“He’s staring as hard as anything at us right now,” muttered Jack. “That may, and again may not, be a good sign. Get ready to run alongside, Tom, and brush up your best parlez vous Francaise, so as to make him understand what we want the worst kind. Oh, I do hope he says ‘get aboard with all your traps, and I’ll drop you at the aviation camp and hangars which lie right on my way to the front’.”
“What’s this?” cried Tom half to himself. “Seems to me I ought to know that chap; and yet it can’t be possible! This is over in France, and we’re listening to the roar of big guns right now at the front! Yet if I didn’t know different I’d say that was Neal Kennedy!”
“What?” gasped Jack, clutching his chum’s arm in sudden surprise.
“Say, whatever does this mean?” the driver of the Red Cross ambulance sang out, as he swung his machine to the side of the road and leaned forward, to stare at the pair standing just beyond. “Am I dreaming, or do I see Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly in uniform and standing on French soil? What ever brought you boys over here I’d like to know. And what are you doing in those duds, tell me? Do you really belong to the Flying Corps?”
Jack and Tom dashed out, and were soon shaking Kennedy’s hands. Neal Kennedy, a Bridgeton boy, was delighted to run across home folk in this most unexpected fashion. Neal had gone away from home many months before Tom and Jack conceived their plan of flying for France, and as he had never been intimate with the air service boys, and as Tom and Jack had talked but little of their plans in Bridgeton until they were ready to sail for France, Kennedy had not heard of their joining the Flying Corps.
CHAPTER XVI
HOW NEAL WON HIS DECORATION
Great was the astonishment and delight of Neal Kennedy on learning that his two former schoolmates were now on their way to the front to join the famous American escadrille that had for a long time been rendering such a good account of itself in the service of France.
“It’s hard for me to believe I’m awake, fellows,” he assured them, his eyes still kindling with eagerness as he surveyed their uniforms and military caps. “To think of you having spent all that time in Virginia learning to fly; and then finishing down at Pau, while I’ve been running an ambulance and carrying wounded poilus to the rear!”
“Don’t say a word against your calling, Neal!” exclaimed Tom. “Why, it’s great! Every day you fellows are risking your lives!”
Neal drew in a long breath.