It developed, however, that the boy missed his reckoning, and proving the old saying that “delays are dangerous.” Hardly an hour of sleep, it seemed to the boys, had been granted them when the hand of Salisky dragged the pilots out of slumberland. In reality, it was cold, gray dawn which accompanied the awakening process.
“Orders to backtrack,” was the brief statement of the scout, himself already attired for flight, and with dispatch case swung over his shoulder.
“You don’t mean right away?” Henri sat up in his cot to put the question.
“Just as soon as you can get outside of some rations,” replied Salisky, “so there is no time for napping. It is a long ways to Warsaw and only two stations for food and fuel in between.”
“But you didn’t say a thing to us about it last night,” argued Henri, greatly disturbed by the prospect of failure to fulfill their pledge to Stanislaws.
“Come out of your dream, boys; it is not like you to question orders.”
The scout stood by while the boys prepared for the journey, and they were never alone again in this last hour in Przemysl.
Stanislaws’ belt weighed like a chunk of lead against the heart of Henri.
As Salisky had stated, the aviators had but two brief rest periods in the flight to Warsaw, and they traveled at lightning speed.
At the end of this air voyage, the aviation chief peremptorily ordered them off duty for at least two weeks. “No use of killing these birds,” he said to Salisky, with a chuckle, “when you have taken all the fat off their bones.”