Big George Dorman opened his mouth to protest, to say something; and then he suddenly closed it. He had washed out as a fighting pilot, he had blown his first chance—and now he was getting his medicine. Well, he told himself he’d take it on his heels.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I shouldn’t—”
“That’s all, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dorman saluted and went out.
Chapter III
Ferry duty. God what a laugh that was. A month now he’d been doing ferry duty. A month of peaceful flying. Why, a guy might as well be back home!
George Dorman yanked up the nose of his Nieuport 23 and passed over the flat-roofed houses on the edge of Chaumont. What he should do, he told himself again, was to put the ship down, go in and tell Pershing all about it. Tell him he’d had his lesson and that if he could get just one more chance...
But, of course, he didn’t. He took his Nieuport back to Orly, checked it in, and because he’d been doing a lot of thinking that day and was all in a fuddle he went down to Papa Jean’s grog shop that night and proceeded to get gloriously, thoroughly and completely soused.
The next morning his head felt like a balloon; it pulled him up and took him into the mess hall exactly two hours late. But the mess sergeant was a good egg, and he fixed Dorman some coffee, oatmeal and a thick slice of lamb.