There was hardly any need of it, for with the removal of the muffler and the goggles that adorned the close-fitting aviator’s hood, worn when making an ascent near the clouds, it could be seen that Jack’s face was radiant, while his eyes fairly sparkled with enthusiasm.
“Oh, it was great!” he exclaimed, as he fell upon Tom, and almost hugged him.
Having made their way from the camp of the hangars to the villa and changed their working clothes for something better suited to lounging about, the two chums went on to compare notes. It was found that in many things they had had just the same experience.
“Well,” said Jack, about the time the sun sank and the shadows began to creep over the wretched landscape, “I’ve had my initial bow to aerial warfare, and I want to say right now I’m more infatuated with it than ever. Some day we’ll go up together, I trust, Tom, and I hope it will be soon.”
CHAPTER XX
BEHIND THE FRENCH LINES
After that wonderful day the two air service boys saw no more of real action for some little time. The French had achieved the main object they had in view. They were once more in possession of a further strip of the enemy trenches, and had held tenaciously to them despite all fierce counter-attacks.
This meant that still more precious French territory had been redeemed, even though to regain it it had virtually to be baptized with the blood of patriots and martyrs.
Tom and Jack heard a good deal of this talk as they met with the French officers who occasionally strolled over to the headquarters of the Lafayette Escadrille. It was not said with boasting, but was said proudly. Those heroic men who had laid their lives on the altar of their country’s freedom would never be forgotten so long as France lived.
The boys wandered about considerably behind the French front when there was nothing afoot. They found much to excite their keen interest. It was, in the first place, perfectly amazing, as well as appalling, to see what a desert that once fair land had become, after the tidal wave of modern warfare had swept across it.
“Why!” Jack was wont to exclaim, “it must be heaps worse than the Sahara; for there the sand always was and always will be, while here there once nestled lovely little French villages, and every bit of the ground, they tell us, was taken up with gardens, fields and orchards.”