“You had better go in and work that up with Maxwell,” replied Smith. “When you have finished your draft of the events, I will go over it and either approve or disapprove.”
“Well, here I am, Buddy,” said Bill as he sat down, by the desk in the operations office. “Captain Smith said that I was to help you draw up the list of events for the field day tomorrow.”
“It’s a fine time for you to be showing up after I have all the hard work completed,” said Maxwell. “I think that I will pick out a real job for you.”
“Go to it,” said Bill. “I have had such a good time during the past few days that I can stand anything now.”
“Do you mean that?” asked Buddy.
“Sure I do,” replied Bill. “What have you on your mind?”
“We will go over the list of events as they appear on the program,” said Maxwell. “In the morning the squadron baseball team will play the local team. In addition there will be a trap-shooting competition in which both an officers’ and enlisted men’s team will compete against anything that the local people bring on. Then we will have an early lunch given by the Chamber of Commerce, during which the celebrities will tell why Eugene should have an airdrome. In the afternoon we will have some formation flights, a radio demonstration in which someone will broadcast from an airplane through a loudspeaker, and finally you will jump from a parachute.”
Bill did not know whether Maxwell was joking or not. He looked at the paper on the desk and, sure enough, the last event was for a parachute jump. As far as Bill knew, there were no parachutes in the squadron. The only ones that he had ever seen were those used during the war. All balloonists were equipped with them and the crews of the German airplanes wore them. In fact, Bill had the distinct recollection of having seen a German plane shot down and the observer jump with his parachute, thereby escaping with his life. To the best of Bill’s knowledge, the only parachutes for airplanes in the United States were those still in the experimental stage.
It looked to Bill as if Maxwell were playing a joke on him. There would be no harm in agreeing.
“That’s all right with me,” said Bill.