There was a jovial breakfast party that morning in the officers' mess of the --th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, for in this wonderful Corps, which, in the short space of two years, has done the seemingly impossible, and taken the high jump from an insignificant detachment, and become the most brilliant service under the British flag, there is an esprit de jeu as well as an esprit de corps unsurpassed even by that of the Navy, with its centuries of tradition behind it.
"How shall I know a British 'plane, if I meet it suddenly in mid-air?" asked a German pilot once of his Flight-Commander.
"You'll know it because it will attack you!" was the reply.
And never yet has a British pilot, with a single round of ammunition left in his drum, turned tail upon the enemy, even though when outnumbered three to one. For such a pilot, there would be no room in the Royal Flying Corps.
So, during breakfast that morning at the aerodrome near Contalmaison, every flight-commander vied with his comrade for the post of honour. Maps and railway routes were carefully consuled, for there were no less than three routes by which the troop trains might arrive at the Somme front.
"Liège--Namur--Mauberge," said the Squadron-Commander, as he bent over the large map, and ran his fingers lightly along the route, whilst the eager youths with the pilot's wings on the left breast of their soiled and greasy service tunics listened and waited eagerly for their final orders, each hoping in his inmost soul that the route allotted to him might be the one by which the Huns would arrive.
"Let me see, now. After Mauberge and Cambrai the lines divide. Hum! Why, yes, they must come via Peronne, Velu or Lestrée. There now. Are you ready, boys?" asked the Commander, raising his head for the first time for five minutes, and looking keenly into the glowing faces of those lads, who, less than three years ago, in most cases, were at Marlborough, Cheltenham or Harrow.
"Aye, ready, sir!" they replied almost in one breath.
"Are you quite sure, Graham, you can manage it? You have already had two hours up there in the dark, you know."
"We could do another four, sir, quite easily," replied the Commander of "A" Flight, with just a shade of disappointment in his voice, as though he feared the C.O. might hold him back.