Several members of the squadron began edging nearer. Perhaps things were not going to be so dreadful after all.
“Indeed?” Major Cowan lifted his eyebrows in surprise. The points of his nicely trimmed moustache twitched nervously as he began to wonder just how he should treat an American who happened to be wearing the uniform and insignia of a lieutenant in the R.F.C.
“My parents were English,” McGee decided to explain, “but I was born in the States. When the war broke out, my brother, who was older by a few years, came over and joined the balloon corps. I was too young to enlist, but my parents were both dead and I came along with my brother, remaining in London until–” he hesitated and cleared his voice of a sudden huskiness, “until word came that my brother had been killed. His balloon was shot down while he was up spotting artillery fire. Naturally, I began to try to get in. I had to put over a fast one on the examining 24board, but I made it. And here I am at last, with my own countrymen. Top hole, isn’t it?” His smile was so genuine and compelling that none could doubt the sincerity of his pleasure. All barriers of restraint were broken down. This chap actually courted conversation.
“Why don’t you get repatriated, Lieutenant?” Yancey asked.
“The tactless fool!” Hampden thought, but dared not say. Of course the Texas clown would rush in where angels feared to tread. Didn’t the fathead have any conception of pride of uniform and pride in a nation’s accomplishments? Hampden felt that he would like to hit Yancey with one of the water carafes.
“What’s that? Repatriated?” McGee repeated. “How can that be done?”
“Haven’t you seen the General Order providing for it?” Tex continued, despite Major Cowan’s silencing frown.
“I’m afraid not,” McGee replied. “I’ve been pretty busy–and I don’t get a great thrill out of G.O.’s. Tell me about it.”
“Well–” Yancey began slowly, enjoying to the fullest the opportunity to provide information uninterrupted, “as you know, a lot of Americans joined the English and French air forces before we came in. Some of ’em, just like you, maybe, had a sort of 25score to settle. But I reckon most of ’em went in because it offered something unusual and a lot of thrills. Huh! You tell ’em! Then when Uncle Sam got warm under the saddle and came hornin’ in, a lot of the boys who’d come over and joined up began castin’ homesick glances back in a westerly direction. Natural-like, Uncle Samuel is willin’ to welcome home all his prodigal sons, if he can get ’em back, and he’s specially forgivin’ considerin’ that his army at the beginnin’ of hostilities is just about one day’s bait on a real war-like front. As for flyers, he hasn’t got enough of ’em, trained, to do observation work for an energetic battery of heavies. So he makes medicine talk with Johnny Bull and with France, and for once he comes out with all the buttons on his trousers. They agree to release all the Americans servin’ under their colors who express a desire to get into O.D. under the Stars and Stripes. ‘Repatriation’ was the flossy name they gave it, but I call it homesickness. A lot of the wayward sons jumped at it quick, and we’re ’way ahead on the game, any way you look at it. Now take some of those boys in the Lafayette Escadrille. Why, if they–”
Yancey’s voice droned on, but McGee no longer heard what he was saying, though to all appearances he was paying courteous attention. But as a matter of fact his eyes were resting upon Lieutenant Siddons, and he was cudgelling his brain in an effort to 26remember where he had seen him before. The blond, curly hair; the rather square face and brow; the thin lips, the calm, cold grey eyes; and the air of self-satisfied assurance, all were part of a memory which was vivid enough but which refused to come out of the back of the mind and associate itself with identifying surroundings. Where had he seen that face? New York? No, not there. He knew very few people in New York. Well, after all, perhaps it was only a strong resemblance. But resembling whom? Surely no one of his acquaintances looked like Siddons, at least none that he could remember.