feller! What’s so funny about hiding my uniform so I’ll get bawled out again by Old Fuss Budget for wearing this misfit?”

McGee looked at him blankly.

“What do you mean?”

“Mean? I mean you got up so early a respectable milkman wouldn’t think of being up, and with your brain a bit foggy you thought what a clever idea it would be to hide my English uniform and give this gang of Indians another day of pleasure. What’s the big idea?”

McGee shook his head. “I never touched your uniform, Buzz. Come to think of it, though, I don’t remember seeing it this morning while I was dressing. Did you see it last night?”

“See it last night!” Larkin snorted. “How could I? We couldn’t find the candle and it was so blasted dark 182that I hung my shoes on a chair and my pants on the floor. Quit foolin’, Red. Where’s that uniform?”

“I don’t know, I tell you. But if I were you I’d go ask Yancey that question.”

Larkin’s eyes snapped. “That’s the bozo! That Texas longhorn is just before meeting up with a real cyclone.”

“Better go easy,” Red warned. “He’s used to cyclones, and I’ve always had a sort of feeling that he could take care of himself in heavy weather.”

Nothing daunted, Buzz went bowling off in search of Yancey, and McGee crossed the ’drome to Cowan’s headquarters.

The excited enthusiasm with which McGee began his report to Cowan was quickly cooled by the Major’s expressionless indifference. Throughout McGee’s narration of the events of the morning, Cowan continued studying a sheaf of papers lying on the desk before him, now and then penciling thereon some memorandum or brief endorsement. That part of the report dealing with the actions of the lone Nieuport, which seemed to have a system of signals to insure safe passage over the lines, brought from the Major no more than a throaty, “Hum-m.” It angered McGee, and brought from him a heated charge which under other conditions he would have hesitated to make.

“And the man who was piloting that plane is a member of this squadron,” he blurted out.

183Cowan casually turned a sheet of paper. “Indeed,” he replied, continuing his reading. It was maddening.

“Has Siddons reported to you, sir?” McGee asked, pointedly.

“Yes.” Cowan arose and looked straight at the flushed young pilot. His eyes were uncommunicative. “Lieutenant Siddons just left here with Colonel Watts, going back to Wing headquarters,” he said. “I may tell you, Lieutenant, that the Colonel came down a short time after Siddons hopped off, and gave me a most uncomfortable half hour for sending him over. We will discuss it no further, and I charge you with absolute silence in the matter. You are to say nothing, to anyone, concerning this entire matter. You understand?”

“I understand that I’m to keep silent, sir–but I don’t understand the rest of it.”

“It isn’t necessary that you do. That is all, Lieutenant.”

“But what about that ’drome I located at Fere-en-Tardenois? I think it is Count von Herzmann’s Cir–”

“You think wrong, McGee, but whatever you think, don’t think out loud. That is all, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. And there are no orders for–”

“Orders will be a little more secret–in the future.” Cowan’s voice was crisp, and carried a note of dismissal.

184“Yes, sir.” McGee saluted stiffly, turned on his heel and walked from the room, steaming with anger. Outside the door he picked up a small stone from the newly graveled walk and hurled it singing through the top of a nearby poplar. He simply had to throw something.

“You poor prune!” he addressed himself. “You never did have enough sense to know when you were well off.”