The strange friendship, founded on the love of airplanes, flourished. The boys were always together, and had invented an elaborate system of signals to communicate with each other at such times as they weren’t with one another. Two crossed flags meant “Come over at once.” One flag with a black ball on it meant “I can’t come over.” These flags, usually limp and bedraggled by the elements horrified the parents of both Bob and Hal when they saw them hanging in various intricate designs out of windows and on bushes and trees in the garden. But since they seemed necessary to the general scheme of things, they were allowed to go unmolested, even in the careful Gregg household.
The friendship had weathered a summer, a school year, and was now entering the boys’ summer vacation again. It was at the beginning of this vacation that Bob whistled to Hal and called to him to come down to hear his wonderful news.
“Well,” said Hal, “spill the news.” It must be said of Hal that he tried even to master the language of the real boy in his education as a good sport.
“Bill’s coming,” said Bob, trying to hide his excitement, but not succeeding very well.
“What?” shouted Hal.
“Sure, Captain Bill’s coming to spend the summer with us. He’s flying here in his own plane.”
“Oh, golly,” said Hal, and could say no more.
Captain Bill was the boys’ patron saint. It had been through his uncle Bill that Bob Martin had developed his mania for flying. Captain Bill Hale was Bob’s mother’s youngest brother, the adventurous member of the family, who had enlisted in the Canadian army when he was eighteen, at the outbreak of the war. When the United States joined the big battle, he had gone into her air corps to become one of the army’s crack flyers, with plenty of enemy planes and blimps to his credit. A crash had put him out of commission at the end of the war, but had not dulled his ardor for flying. For years he had flown his own plane both for commercial and private reasons.
As Bob’s hero, he had always written to the boy, telling him of his adventures, encouraging him in his desire to become an aviator. He had never found the time actually to visit for any length of time with his sister and her family, but had dropped down from the sky on them suddenly and unexpectedly every so often.
But now, as Bob explained carefully to Hal, he was coming for the whole summer, and was going to teach him, Bob, to fly.