"I hardly know what to do, as we ought to be at the field hospital, and here the driver has dropped us, naturally from our costumes, before the Y. M. C. A. hut. But of course you can advise me."
"Certainly I can," Jack hastened to say. "I'll see that he takes you on as soon as he unloads some things I notice he has for the people here.
Yes, and for fear that you get lost I'll try to go along with you, for there's the officer who can give me permission to leave quarters."
"Where are Tom and Harry?" asked Bessie, for she noticed that the nurses who had also come in the ambulance were listening with smiles to this conversation, and it embarrassed her.
"Over at the hospital. We'll possibly meet them there," replied Jack.
"But I'll tell you all about it while on the way, Bessie."
CHAPTER XI
THE PROWLERS
THE officer must have thought there was a great attraction over at the field hospital for certain members of his air squadron, considering the frequency of the calls upon him for permission to visit there.
However, he granted the request without hesitation, though Jack thought there was a quizzical gleam in his eyes as he turned and took a good look at the younger of the "friends" whom the lad said he wished to pilot to her temporary quarters.
Besides, the two Air Service boys happened to be prime favorites of his, and consequently he was in a humor to go far out of his way to grant any reasonable request either of them might make.
So presently they were seated once more in the ambulance along with the nurses and heading for the spot where the humble sheds and tents stood which constituted the American field hospital in that sector of the Argonne.
"Now tell me all that's happened since I saw you last, Jack," demanded Bessie, with a little show of authority that amused, yes, and also pleased the other; for boys like to be domineered over at times by a pretty tyrant.
"Couldn't begin to do it in this little ride, Bessie," he assured her.
"But I'll take the first chance I can find to spin the whole yarn."
"I'm certain you boys have been carrying on up here with your usual rashness," she told him. "I've had my heart in my throat, so to speak, every day, when the news would filter in from our front, together with a partial list of the lost, for fear I'd see one of your names there. And when some particularly daring feat of a Yankee air pilot was mentioned I could just picture you or Tom as the hero."
At that Jack laughed, although feeling highly complimented.
"Thank you, Bessie, for being such a fine little champion!" he exclaimed. "But we don't claim to be the equal of a lot of the clever aces now strafing the Boche along our American sector. Of course we meet with our little adventures in the course of our daily work; but they've been mere trifles beside some of the fine things others of the boys have done."
"Well," Bessie told him, "knowing you as I do, Jack, I wouldn't accept your judgment in the matter. Your friends are better able to decide that."
"Here we are already at the hospital," put in Mrs. Gleason. "I couldn't write to Nellie just when we were coming, for that depended on when we could get transportation. But she had told me she could put us up temporarily until we found quarters with the Y. M. C. A. outfit. She will be surprised to see us, and I hope pleased, too."
"I warrant you she will be delighted," asserted Jack confidently.
Great was the surprise of Nellie and Tom when Jack and the Gleasons burst upon them. Harry was at another part of the temporary makeshift building talking to an orderly at the time.
Such subdued chattering as followed. Jack, seeing that Bessie and Mrs.
Gleason were very tired, did not mean to linger long. Bessie would probably speedily take up her duties at the hut, and consequently he could see her every evening if he chose.
So the three boys a little later on once more turned their faces in the direction of the camp. As they walked along they found much to talk about, although it might have been noticed that Tom and Harry did most of the exchanging of opinions, Jack seemingly being too much engrossed with his thoughts, a fact that caused the others to pass many a significant glance back and forth.
It chanced that some question arose, bringing out quite a warm discussion concerning a certain appliance which Harry was trying out on his battleplane, and of which a friend was the inventor.
"I've tested it twice now, Tom, and no matter what you say I believe it will do the business," Harry stoutly affirmed.
"That may be," Tom answered him. "Mind I'm not stubborn enough to condemn a thing I don't quite understand; but I'd want to be shown before I owned up beaten in the argument. Somehow, it doesn't seem possible to me that it can work."
"That's what they all told Columbus before he started on his trip into that unknown western sea," jeered Harry. "Poor old Fulton, too, was laughed at when he said he could make a boat go through the water without sails or oars. And what of Morse sending telegrams hundreds of miles by using a wire and a battery?"
"Oh, I know that's so," retorted Tom, unwilling to back down. "But I refuse to believe this will work automatically without ever a hitch. An air pilot's life hangs in the balance, and if it fails to make connections it's good-night for him."
"I warrant I can convince you inside of five minutes after you've examined the contrivance!"
"All right then, I'll take you up on that."
"When will you go to my hangar with me?" demanded the other, at which Tom laughingly answered:
"Any time you say--right away, if you feel like it. I'm a firm believer in the old saying, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.' Besides, Harry, I admit that you've got my curiosity aroused."
"Call it a bargain, then!" snapped the other, not to be outdone. "Won't take twenty minutes in all, and perhaps I can give you something to sleep over."
"Seems to me," Jack remarked, with a yawn, "you fellows are bound to keep on the go all night long. What with that raid, and our chase after the Hun, then the trip to the field hospital for various purposes, and now back once more to the hangars, just to settle a disputed question, you're keeping things moving pretty well."
"Oh, well," remarked Tom, "you can climb into your little bed, such as it is in these strenuous days, Jack--and dream."
Jack did not reply. Perhaps he considered that it would be wise not to appear to notice these sly thrusts on the part of his chum. Perhaps he did not care who noticed that he and Bessie were such good friends.
So when they arrived in camp he turned aside to seek his sleeping place under a khaki-colored tent, while the other boys continued along the trail leading to the field of the hangars, which had so recently been the objective of the Boche bombing raid.
It took the boys considerably longer to pass from one to the other place than on the occasion of their last trip; but then the night now was comparatively quiet, and no hostile squadron hovered overhead to drop terrible engines of destruction from the sky and arouse a furious bombardment in return, from the batteries of anti-aircraft guns below.
Harry was still feeling ugly toward the enemy who could show such disregard for all the accepted rules of civilized warfare. He continued to vent these feelings as he walked along, unable to get it out of his mind. But this could be understood since he had a sister in an exposed hospital, whose life was in danger from the barbaric acts of the Hun fliers.
"They seem nowadays to take a savage delight in bombing hospitals, and then finding all sorts of excuses for doing such a thing," he told Tom.
"I declare, they put me in mind of a cruel wolf more than anything else."
"On my part," his companion immediately asserted, "I'd liken them to a mad dog, snapping and snarling as he runs along the street, but it shows how desperate they feel their cause to be."
"Guess you're right, Tom. I humbly apologize to the wolf," chuckled the other quickly. "He's had a bad name out West, but on the whole those cow-punchers must call him a clean fighter alongside some of these Huns."
"Well, here we are at the field," observed Tom. "Now I'm waiting to be shown, if I'm not from Missouri. And, Harry, understand that I'm open to conviction. If I find that you've got something wonderful here, I'll frankly acknowledge the fact, and eat humble pie."
"I know you will. That's why I'm so eager to show you what a fine thing my friend Jason has got up in this little trick. My hangar lies over this way. Come along and----"
Harry stopped in the middle of the sentence, stopped walking too, and laid a hand on his companion's arm.
"What did you see?" asked Tom in a whisper; for somehow he sensed the fact that Harry had made some sort of discovery calculated to thrill them both.
"Stand still, Tom!" hissed the other. "I didn't like the way that chap dodged down over there. Couldn't have been one of the guards, for they stick to their posts. I wonder now if one of those Boche planes dropped a spy close to our field here!"
The idea was in line with Tom's reasoning. According to his mind the Germans were getting desperate, and ready to attempt the rashest of enterprises in the hope of checking this daily advance of the Yankees under Pershing.