“Good bus,” Saufley said. “She’s only had twenty hours and got the original linen on ‘er. But the left gun is sorta temperamental.” He started off inside the hangar and Dorman followed him.
A battle plane was life to Dorman, a bridge by which the distance to Elysian fields could be spanned, and he touched his Spad as if it were a living thing which could understand his fingertips. Once or twice he was stricken by self-consciousness as Saufley looked at him swiftly. Dorman was suddenly aware, for no reason, that he should be more dispassionate. After all, it was a war.
For an hour then he milled around the great drab hangar, frankly alive; cognizant that out there was fighting. It seemed different somehow, for back in school this was what they all lived for. Up here it was more serious; there was less laughter and derision of the enemy. Back in the school the Huns were a lot of stumblebums who didn’t know what it was all about, but up here the men who had been over and met them knew differently. They were highly prized as foemen.
Then it happened. So swiftly, so suddenly Dorman was never able to get it straight.
There was a deep drone from up above and he first thought the group was coming back. But there was confusion in the hangar, for the mechanics had recognized the hum of the motor.
“Jerry!” they shouted, and got out into the open immediately. They thought bombers were in the air.
Dorman dashed for the door and looked up. There they were, a scant three hundred meters up, daring the Archies—two Fokkers, in a dive with their Spandaus spitting. The Maltese crosses glared ominously; it was the first time he had ever seen the enemy in full flight.
And then it dawned on him that they were far back behind the Allied lines; and the blood surged again.
This was his chance and he knew it.
“Hey!” he shouted at Saufley. “Hey!”