“Lucky I’m not gone!” McGee answered. “My knees are too shaky to crawl out yet. It looked like finis la guerre pour moi for a second.” He turned and blew a kiss at the gap in the trees. “Thanks, Mr. Woodchopper, whoever you are. Buzz, never repeat that old poem about ‘Woodman, spare that tree!’ If he had spared those two–well! Take a look at my tail skid, Old Timer. Is it broken off?”
“No. It’s cracked and sort of cockeyed, but a piece of wire from that fence over there will fix it all O.K. What happened?”
McGee fixed him with a baleful glare. “You should ask–with as much experience as both of us have had with these tricky motors. I choked it down, that’s all. That same little fault has sent many a pilot home in a wooden box. Go get me a piece of that wire. We’ll fix the skid, somehow, and when I get to Le Bourget I’ll set her down on two points. And listen! From here on in we do–”
“No contour chasing,” Larkin completed, forcing a thin smile. “Seems I heard that somewhere before. 55Crawl out, Shrimp. You said you wanted to be out among the flowers and sweet things. Well, here’s a sweet thing, and this field is full of flowers. I brought you down low so you could enjoy them.”
“Yeah! I said I wanted to be among ’em–not pushing ’em up. Hurry over and get that wire before I do something violent.”
2
Thirty minutes later two chastened pilots took off from the level field, with a half dozen curious French peasants for an audience, and laid a straight course for Le Bourget. No more acrobatics and no more hedge hopping. To an observer below they would have resembled two homing pigeons flying rather close together and maintaining their positions with a singleness of mind and purpose.
When they reached Le Bourget they circled the ’drome once, noted the wind socks on the great hangars, and dropped as lightly to the field as two tardy, truant schoolboys seeking to gain entrance without attracting notice.
A newly arrived American squadron was stationed at the field, jubilant over the fact that they were trying their skill on the fast climbing, fast flying single-seater Spads. Five of these swift little hawks were now on the line, making ready for a formation flight.
56McGee and Larkin introduced themselves to the officer in command, presented their passes and authority for refueling, and McGee requested that his tail skid be repaired and his motor checked over.