CHAPTER VII
SECRET ENEMIES ABOARD
“One thing sure,” Jack went on to say positively: “That girl is a true-blue Ally. She told me so, and you couldn’t look in her eyes and believe she could deceive. If she’s acting a part at all, under orders, Tom, take it from me she hates her job like everything.”
Tom seemed inclined to agree with his chum, though he had seen very little of Bessie Gleason.
“Well, when she quizzed me, you know, Tom, about my being afraid when up in the clouds, of course I felt that I had to explain that so far I hadn’t felt a grain of fear, only delight, when spinning along at eighty miles an hour in an airplane. Yes, I told her a few things about what we hoped to do. But then anybody who knows we’re bound for a French aviation school could understand all that.”
Jack evinced a sudden inclination to leave the company of his chum.
“Excuse me now, will you, Tom?” he observed, with a smirk; “but I’m going on the hurricane-deck to have a little promenade with Bessie. She asked me to meet her up there around two this afternoon; in fact slipped me a little note when leaving the dining-saloon this noon. I rather think she has got something special she wants to say to me. And, Tom, if it’s of any importance, mind, I’ll let you know about it.”
“Wish you would,” the other flashed after him as he hastened away; and from the sober expression on his face it could be seen that Tom felt an interest much deeper than mere passing curiosity in the matter.
Some time afterwards he was sitting in his deck chair, warmly wrapped in his Scotch plaid steamer rug when he saw Jack hurriedly approaching. Tom understood that his chum must have some news worth while to tell him, if the look on his face counted for anything.
Before throwing himself down in his own chair, Jack looked cautiously in both directions. It chanced that there were few passengers abroad just then. A bundled-up figure dozed in a chair at some little distance forward; and further aft a woman who was going over as a Red Cross nurse at the front, was sitting reading a magazine.
“I imagine you’ve struck something worth while, old fellow,” suggested Tom.