The latter never raised his eyes—he was using them sidewise upon a group of soldiers standing in front of the mess hall.
The boys saw in the scrawl these words: "Orders for No. 3's, Two Towers, St. Michael road, eight sharp, Thursday evening."
Without a word, Billy returned the paper to the heaver. The officer of the day was approaching. He signed the delivery receipt, but the paper had queerly changed color in the handling.
As the lads slowly walked toward aviation headquarters their minds were all in a whirl. Prisoners they were and prisoners they had been, yet in both instances it had been but the semblance of captivity. While they were held, the rein had been a loose one.
Just back of them the ties of long association, immediately in front of them a trust imposed, a generous parole, when they had gone to the limit in giving the best of themselves, in the one capacity they could serve, to the former rule.
Thursday evening at eight, and this was Tuesday evening at six. Long enough, indeed, for the boys to torment themselves with the reflection that if they did not appear at the appointed hour Roque and Schneider would curse their perfidy, and if they did betray the confidence of the aviation chief in this camp he would pay the penalty.
"It will be no trick at all to take the biplanes for an evening spin; we have done it before without question."
"That's the trouble, Henri", lamented Billy, "it's too easy. If we had to steal the machines, risk our lives before the guns of the sentries, and all that sort of thing, it wouldn't seem such a trial of conscience. But they take us on trust, and without question."
"Yet, here's Roque and Schneider in the lurch, and looking to us for aid. With them we have met about all that is coming to a fellow in this war zone, except death, and pretty near that; we have eaten and slept and starved together."