“That’s one of the necessary things about the Air Reserve Officers Corps,” continued Jack who evidently considered the organization an especially fine thing for the airminded public to support. “All through the winter they meet twice a week in classes, to keep up with modern military and aviation activities; and they get their new up-to-date flying experience by taking off in one of five army training ships kept ready in the new reserve hangar at Candler Field—these are an Oil Curtiss Falcon regular attack plane; a 2-B Douglass dual control basic training ship, with 450 horsepower engines; and three other primary training ships. All the equipment connected with the Fourth Corps hangar is at Atlanta headquarters,—so Doug told me, and he ought to know if any one does.”
“Gee whiz! an’ to think o’ what I been missin’ all this time,” moaned poor Perk, disconsolately. “Mebbe though it wouldn’t ever do to apply fo’ admission to such a organization, ’jest ’cause we-uns gotter to hid aour light under a bushel, while serving aour Uncle Sam in his ole Secret Service. Dye know I got half a mind to throw it all up, an’ go back to carryin’ the air mail, when a guy could show his own face, an’ not live under a dark cloud;—but not so long as yeou sticks on the job, partner, I doant break away ever.”
CHAPTER VIII
Ships Passing in the Night
They were by this time fully embarked on their night flight, Perk continued to watch the flash beacons as though they fascinated him, more or less.
“What I’d call a big snap, if anybody asked me,” he kept telling himself from time to time. “Huh! when I was an air-mail pilot fur a short time, things wasn’t so dead easy—not a blamed light on earth or in the sky, nawthin’ but black stuff every-which-way yeou looked. Naow the guy at the stick jest keeps afollerin’ a string o’ blinkin’ ’lectric lights that point aout his course fur him. Purty soft, I’d call it, an’ no mistake either.”
When they were passing directly over one beacon that kept blinking at them apparently, with about ten seconds between each flash, he could by turning his head, see a far-away swirling gleam marking the light in their rear; while dead ahead another, equally distant, kept up an enticing flash as though bent on assuring them everything was “all right.”
“Jest one thing still wantin’ to make these here air-mail boys right happy,” he told himself; “which is a ray to beat the danged fog that mixes things up like fun. When some wise guy finds a way to send a ray o’ light through the dirty stuff, so’s yeou kin see a mile away as if the air was clear as a bell, then flyin’ blind is agoin’ to lose all its terrors to the poor pilot. I shorely hopes to see the day that’s done.”
Later on Perk suddenly made a discovery that gave him a little fresh thrill—there was some sort of queer light almost dead ahead, that he fancied moved more or less; at any rate it was steadily growing brighter, beyond any question.
“Hot-diggetty-dig!” he muttered, still watching critically, as if hardly able to make up his mind concerning its meaning. “Looks mighty like a shootin’ star; but then I never did see one that didn’t dart daown, like it meant to bury itself in the earth. Must be a ship aheadin’ this way—mebbe a mail carrier goin’ to Atlanta to land on the same Candler Field we jest quitted—yep, that’s what it is, with a light in the cabin to keep the passengers from worryin’—sandbags ain’t any too joyful when they got to sit in the dark, with the ship hittin’ up eighty miles an hour.”
Having thus settled the identity of the strange moving light, Perk hastened to inform his mate of the discovery he had made.