If the wily Cossack could connect our boys with the previous movements of the aforesaid Roque, then, as Billy would say, “good night.”
In Colonel Malinkoff would be vested their only hope.
That the boys were not crazy about making another journey at present to Petrograd, goes without saying. They would be insane if they did, of their own accord.
But, luckily, their next flying assignment was the piloting of scouts sent out daily to observe the maneuvers of the great army in gray, then working on a new tack to break into the coveted city of Warsaw.
The aviators operated near a battle front nearly forty miles wide, and above a veritable hurricane of gunpowder, but in this experience Billy and Henri had grown old.
Once away from the city, and up in the air, their chief worry was behind them—their Cossack Nemesis could go hang!
From Salisky, now acting as observer in one of the biplanes, the boys learned of the fall of the great underground fortress of Przemysl, in and out of which they had served as aerial messengers, and where they had, not so long ago, bidden farewell to that gallant soldier-aviator, Stanislaws.
“I hope that ‘Stanny’ will be given a soft berth as a prisoner,” said Billy to his chum.
In the presence of the other airmen, however, the boys kept discreetly silent as to their acquaintance with the Austrian fort and town now overrun by the Russian forces.
Now and again there were days when Billy and Henri were relieved of the strain of constant aeroplane driving, and which was given to wandering about the streets of busy Warsaw.