Air Service Boys Flying for Victory/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
jack's strange find
"Letters!" exclaimed Tom, as he entered the building where he had his headquarters. "One for me from home, and two for Jack," he went on, as he hurriedly sorted the little pile.
"Nice!" was his next ejaculation, as he looked at the postmark on the next letter he picked up. "Who is writing to me from Nice? I don't know anybody in the south of France."
The next letter he picked up was also postmarked "Nice." This one was addressed to Jack Parmly, was more than twice the thickness of the one addressed to Tom, and was in the same girlish handwriting.
"Bessie Gleason!" This was Tom's third exclamation. Then he slit the envelopes of his letters one after another and sat down to read his mail.
While he is engaged in this apparently pleasing occupation, and at the same time keeping an anxious eye out for the coming of his chum, Jack, it might be just as well to explain a little further who these daring young American air pilots were, and also tell something concerning their previous exploits.
Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly had both been born in Virginia, and there, at a government school for aviation training, they had taken their first lessons in flying, after the world war broke out. They decided to follow that calling in case the United States should be eventually swept into the war.
Tom's father was an inventor whose secret papers concerning a wonderful airplane stabilizer had been stolen by an adroit German spy. Afterwards the two chums when in France had managed to recover these documents, as well as accomplish many other brilliant exploits, all this being told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "Air Service Boys Flying for France; or, The Young Heroes of the Lafayette Escadrille."
In the second volume Tom and Jack proved their right to be called first-class air pilots by battling with success against Hun fliers. They saw considerable of the tragic happenings that convulsed that portion of France, while they were connected with the famous French flying corps.
Here, too, these young Air Service boys again found an opportunity for proving their worth in the rescue of pretty Bessie Gleason and her mother from an old chateau in Lorraine where Carl Potzfeldt, a German spy, had them imprisoned. These interesting and exciting events will be found in the second volume of the series, entitled: "Air Service Boys Over the Enemy's Lines; or, The German Spy's Secret."
Then came another series of happenings that must always appeal to boy readers fond of thrilling scenes, for in the next book, among many other things, is told how Tom and Jack succeeded in silencing the monster cannon that from a distance of sixty miles and more was bombarding Paris. That will be found narrated in "Air Service Boys Over the Rhine; or, Fighting Above the Clouds."
Then there is the volume just preceding this, in which again the two brave young Yankee air pilots were given an opportunity to prove the value of their training, now in the service of the American forces, for General Pershing had come across the sea, and his army was beginning to make its presence felt at several sectors of the battleline.
What they saw and did, as well as vivid descriptions of the momentous events accompanying the great German drive is told in the fourth book of the series, "Air Service Boys in the Big Battle; or, Silencing the Big Guns."
Among their friends at the front was a young and daring aviator, Harry Leroy by name, who had had the misfortune to be shot down behind the German lines, and it was in connection with his discovery and rescue by the chums that some of the events of the last volume came about.
And it may as well be confessed here that Tom felt more than a passing interest in the pretty sister of Harry, for Nellie Leroy was serving her country as a Red Cross nurse, being just then in one of the American field hospitals to which the wounded were being carried day after day while the Argonne drive was on.
Tom was a full hour and more reading his letters, rereading them, and dreaming over them. After their rescue from the château Mrs. Gleason and Bessie had gone to Paris, where the mother, ably assisted by her daughter, had thrown herself into Red Cross work. Now, so Bessie's note told Tom, her mother was very tired and the two had gone down to Nice for a brief rest. It would be perfect, Bessie wrote, if only Tom and Jack and Nellie Leroy were with them.
For a while Tom lost himself in the thought of being at Nice, by the blue sea, with Mrs. Gleason and Bessie and Nellie—especially Nellie—and with Jack. With Jack! That thought aroused him.
Still no Jack! He grew more and more concerned, and began to picture all sorts of grievous things as having happened to his chum.
Several times he thought he heard the well known voice near by, but on each occasion discovered that he had deceived himself. Tom felt he could stand it no longer, and had even commenced to set forth when, to his delight, he discovered Jack coming.
"But what's he doing with that mite of a French child?" Tom asked himself, staring in wonder and perplexity. "A cunning little girl she seems to be; but a battlefield isn't just the place for such an innocent. Poor thing! I suppose she's lost all her kin, and Jack brought her along because he couldn't let her stay at the ruins of her home and starve."
He was so filled with joy over the coming of his chum, who did not seem to be wounded in the least, that everything else was forgotten.
"Letters from home, Jack, old scout; hurry your stumps!" he called out, waving the epistles above his head.
Jack, still in his pilot's dress, was so eager to hurry that he picked up the little six-year-old French child, and ran the last fifty yards.
"Did you get any yourself, Tom?" he demanded, as he came up; and then immediately added: "I see you have some, and by the same token one of them has a French stamp on it—from Nice!"
"Oh, it's Bessie Gleason," said Tom with a twinkle in his eye. "You remember my telling you she promised to write to me if I'd answer and let her hear what stunts the air boys were pulling off over here in the Argonne. Let you read it if you care to, Jack."
"Very good of you, Tom," grinned the other. "But excuse me while I look over my own letters. And say, perhaps you'll make friends with this little girl here until I get through. I've got something to tell about her that will give you a thrill, I reckon."
It was just like Jack to say enough to set his chum guessing, and then leave him "up in the air" so to speak. Tom looked again at the child. He could see that he had made no mistake when thinking she was winsome, at first sight. He also knew that it would be impossible to make Jack talk until he had read several times over the letter Bessie had written to him, and it was a very fat letter.
"Come and make friends with me, little girl," Tom said. "Can you speak English, I wonder, or will I have to try my stumbling French on you? What is your name?"
"It is Jeanne, M'sieu!" lisped the child, sweetly, and Tom was more than ever drawn toward her when he saw the appealing smile on her face.
"Jeanne, is it? A very pretty name too. Jeanne what?" he went on. And as Tom always won the confidence of children by his kindly manner she drew closer to him, and he took her little hand in his and squeezed it.
"Jeanne Anstey, M'sieu. And my sister's name, it is Helene," she told him.
"Oh! then you have a sister, have you?" Tom continued. "Where is Helene just now, Jeanne?"
The child's eyes immediately filled with tears. Still, with a queer little French shrug that was almost comical in one so very young, she said pathetically:
"Ah, M'sieu, it is the pity that I do not know. That bad man took her away while my poor mamma lay dying, trying to hold Helene. Me, mamma hid from the man. I sometimes wish it had been me he took on his horse with him, instead of Helene."
Tom began to wonder what lay back of all this. He looked toward Jack, to see that the other had paused in his reading as if to listen.
"Tell you all about it as soon as I get through this letter from my mother, Tom," the other remarked. "Well worth waiting to hear, too, I give you my word. One of the queerest things that ever happened to me. I've already more than half promised Jeanne we'll try our level best to find Helene, her twin sister, for her."
"Nice of you I'm sure," chuckled Tom; "but I want to hear what it's all about before I cast my vote. Little time we've got these busy days to go chasing around the country hunting for lost children, sorry as I feel for the little thing."
"Just wait, and don't take snap judgment, that's all, Tom. Guess I know about how it'll strike you. Give me five minutes more to clean up here, and I'll tell you everything."
So Tom continued to amuse himself by talking with the wonderfully bright little French child, who proved more and more interesting on further acquaintance. Undoubtedly one of her parents had been English, a fact which would account for her speaking the language so correctly. From her name of Anstey he concluded this must have been her father, while the mother was very likely French, hence Jeanne and that other name, Helene.
"Now I'm ready to explain things, Tom," announced Jack, who wore the marks to tell that he, too, along with Tom, had reached the rank of sergeant in the Flying Corps.
"Glad to hear you say so, because you ve managed to get me as curious as any old woman," grumbled Tom. "First of all, tell me how you fared back there over the battlelines. You didn't seem at all surprised to find me here; yet I reckon you knew I took a tumble?"
"Oh, I met Lefty Marr on the way here, and he told me you'd come back in good shape. But poor Hennessy was badly mauled, they say. How about him? As good an observer as there is in the whole sector!"
"Pretty badly knocked out, and his flying days are about finished, I'm afraid," Tom admitted. "He'll be months in the sick ward; and by the time he gets to going we Yankees will have sewed up the game. Go to it now. Jack."
"Oh, I managed to get in a circus after I saw you go down, Tom," the other replied, "I was feeling pretty punk and ugly because I didn't know whether I'd ever see you again, for it looked as if you'd either been killed or fallen into the hands of the Boches—and that was almost as bad a job.
"Well, we had a glorious little run for our money, and I sent down one Hun, and crippled another chap's machine so that he had to turn tail and scoot for home. Then came three other big Gothas that set me to spinning on my head. But after they'd chased me for miles, a leak in my tank let out every drop of petrol; and so the only thing to do was to drop down and make a landing.
"Luck favored us and we dropped on to a field. The Huns hung around a bit as if they wanted to make sure of us; but Morgan and I managed to crawl into a thicket, and so they went away finally.
"We were several miles from our base, and with no petrol to be had for love or money. Morgan said he'd stay by the plane while I walked all the way to get a supply. Tom, it was the luckiest thing going for this child here that I decided on taking that walk along the woods road; I don't know what would have become of her otherwise."
He stopped speaking to pat the black-haired child caressingly. That was really one of the finest things marking the conduct of the American soldiers in France—their respect for women and their love for children. Those boys in khaki captured myriads of French mothers' hearts by the way they romped with the youngsters and bought them all sorts of dainties at the Y. M. C A. huts.
"I came on her suddenly, and of course stopped to say a few words, because it is hard for me to pass a child by," Jack continued. "And after I'd asked her a few questions I found that I was getting mightily interested in Jeanne.
"Then she began tugging at something that was fastened by a ribbon about her neck. I soon discovered it was a locket, somewhat battered to be sure, but still pretty. She proceeded to try to open this, but her chubby little fingers didn't seem equal to the task, so I did it for her.
"It held a bit of very thin paper, and on taking this out I found it was covered with writing, in French of course, and done with a lead pencil at that. Slowly I managed to make out what the letter said, for it was a letter, Tom, meant especially for me, simply because I had been, by chance, the one to stop and speak to the child.
"Listen now, Tom, and I'll read you what is written here on the paper, just as I managed to translate it. And be ready to hold your breath, too, because there's something of a real thrill connected with it."
"Shoot!" was all Tom said in reply.