“I think so, too. Do you remember how the Cadets of our class were sent up for solo in rickety old planes held together by wire, tape and chewing gum? Poor devils, they got washed out plenty fast! I’ve seen ’em go up when the expression on their faces told that they had forgotten everything they had learned. No wonder a lot of them took nose dives into the hangars and hung their planes on smokestacks and church steeples.”
McGee frowned, remembering some of the friends who had tried for their wings and drew crosses instead. Quickly he threw off the mood with a laugh.
58“Yes, and I was one of those ‘poor devils’ who forgot. I’ll never forget that! I had no more right being up in that old Avro than a hog has with skates. But England needed pilots and needed them badly. I guess it was a case of ‘what goes up must come down’ and the government gave wings to the ones who came down alive. The others got angels’ wings.”
“I suppose so. And before another month passes the need will be greater than ever. Look what the Germans did to the British Fifth Army just last month. I’ll never know what stopped ’em. But they’re not through. What do you make of that long range gun that is shelling this very city?
“Um-m. Dunno. Seems to me that well directed reconnaissance flights should be able to locate that gun.”
“Maybe; but locate it or not, its purpose is to drive war workers out of Paris, cripple the hub of supplies and make it more difficult for us to coordinate the service of supplies through here when they make their drive at Paris. It’ll come within a month. Then we’ll need every pilot and every ship that can get its wheels off the ground. I’m tellin’ you–a month!”
“Think so?”
“I know so! America is going to have her big chance–and may the Lord help us if she doesn’t deliver! I don’t know how many combat troops she has landed, but I do know that her eyes, the air 59service, is in need of ships. The French and English are willing to give them all the old, worn out flying coffins that they can pick up out of junk heaps–old two-seater Spads, old A.R.’s, 1-1/2 strutter Sopwiths, and crates like that. If they can get new Spads, like those we saw ’em flying this morning, or Nieuport 28’s, or the Salmsons which their commander has been trying to get, then all will be jake. Otherwise–” he shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“Otherwise,” McGee took advantage of the pause, “Otherwise they’ll deliver just the same, even if they have to fly Avros, Caudrons or table tops. Buzz, these Americans over here have fight in their eyes. They’ve got spirit.”
“Yes, but spirit can’t do much without equipment.”