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"I wish you would give me the address!" exclaimed Tom eagerly, and his chum smiled at his show of interest. "Well, to-morrow, if all goes well, we'll be with Pershing's boys," remarked Jack, as he and Tom were sitting in their quarters after breakfast, the last day but one they were to spend in the Lafayette Escadrille with which they had so long been associated. "That's so.
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.
They keenly appreciated the fact that four men from the American escadrille had brought down four Germans, and had cleared the way for their squadron returning from Oberndorf. When the train pulled out the next day the station platform was packed by khaki-clad pilots waving good-bye to their friends the "Yanks." The escadrille passed through Paris on its way to the Somme front.
The escadrille was ordered to the sector of Verdun. While in a way we were sorry to leave Luxeuil, we naturally didn't regret the chance to take part in the aerial activity of the world's greatest battle. The night before our departure some German aircraft destroyed four of our tractors and killed six men with bombs, but even that caused little excitement compared with going to Verdun.
At the reserve he flies to keep his hand in, practises on any new make of machine that happens to come out or that he may be put on in place of the Nieuport, and receives information regarding old and new makes of enemy airplanes. At last the pilot receives his call to the front, where he takes his place in some established or newly formed escadrille.
Besides Captain Thenault and Lieutenant de Laage de Mieux, our French officers, the following American pilots were in the escadrille at this time: Lieutenant Thaw, who had returned to the front, even though his wounded arm had not entirely healed; Adjutants Norman Prince, Hall, Lufbery, and Masson; and Sergeants Kiffin Rockwell, Hill, Pavelka, Johnson, and Rumsey.
I must return to my escadrille, but I don't want to lose him." "What can I do?" "Why, look for him and find him. He ought to be near Bailly, towards the Bois Carré." And he vanished, leaving to his father the task of finding the lost airplane as a partridge is found in a field of lucerne.
For a Guynemer is like the nation's flag: if the soldiers' eyes miss the waving colors, they may wander to the wretchedness of daily routine, and morbidly feed on blood and death. This is what the loss of a Guynemer might mean. But can a Guynemer be quite lost? Visited the Storks Escadrille. The flying field occupies a vast space, for it is common to the French and the British.
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.
The captain, lieutenant, and a couple of men jumped in a staff car and hastened to where he had fallen. On their return the American pilots were convened in a room of the hotel and the news was broken to them. With tears in his eyes the captain said: "The best and bravest of us all is no more." No greater blow could have befallen the escadrille. Kiffin was its soul.
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