“Thanks, Scott—it’s swell of you to say that,” March mumbled.
“You know—a bunch of students is likely to get a little funny feeling when we know a new officer’s goin’ to take us down,” Scott said. “But we couldn’t have been safer with the Skipper himself than we were with you.”
March wrote about that in the letter he wrote to Scoot Bailey that evening. He had been so busy, working hard sixteen hours a day, that Scoot seemed miles and years away.
“I’m beginning to feel like a real submariner at last, Scoot,” he wrote. “For a while I thought there was so much to learn that I’d never get there. But I’m at home now, and I think I can make it all right. I suppose you’ve been feeling much the same way—despite the fact that flying is so much simpler than pigboating—and that you’re getting the feeling of being a pilot, without having an instructor in your lap every minute.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ORDERS TO REPORT
Scoot Bailey read March’s letter and grinned.
“So flying’s easy, he says?” he muttered to himself. “He should have been here going through what I’ve been through! Aerodynamics, engines, controls, meteorology, gunnery, navigation, bombing, figure-eights, barrel-rolls, spot landings!”
He shook his head and looked at the row of textbooks on the desk before him.