“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.”
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