“A thousand if we can!” exclaimed Jack, for he and Tom had caught something of the French enthusiasm of manner, from having associated with the brave airmen so long.
“Good! Then I shall feel free to ask. Know then, that I am a little short-handed in experienced airmen. The Huns have taken heavy toll of us these last few days,” he went on sorrowfully, and Torn and Jack knew this to be so, for two aces, as well as some pilots of lesser magnitude, had been shot down. But ample revenge had been taken.
“By all rights you are entitled to a holiday before you join your new command, under the great Pershing,” went on the flight commander. “However, as I need the services of two brave men to do patrol duty, I appeal to you. There is a machine gun nest, somewhere in the Boche lines, that has been doing terrible execution. If you could find the battery, and signal its location, we might destroy it with our artillery, and so save many brave lives for France,” he went on. “I do not like to ask you—”
“Tell 'em to get out the machines!” interrupted Jack. “We were just wishing we could do something to make up for the loss of Harry Leroy, and this may give it to us. You haven't heard anything of him, have you?” he asked.
The commander shook his head.
“I fear we shall never hear from him,” he said. “Though only yesterday we received back some of the effects of one of our men who was shot down behind their lines. I can not understand in Leroy's case.”
“Well, we'll make 'em pay a price all right!” declared Tom. “And now what about this machine gun nest?”
The commander gave them such information as he had. It was not unusual, such work as Tom and Jack were about to undertake. As the officer had said, they were practically exempt now that they were about to be transferred. But they had volunteered, as he probably knew they would.
Two speedy Spad machines were run out for the use of Tom and Jack, each one to have his own, for the work they were to do was dangerous and they would have need of speed.
They looked over the machine guns to see that they were in shape for quick work, and as the one on the machine Tom selected had congealed oil on the mechanism, having lately returned from a high flight, another weapon was quickly attached. Nothing receives more care and attention at an aerodrome than the motor of the plane and the mechanism of the machine gun. The latter are constructed so as to be easily and quickly mounted and dismounted, and at the close of each day's flight the guns are carefully inspected and cleaned ready for the morrow.