“It would not surprise me a bit,” volunteered one of the soldier-aviators, “to see the new airship flying over the Bosphorus batteries before we are very much older, and loaded with bombs, too.”
“A prophet has come among us,” laughed Lieutenant Atlass, “but more power to him if he rings true, and rings me into the venture.”
“Give another pull to that bell,” suggested Lieutenant Moppa.
The influence of Sergius was in evidence when assignments to honor places in the new crafts were made, and the boys found themselves listed among the pilots who would take turns at the steering wheels of the mighty “Sikorsky.”
However, the recent performance of the young aviators before Fort Killis, reported in dispatches, had the effect of reducing any feeling that favoritism had been wholly responsible for this advancement.
“Really, it is more than we had any right to expect,” said Billy, in discussing the selection of the airmen who were to serve aboard Russia’s greatest aeroplane.
“Suppress your modesty, my boy; it may be that I have given you a short lease on life by my recommendation, but in your work you take the chances anyhow, so I put you in the way of dying at the top of the profession.”
It was the voice of Sergius, half serious and half in the lighter vein.
He had stepped quietly into the air station, and was contemplating with interest the lines of the new wonder of the air.
Already experts were at work within the enclosed rigging, oiling and polishing the machinery, filling the tanks and in every way putting in perfect shape the mammoth flyer.