Part 1 (1/2)
Air Service Boys in the Big Battle.
by Charles Amory Beach.
CHAPTER I. BAD NEWS FROM THE AIR
”Well, Tom, how's your head now?”
”How's my head? What do you mean? There's nothing the matter with my head,” and the speaker, who wore the uniform of a French aviator, glanced up in surprise from the cot on which he was reclining in his tent near the airdromes that stretched around a great level field, not far from Paris.
”Oh, isn't there?” questioned Jack Parmly, with a smile. ”Then I beg your pardon for asking, my cabbage! I beg your pardon, Sergeant Raymond!”
Tom Raymond, whose, chum had addressed him by the military t.i.tle, looked curiously at his companion, and smiled at the appellation of the term cabbage. It was one of the many little tricks picked up by a.s.sociation with their French flying comrades, of speaking to a friend by some odd, endearing term. It might be cuc.u.mber or rose, cabbage or cart wheel--the words mattered not, it was the meaning back of them.
”Say, is anything the matter?” went on Tom, as his chum, attired like himself', but wearing an old blouse covered with oil and grease, continued to smile. ”What gave you the notion that my head hurt?”
”I didn't say it hurt. I only asked how it was. The swelling hasn't begun to subside in mine yet, and I was wondering if it had in yours.”
”Swelling? Subside? What in the world--”
Jack Parmly brought to a sudden termination the rapid torrent of words from the mouth of his churn by silently pointing to a small medal fastened to the uniform jacket of his friend. It was the coveted croix de guerre.
”Oh, that!” exclaimed Tom.
”Nothing else, my pickled beet!” answered Jack. ”Doesn't it make your head swell up as if it would burst every time you look at it? Now don't say it doesn't, for that's the way it affects me, and I'm sure you're not very different. And every time I read the citation that goes with the medal--well, I'm just aching for a chance to show it to the folks back home, aren't you, Sergeant?”
Tom Raymond started a bit at the second use of the t.i.tle.
”I see you aren't any more used to it than I am!” exclaimed Jack. ”Well, it'll be a little time before we stop looking around to see if it isn't some one behind us they're talking to. So I thought I'd practice it a bit on you. And you can do the same for me. I should think, out of common politeness, you'd get up, salute and call me the same.”
”Oh! Now I see what you're driving at,” voiced Tom, as he glanced up from a momentary look at his medal to the face of his comrade-in-arms, or perhaps in flying would be more appropriate. ”The wind's in that quarter, is it?”
”No wind at all to speak of,” broke in Jack. ”If you'd like to go for a fly, and see if we can bag a Boche or two, I'm with you.”
”Against orders, Jack. I'd like to, but we were ordered here for rest and observation work; and you know, as well as I do, that obeying orders is just as important as sending a member of the Hun Flying Circus down where he can't do any more of his grandstand stunts. But I'm hoping the time will come when we can climb up back of our machine guns again, and do our bit to show that the little old U. S. A. is still on the map.”
”I guess that time'll soon come, Tom, old man. I heard rumors that a lot of us were to be sent up nearer the front shortly, and if they don't include you and me, there'll be something doing in this camp!”
”That's what I say. So you thought I'd have a swelled head, did you, because they gave us the croix de guerre?”
”I confess I had a faint suspicion that way,” admitted Jack. ”Both of us being advanced to sergeants was a big step, too.”
”It was,” agreed Tom. ”I almost wish they hadn't done it, for there are lots of others in the escadrille that deserve it fully as much, and some more, than we do.”
”That's right. But you can't make these delightful Frenchmen see anything the way you want 'em to. Once they get a notion in their heads that you've done something for la belle Frame, they're your friends for life, kissing you on both cheeks and pinning medals on you wherever they'll stick.”
”Well, they mean all right, Jack,” said Tom. ”And there aren't any braver or more lovable people on the face of the earth than these same French. They've done more and suffered more for their country than we dream of. And it's only natural that they should say 'much obliged,' in their own particular way, to any one they think is helping to free them from the Germans.”
”I suppose you're right. But advancing us to sergeants would have been enough, without pinning the decorations on us and mentioning us in the order of the day, as well as giving us as fine a citation as ever was signed by a commanding general. However, it's all in the day's work, though when we flew over the German super cannons, and did our bit in helping demolish them so they couldn't sh.e.l.l Paris any more, we didn't think--or, at least, I didn't--that we'd be sitting here talking about it.”