“Who is he?” Nathan Rodd asked, which was about as long a sentence as Rodd ever spoke. He saved words as though they were so much gold.
“He’s an English lieutenant,” Tex answered. “Red-headed, freckle-faced, and so runty that he’d have to set on a stepladder to see out of a cockpit.”
“A Limey!” chorused half a dozen incredulous, angry voices. “Whatdya know about that!”
Tex nodded solemnly. He was enjoying the situation. Inwardly, he was as furious as any of the others, but he had the happy faculty of being able to enjoy mob distress. “Yeah, a Limey! Some gink in town told me he was a famous ace. I forget his name. Never could remember names. But you boys’ll love him. Like as not he’ll let some of us solo after a month or so. Ain’t the air service wonderful?”
More growls, and a half dozen muttered threats.
21“Now boys, you-all be good, or Uncle Samuel’ll send you back home and let you work in the shipyards at twenty per day. I’m surprised and hurt that you take this good news in this fashion. I should think you’d be delighted to have a Limey show you how he shot down a few of–”
“Attention!” Hampden called from the doorway, a warning quality in his voice.
The men looked up. There in the doorway stood Major Cowan, and by his side was a neatly uniformed, diminutive member of the Royal Flying Corps. The men scrambled hastily to their feet. Yancey upset his chair with a clatter as he unwound his long, thin legs from around the rungs.
Major Cowan, always maddeningly correct in military courtesies, turned upon Hampden with a withering look.
“Lieutenant,” his voice had the edge of a razor but its cut was not so smooth, “do you not know that attention is not called when at mess?”