For our sons shall come in the new beginning
And see that the windmill spins again.
“C’est fini, mon capitaine,” said the soldier-mechanic, coming up with a quick salute and a backward gesture toward the airplane.
Bob picked up his helmet, while Jourdin followed the man over to inspect his work. Bob looked up into the blue sky, streaked with feathery cloud streamers, devoutly hoping for better success in the afternoon’s offensive. A desperate eagerness took hold of him once more. He had learned a part of the secret of the French soldier’s valor—what it means to be fighting to rescue one’s family and home—since his father and Lucy were prisoners in Château-Plessis.
“It is all right now,” said Jourdin, turning, as Bob came up, from a critical examination of the wing’s supports. “Let us get off at once. Look there!” He pointed upward to where three German planes were deliberately crossing the French lines, from which several aircraft quickly rose to intercept them.
“Most of our little squadron stayed near Château-Plessis to engage the enemy there,” said Captain Jourdin. “I think we shall be needed to help drive these fellows back.”
As he spoke so modestly of what might be expected of him, the light of battle shone in the Frenchman’s eyes. He hurriedly completed his preparations for flight. Bob, no less eager, seconded him in silence, with one more quick glance at the planes now circling overhead. In five minutes they were off down the meadow, and rising swiftly toward the scene of the fight.
No sooner had the Germans seen the French planes mounting to the attack than they sent reinforcements from their own lines. Evidently the persistent hovering of the Allies’ scouts over the Argenton defenses was beginning to annoy them. According to their usual tactics when suffering from wounded dignity, they prepared to take the offensive. As the battle-plane carrying Bob and Jourdin approached a height of six thousand feet, and came on a level with the combatants, the situation had not as yet advanced beyond a skirmish. There were eight enemy and seven Allied planes, not counting the newcomer, which evened the numbers. Of the French and American planes, three were heavy machines from the Cantigny squadron, the remaining five light, scouting craft. The Germans were all armored planes, but three were of a heavy, slow-going type, almost invincible by bullet fire, but unable to quickly follow up an advantage. Jourdin gave one keen look around him, as though summing up the odds, then spoke through the tube to Bob:
“We have a good chance of victory, Gordon, but we’ll have to fight hard for it!”
Bob was already convinced of that. He caught sight of Larry Eaton on his left, pouring a murderous fire from his Lewis gun into the heavy German craft maneuvering beside him. But he also saw the man who skilfully guided the Boche machine into position for a swift retaliation on Larry’s flank. This pilot was Von Arnheim, the German for whom Bob had been exchanged. One of his feet had been rendered useless by shrapnel fragments, but that had not prevented his returning to the air service. His steel-blue eyes shone out from behind his helmet with all his old reckless audacity, and Bob felt his determination harden and his courage mount to fearlessness at sight of him.