Then Thorne rattled on, in a way that the Skipper remembered as characteristic of him in the old days, recounting stories of pilots they had both known.
Both Jack and the Skipper found many friends. Only a short time before several other planes attempting to cross the Atlantic had landed here. Two Frenchmen with glorious war records were part of the group. They told their stories of fighting the elements over the Atlantic and their experiences with the treacherous ice.
They talked on and on and all seemed anxious to know the details of any new developments that were being made in aircraft. Anything that had to do with flying interested them.
Kiwi sat and drank in their stories. But since his talk with Thorne, he had had little to say, for he felt that he was something of an outsider inasmuch as he really did not know how to fly.
As time went on, more flyers gathered round. Some were old friends of the Skipper’s; others, pilots who knew him or knew people whom he knew.
Always overhead there were planes tumbling about. Kiwi looked up and watched them stunting, rolling and looping like so many swallows on a summer afternoon. All their motors seemed to run without a skip or a miss, and once or twice he saw pilots floating lazily down in parachutes apparently just for the joy of it.
An all-red plane came skimming close over their heads. The Skipper looked up quickly. He pointed it out to Kiwi and said:
“That’s a Camel plane. Remember—I told you about them?”
The plane came back and landed not far away, and a pink-cheeked young fellow slid to the ground and came on a run to join their group.
The Skipper recognized him at once, and pulling Kiwi to his feet he said: