“What are the orders, Larry?” asked Bob, getting up and cramming his letter into his pocket. “The guns don’t seem to be firing very heavily.”
“No, it’s the same old business. The French observers are trying to get a peep at Argenton. The Boche scouts seemed to be asleep for a while and the French made some bold swoops, but now the enemy has waked up with a vengeance, and if the observers are to see anything they must have some guards to engage the Boche. Where are your duds? I’ve got to go back to my plane. You’re to go up with Jourdin, I think. He’s got two fine new machine guns on his Spad—you ought to bring down half the German air force with them. Well, I’m going.”
Bob slipped into his flying coat, put on his helmet, picked up half a dozen things he needed, and went out just as the sergeant met him at the door with the orders in his hand.
“All right, Sergeant; I’m off,” he said, returning the salute. “Where is Major Kitteredge, do you know?”
“He’s on the field, sir, or was a minute ago. I think the Lieutenant will find him near the stables.”
The sergeant pointed across the farmyard to a broad field behind it, and Bob nodded to him as he started off. The sergeant was a friend of his, and Bob never had a moment’s talk with him before his thoughts turned with a pang at his heart to that other friend, Sergeant Cameron, whom he had left behind in a German prison. He had sent him many packages of food and comforts since then, and had even received a printed card of acknowledgment from him, forwarded under Red Cross supervision. But what were presents of food and tobacco—priceless as they were to the prisoner—compared with freedom and a chance to strike a blow in the good cause on such a day as this?
Bob crossed the farmyard and vaulted the fence into the hay-field. The old barn had been converted into a workshop, and near it stood a dozen men preparing for flight. Six biplanes were waiting on the field, to some of which the mechanics were giving a last careful inspection. Bob found Major Kitteredge beside one of them.
“Good-morning, Major,” he said, saluting. “Any further orders for me?”
“You are to go up as gunner to-day, Gordon,” said the officer, looking up from the papers he held. “We’re short one gunner, and Jourdin wants you. He has received all the orders I have here, so he will pass them on to you. Get off as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”