Aces Up.

by Covington Clarke.

CHAPTER I

The New Instructor

1

Tex Yancey, called "The Flying Fool" by his comrades in the --th Pursuit Squadron of the American Expeditionary Force, entered the mess hall with lips pressed into a thin, mirthless grin that seemed entirely inappropriate in one who was thirty minutes late to mess and must therefore make out with what was left. The other members of the squadron had finished their meal and were now engaged in the usual after-dinner practice of spinning some tall yarns.

Yancey stalked slowly to his place at the long table, but instead of seating himself stood with hands thrust deep into his pockets and with his long, thin legs spread wide apart. For a full minute he stood there, seeming to be mildly interested in the tale that Hank Porter was telling. But those who knew Tex, as did the members of this squadron, knew that the cynical smile on his thin lips was but the forerunner of some mirthless thing from which only "The Flying Fool" would be able to wring a laugh. His was such a grotesque sense of humor; a highly impractical practical joke was his idea of a riotous time. Someone in the squadron, who had once felt the sting of one of his pranks, had called him a fool, and another member had responded, "Yeah, he's a fool, all right--but a flyin' fool!" The tribute had become a nickname, and Yancey rather reveled in it.

Just now his smile was masking some grim joke and his eyes held the mild light of pity.

"Well, Hank," he drawled at last, when Porter had wound up his story, "that yarn, as much as I get of it, would lead the average _hombre_ to pick you out as a sho' 'nuff flyer. I would myself. Me, I'm easy fooled that way. I reckon all you buckaroos think you know somethin'

about flyin', eh?"

Standing a full six feet two, he looked down upon them, the look of pity still in his eyes in strange conflict with the mirthless smile still on his lips.

"What's eatin' you?" Porter growled. "We can't help it because you're late for mess. Where've you been?"

Siddons and Hampden, not greatly interested in what they felt was some new strained humor on Yancey's part, pushed back from the table and started for the door, their objective being the French town of Is Sur Tille.

Yancey waited until they were near the door before he answered Porter.

"Oh, I've just been over to Is Sur Tille havin' a look-see at this new instructor that's comin' down here to teach us how to fly."

Siddons, with his hand upon the door, wheeled abruptly and studied Yancey's face, trying to discover the jest hidden behind that baffling, masking smile.

"Are you joking us?" he demanded from the doorway, but sufficiently convinced to turn back.

The "Flying Fool" smiled sweetly. "Why, Siddons, I wouldn't kid you-all about that sort o' thing," he drawled. "I saw him myself, in town, ridin' in a car with the C.O.[A] Like as not the Major will bring him in here this evenin' for a little chin-chin."

A suppressed growl arose from the other pilots.

"What is he coming here for?" young Edouard Fouche demanded, knowing the answer but anxious to have it brought out in the open where it could be attacked and vilified by all.

Yancey seated himself, tilted his chair back from the table and bestowed another sweet smile upon a room filled with scowling faces. It was a delicious moment--for Tex.

"Why, he's comin' here to teach you poor worms how to fly. It seems that someone back in the States made a mistake in thinkin' we were pilots. We're here by accident. Ha! Ha! That's what we are--just accidents. Did you boys think we were sent over here to get all messed up in this little old war? Tut, tut! We're here just to add grandeur to the colorless scenery. Now be nice to this fellow when he comes. Maybe after he has labored with us for a while we'll be turned into ferry pilots and be sent to ferryin' planes up to the regular guys. I'm so glad I horned in on this sc.r.a.p; it's so well planned and--and thrillin'."

More growls. Tex wasn't being at all funny. Indeed, if this ridiculous story were true, then it was the last straw on the camel's back. Had they not already suffered enough?

The squadron had been in France for two weeks, an interminable time to the restless group of young airmen who, booted and belted and ready for the fray, now found themselves suddenly faced with the prospect of still more training and when as yet they had not the haziest notion of the type of ship that was to be given them for mounts. One rumor had it that they were to get American ships powered by a much-talked-of mystery motor. Very well, but where were those ships? Another rumor, equally persistent, was to the effect that they were to draw French Spads. Very well again, but where were the Spads? Still other rumors included Camels, Sopwiths, Nieuports and Pups. One rumor, uglier and more maddening than all the others, was to the effect that the entire squadron was to be used in observation work. Fancy that! A pursuit pilot being given a slow-moving observation crate with a one-winged, half-baked observer giving orders from the rear c.o.c.kpit! It was enough to make a man wish he had joined the Marines. What was the good of all their combat training if they were to poke around over the front in busses that were meat for any enemy plane that chanced to sight them? It was enough to make a sane squadron go crazy, and the --th Pursuit Squadron was known throughout the service as the wildest bunch of thrill chasers ever collected and turned over to a distressed and despairing squadron commander.

Some swivel-chair expert must have been dozing when the order went through sending them to France. In wash-out records they were the grand champions. They had left behind them a long train of cracked props, broken wings, stripped landing gears--and a few wrecks so complete that the drivers thereof had been sent home in six foot boxes draped with flags. But whatever may be said against them, one thing was certain in their minds and in the minds of all who knew them: They could fly! To them, any old crate that could be influenced to leave the ground was a ship, and they were willing to take it up at any time, at any place, and regardless of air conditions. Perhaps their record had been less black had they been given better ships.

A student, seeking a perfect cross-section of American youth, would have found this squadron an interesting specimen. War drums, beating throughout the land, had summoned them from the four points of the compa.s.s. How they had ever been a.s.sembled at one field is a problem known only to the white-collared dignitaries who sat in swivel chairs and shuffled their service cards. The result of the shuffle caused many a commander to tear his hair and declare that the cards had been stacked against him.

No two members of the squadron came from the same town or city; no two of them had the same outlook on life; no two members thoroughly understood one another. A Texan, such as Yancey, from the wind-swept Panhandle, may bunk with a world-travelled, well educated linguist, such as Siddons, and may even learn to call him Wart, but he never thoroughly understands him. A tide-water Virginian, such as Randolph Hampden, of the bluest of blue blood, may sit at mess by the side of a Californian, such as Hank Porter, but he will show no real interest in California climate and will never be able to make the westerner understand that Virginia is American history and not just a state. A nasal-voiced Vermonter, such as Nathan Rodd, brought up among stern hills and by sterner parents, will never fully understand a soft-voiced Louisianian, such as Edouard Fouche, who has found the world a very pleasant place with but few restrictions.

Leaving out the question of patriotism, the members had but three common attributes: They had scornful disregard for any officer in the air service who knew less of flying than they had learned through the medium of hard knocks; they were determined from the very beginning to get to France; and they were the most care-free, reckless, adventurous, devil-may-care bunch of stem-winders that had ever plagued and embarra.s.sed the service by the simple procedure of being gathered into one group.

It may be that the War Department, in despair, at last thought to be rid of them by sending them overseas where their ability and proclivity for stirring up trouble could be turned to good account against the enemy.

In any case, they were at last in France and from the moment of their landing had been exceedingly voluble in their demands for planes. They wanted action, not delay. And now that Yancey had brought word of this last crushing indignity, they opened wide the spigots of wrath, all talked at once, and the sum total of their comments contained no single word that could be considered as complimentary to management of the war.

More instruction in flying! It was unthinkable. But then, perhaps this grim joker, Yancey, was spoofing a bit.

"Come on, Wart," Hampden called to Siddons from the doorway. "Tex has just been listening to old General Rumor. I'd like right much to see this instructor before I get excited about it. Come on, let's go into town. The night's young--and so am I."

"You'll get excited when you see him," Tex responded, sagely.

"Who is he?" Nathan Rodd asked, which was about as long a sentence as Rodd ever spoke. He saved words as though they were so much gold.

"He's an English lieutenant," Tex answered. "Red-headed, freckle-faced, and so runty that he'd have to set on a stepladder to see out of a c.o.c.kpit."

"A Limey!" chorused half a dozen incredulous, angry voices. "Whatdya know about that!"

Tex nodded solemnly. He was enjoying the situation. Inwardly, he was as furious as any of the others, but he had the happy faculty of being able to enjoy mob distress. "Yeah, a Limey! Some gink in town told me he was a famous ace. I forget his name. Never could remember names. But you boys'll love him. Like as not he'll let some of us solo after a month or so. Ain't the air service wonderful?"

More growls, and a half dozen muttered threats.

"Now boys, you-all be good, or Uncle Samuel'll send you back home and let you work in the shipyards at twenty per day. I'm surprised and hurt that you take this good news in this fashion. I should think you'd be delighted to have a Limey show you how he shot down a few of--"

"Attention!" Hampden called from the doorway, a warning quality in his voice.

The men looked up. There in the doorway stood Major Cowan, and by his side was a neatly uniformed, diminutive member of the Royal Flying Corps. The men scrambled hastily to their feet. Yancey upset his chair with a clatter as he unwound his long, thin legs from around the rungs.

Major Cowan, always maddeningly correct in military courtesies, turned upon Hampden with a withering look.

"Lieutenant," his voice had the edge of a razor but its cut was not so smooth, "do you not know that attention is not called when at mess?"

"Yes, sir."

"You do, or you do not?"

"Double negatives bother me right much," Hampden replied, his eyes on the English pilot and caring not a whit for court-martial now that he saw in the flesh the proof of Yancey's report, "but I do know the rule."

"Then observe it," Major Cowan responded, testily. "Gentlemen, this is Lieutenant McGee, of the British Royal Flying Corps, who has been a.s.signed to us as flying instructor."

Lieutenant McGee felt that the room was surcharged with hostility, and he found himself in the position of one who is ashamed of the acts of another. Major Cowan, altogether too brusque, failed utterly to impress McGee, whose service in the Royal Flying Corps had been with a cla.s.s of men who thought more of deeds than of rank and who could enjoy a care-free camaraderie without becoming careless of discipline.

Discipline, after all, is never deeper than love and respect, and McGee felt somehow that Cowan was not a man to command either. McGee felt his face coloring, and tried to dispel it with a smile.

"I am glad to meet you, gentlemen," he said, "and I want to correct the Major's statement. I am not here as a flying instructor, in the strict sense of the word, but to give you, first hand, some of our experiences in formation flying, combat, and patrol work. I dare say you are all well trained. In fact, I have heard some rather flattering reports concerning you."

Yancey cast a sidelong glance at his neighbor; Siddons nudged Hank Porter. Porter pressed his foot against Fouche's boot. Not a bad fellow, this. Something like, eh?