He ought to be finished with them soon, and then he would be due to move away from the main field to Field 5 for the smaller, faster fifteen meter machines. Perhaps there would have been some hitch about going if he’d been hooked up with the squadron, but now he could leave as soon as he was ready.
And he was ready to go somewhere, too. He’d now been quarantined at Issy-la-Boue for over a month and hadn’t been able to leave the post for a bath. If it wasn’t the measles or the mumps it was the chicken pox, or somebody had a sore toe. There was a spreading line of red blotches around his waist, and he knew only too well what it was. The scabies! And from his experience with the French he knew there was only one cure—hot sulphur baths with a scrubbing brush, and plenty of them. They had them at the bath-house in town, but he couldn’t get away. However, perhaps something would turn up; it always did, sooner or later.
It did the next day. He finished flying early, and returned to the barrack. As he came in, the telephone rang and he answered. An excited voiced called:
“Hello, is this the Main Field? This is Field 5. Tommy Lang just crashed here in an eighteen.”
“Hah?” said Tommy.
“Yeah, deader’n a doornail, too. The whole top of his head’s gone above the eyes. An awful mess. The only way we knew who it was by his mustache.”
The spreader of bad news hung up, leaving Tommy dazed. He pinched himself to make sure that he was alive. It must be Phil who had crashed. He had a mustache like Tommy’s own, but he was about six feet tall, while Tommy was nearer five. However, no doubt he had been crumpled up like an accordion in the fall. Then Tommy had another thought. He seized the telephone receiver and called the adjutant.
Later that evening when the orderly came to the operations office with notices for the bulletin board Tommy was waiting for him. An hour later found him luxuriating in a hot sulphur bath in the town of Issy-la-Boue. He had caught a ride on a French truck from the field, and there had been no M.P.’s on duty when he went in. When he came out there were two near the door, but the night was pitch dark, and they were wrangling about something—a girl, apparently—and he passed unnoticed. Then he sought a hotel.
The madame in charge was cordial and voluble.