With these old scouts, as Billy said, “there was something doing every day.”
CHAPTER XXV.
IN THE HANDS OF THE TURKS.
The “Sikorsky,” being out of commission until further orders, the boys had the liberty of free lances, and, by favor of the British military authorities at Tenedos, accompanied an aerial fleet dispatched to the north, to work for a time with the forces of General Hamilton, recently landed on the northern side of the Gulf of Saros and also opening at various points on the Gallipoli peninsula. In spite of serious opposition from the Turks in strong entrenchments protected by barbed wire, the khaki-clad troops were continuing to advance toward the interior when the aviation aids arrived at the scene of action.
The flying contingent included the veterans, Captain Johnson and his inseparable, Josh Freeman, to whom, without doubt, Billy and Henri owed their chance of getting places in the expedition.
“We may have to operate separately, young man,” advised the captain, “and take assignments as they come, and I want to urge that you have a care about overleaping orders. I know you of old, and know that you sometimes forget that there is a limit.”
“Here’s a lecture on caution from a man who never dodged dangerous duty in his life,” laughed Billy; “we have acquired a whole lot of wisdom, professor, since we joined the war college over here.”
“But still I have my eye on you,” persisted the captain, with an attempt to hide a broad smile by a turn of the head.
If it so happened that the boys really did overshoot the mark early in the advance movement, the fault was none of their promoting, and the authority for the mishap was close behind them when it befell.
Billy was piloting no less a personage than “Daring Dan” Macauley, and Henri had behind him Marcus Jones Canby, also a hairbreadth member of the famous Seventh Corps, when they struck the snag that tumbled them within the Turkish lines.
The war-planes carrying our boys and soldier observers started from Enos at break of day to reconnoiter the territory along the Gulf of Saros, and get as near as possible to the line of defenses above the Dardanelles, on the Marmora sea coast.