Aces Up

Aces Up
Covington Clarke
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
CHICAGO NEW YORK
ACES UP
COPYRIGHT 1929 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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 14of 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.