Stumbling across the torn and broken country, he had come across a British Tommy badly wounded, and had dragged him to safety. For this and other of his exploits he had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest British decorations given to airmen.
Then, when the Skipper’s leave to England had come around, after six months at the front, he, with several others, had been summoned to Buckingham Palace to be decorated by the King. He had nervously awaited his turn at the end of a long red carpet which led to the platform where the King stood. He had walked forward and saluted, more frightened than he had ever been in the midst of a scrap in the air. The King had pinned on the cross, had asked him one or two questions about his flying, had thanked him for his splendid services as an American with the British army, and before he knew it the interview was over and he was on his way out.
DISTINGUISHED
FLYING CROSS
The newspapers printed all this, and drew on their imagination for a great deal more.
They gave a full description of Jack’s training and work with the Navy and his flying ability. But most of all, they devoted many paragraphs to his development of a device which was a really practical drift indicator. This ingenious instrument, upon which they were going to rely during their long hop, seemed to solve the problem of correcting their drift, even in clouds and fog. Heretofore, pilots attempting to navigate over long distances of fog-obscured areas had found themselves unable to tell whether or not the wind was carrying them sideways off their course.
The story of Kiwi’s life and his adventures also became public property.
Billings was not much help to reporters. Naturally taciturn, he became even more so with newspaper men, and was almost surly in his refusal to help them out with their stories.
Cosgrave, however, liked the chance to talk, and did so on every occasion. The Skipper finally warned him he had better say little or nothing at all, and that if there were any information the papers should have, he, the Skipper, would give it.
One evening the Skipper had taken Billings back to the houseboat with him, and during supper he tried to draw him out about Cosgrave and what he, Billings, thought of him.