Air Service Boys Over the Rhine; Or, Fighting Above the Clouds

Here they come back, Tom!
Yes, I see them coming. Can you count them yet? Don't tell me any of our boys are missing! and the speaker, one of two young men, wearing the uniform of the Lafayette Escadrille, who were standing near the hangars of the aviation field somewhere in France, gazed earnestly up toward the blue sky that was dotted with fleecy, white clouds.
There were other dots also, dots which meant much to the trained eyes of Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly, for the dots increased in size, like oncoming birds. But they were not birds. Or rather, they were human birds.
The specks in the sky were Caudrons. A small aerial fleet was returning from a night raid over the German ammunition dumps and troop centers, and the anxiety of the watching young men was as to whether or not all the airmen, among whom were numbered some of Uncle Sam's boys, had returned in safety. Too many times they did not—that is not all—for the Hun anti-aircraft guns found their marks with deadly precision at times.
The Caudrons appeared larger as they neared the landing field, and Tom and Jack, raising their binoculars, scanned the ranks—for all the world like a flock of wild geese—to see if they could determine who of their friends, if any, were missing.
How do you make it, Tom? asked Jack, after an anxious pause.
I'm not sure, but I can count only eight.
That's what I make it. And ten of 'em went out last night, didn't they?
So I heard. And if only eight come back it means that at least four of our airmen have either been killed or captured.
One fate is almost as bad as the other, where you have to be captured by the Boches, murmured Jack. They're just what their name indicates—beasts!
You said something! came heartily from Tom. And yet, to the credit of airmen in general, let it be said that the German aviators treat their fellow, prisoners better than the Hun infantrymen do.
So I've heard. Well, here's hoping neither of us, nor any more of our friends, falls over the German lines. But look, Tom! and Jack pointed excitedly. Are my eyes seeing things, or is that another Caudron looming up there, the last in the line? Take a look and tell me. I don't want to hope too much, yet maybe we have lost only one, and not two.