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The flight commander of the Britishers gladly sent the American lads to their own airdrome in a car, and they arrived at dinner-time. When they walked into the headquarters' hut they had a welcome indeed, and half an hour later when they were allowed to join their comrades in the mess building, there was a scene that none of the Brighton boys could ever forget.
An approaching cyclone, which would have made it almost impossible to handle the airship at Mineola, was responsible for a rather hurried start back at midnight of Wednesday, July 9th. She visited Broadway in the midst of the midnight glare, turned over Forty-second Street a little after one o'clock in the morning, and put out to sea and her home airdrome.
During the day, given leave to wander about the airdrome, the six Brighton boys took a stroll in company, eager to inspect at close quarters the latest types of flying machines. "These airplanes are stronger than any we have ever seen," remarked Joe Little, as they paused before a new-type French machine.
"I think I will try to make hunters out of those three boys," said their commander to the officer in charge of the base airdrome.
The colonel is a very nice man, and when he hears that you boys are so eager to get into the game maybe he will not object to your being attached regularly to the airdrome for a while. You might find that the work was no more exciting than running errands or something like that. Are you all of pretty good size? There might be some useful things to do now and again that would take muscle."
The training of the Brighton boys went on steadily after they entered the service until each one of the six of them that were still at the home airdrome was a highly efficient flier and well-grounded in the construction of air-machines as well. Louis Deschamps had gone, with his mother, to France. Fat Benson had been passed on to a more important job.
One of the red-letter days the Brighton boys were long to remember was that on which they first watched a new arrival to the airdrome, an experienced flier, loop the loop and nose-dive on one of the fast chasers. The whirling, darting plane seemed so completely at the mercy of the pilot that the boys were rapt in silent wonder.
A night landing is always interesting. The familiar points near the airdrome have a strangely different appearance at night. Everything is vague in outline -indistinct. Down the six machines dropped to the rows of lights, flickering in the night breeze.
"There are four of us left, at the headquarters' offices, and whether or not they want us to stay there I don't know." "Humph!" Parks had not great respect for anyone around an airdrome who was not intimately connected with the actual flying. "Lot of good you will be doing there. If they want to see you boys amount to something, why don't they let me have a chance to see what's in you?
A last moment, then the instant for raising the elevator, then the gentle, resilient bump as the wheels touch the level floor of the airdrome, and the fleet is home. It was a fine raid, well planned and splendidly executed.
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