Air Service Boys Flying for Victory; Or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold
And it may as well be confessed here that Tom felt more than a passing
interest in the pretty sister of Harry, for Nellie Leroy was serving her
country as a Red Cross nurse, being just then in one of the American
field hospitals to which the wounded were being carried day after day
while the Argonne drive was on.
Tom was a full hour and more reading his letters, rereading them, and
dreaming over them. After their rescue from the chateau Mrs. Gleason and
Bessie had gone to Paris, where the mother, ably assisted by her
daughter, had thrown herself into Red Cross work. Now, so Bessie's note
told Tom, her mother was very tired and the two had gone down to Nice
for a brief rest. It would be perfect, Bessie wrote, if only Tom and
Jack and Nellie Leroy were with them.
For a while Tom lost himself in the thought of being at Nice, by the
blue sea, with Mrs. Gleason and Bessie and Nellie--especially
Nellie--and with Jack. With Jack! That thought aroused him.
Still no Jack! He grew more and more concerned, and began to picture all
sorts of grievous things as having happened to his chum.
Several times he thought he heard the well known voice near by, but on
each occasion discovered that he had deceived himself. Tom felt he could
stand it no longer, and had even commenced to set forth when, to his
delight, he discovered Jack coming.
"But what's he doing with that mite of a French child?" Tom asked
himself, staring in wonder and perplexity. "A cunning little girl she
seems to be; but a battlefield isn't just the place for such an
innocent. Poor thing! I suppose she's lost all her kin, and Jack brought
her along because he couldn't let her stay at the ruins of her home and
starve."
He was so filled with joy over the coming of his chum, who did not seem
to be wounded in the least, that everything else was forgotten.
"Letters from home, Jack, old scout; hurry your stumps!" he called out,
waving the epistles above his head.
Jack, still in his pilot's dress, was so eager to hurry that he picked
up the little six-year-old French child, and ran the last fifty yards.
"Did you get any yourself, Tom?" he demanded, as he came up; and then
immediately added: "I see you have some, and by the same token one of
them has a French stamp on it--from Nice!"
"Oh, it's Bessie Gleason," said Tom with a twinkle in his eye. "You
remember my telling you she promised to write to me if I'd answer and
let her hear what stunts the air boys were pulling off over here in the
Argonne. Let you read it if you care to, Jack."
"Very good of you, Tom," grinned the other. "But excuse me while I look
over my own letters. And say, perhaps you'll make friends with this
little girl here until I get through. I've got something to tell about
her that will give you a thrill, I reckon."
It was just like Jack to say enough to set his chum guessing, and then
leave him "up in the air" so to speak. Tom looked again at the child. He
could see that he had made no mistake when thinking she was winsome, at
first sight. He also knew that it would be impossible to make Jack talk
until he had read several times over the letter Bessie had written to
him, and it was a very fat letter.
"Come and make friends with me, little girl," Tom said. "Can you speak
English, I wonder, or will I have to try my stumbling French on you?
What is your name?"
"It is Jeanne, M'sieu!" lisped the child, sweetly, and Tom was more than
ever drawn toward her when he saw the appealing smile on her face.
"Jeanne, is it? A very pretty name too. Jeanne what?" he went on. And as
Tom always won the confidence of children by his kindly manner she drew
closer to him, and he took her little hand in his and squeezed it.
"Jeanne Anstey, M'sieu. And my sister's name, it is Helene," she told
him.
"Oh! then you have a sister, have you?" Tom continued. "Where is Helene
just now, Jeanne?"
The child's eyes immediately filled with tears. Still, with a queer
little French shrug that was almost comical in one so very young, she
said pathetically:
"Ah, M'sieu, it is the pity that I do not know. That bad man took her
away while my poor mamma lay dying, trying to hold Helene. Me, mamma hid
from the man. I sometimes wish it had been me he took on his horse with
him, instead of Helene."
Tom began to wonder what lay back of all this. He looked toward Jack, to
see that the other had paused in his reading as if to listen.
"Tell you all about it as soon as I get through this letter from my
mother, Tom," the other remarked. "Well worth waiting to hear, too, I
give you my word. One of the queerest things that ever happened to me.
I've already more than half promised Jeanne we'll try our level best to
find Helene, her twin sister, for her."
"Nice of you I'm sure," chuckled Tom; "but I want to hear what it's all
about before I cast my vote. Little time we've got these busy days to go
chasing around the country hunting for lost children, sorry as I feel
for the little thing."
"Just wait, and don't take snap judgment, that's all, Tom. Guess I know
about how it'll strike you. Give me five minutes more to clean up here,
and I'll tell you everything."
So Tom continued to amuse himself by talking with the wonderfully bright
little French child, who proved more and more interesting on further
acquaintance. Undoubtedly one of her parents had been English, a fact
which would account for her speaking the language so correctly. From her
name of Anstey he concluded this must have been her father, while the
mother was very likely French, hence Jeanne and that other name, Helene.
"Now I'm ready to explain things, Tom," announced Jack, who wore the
marks to tell that he, too, along with Tom, had reached the rank of
sergeant in the Flying Corps.
"Glad to hear you say so, because you've managed to get me as curious
as any old woman," grumbled Tom. "First of all, tell me how you fared
back there over the battlelines. You didn't seem at all surprised to
find me here; yet I reckon you knew I took a tumble?"
"Oh, I met Lefty Marr on the way here, and he told me you'd come back in
good shape. But poor Hennessy was badly mauled, they say. How about him?
As good an observer as there is in the whole sector!"
"Pretty badly knocked out, and his flying days are about finished, I'm
afraid," Tom admitted. "He'll be months in the sick ward; and by the
time he gets to going we Yankees will have sewed up the game. Go to it
now, Jack."
"Oh, I managed to get in a circus after I saw you go down, Tom," the
other replied. "I was feeling pretty punk and ugly because I didn't know
whether I'd ever see you again, for it looked as if you'd either been
killed or fallen into the hands of the Boches--and that was almost as
bad a job.
"Well, we had a glorious little run for our money, and I sent down one
Hun, and crippled another chap's machine so that he had to turn tail and
scoot for home. Then came three other big Gothas that set me to spinning
on my head. But after they'd chased me for miles, a leak in my tank let
out every drop of petrol; and so the only thing to do was to drop down
and make a landing.
"Luck favored us and we dropped on to a field. The Huns hung around a
bit as if they wanted to make sure of us; but Morgan and I managed to
crawl into a thicket, and so they went away finally.
"We were several miles from our base, and with no petrol to be had for
love or money. Morgan said he'd stay by the plane while I walked all the
way to get a supply. Tom, it was the luckiest thing going for this child
here that I decided on taking that walk along the woods road; I don't
know what would have become of her otherwise."
He stopped speaking to pat the black-haired child caressingly. That was
really one of the finest things marking the conduct of the American
soldiers in France--their respect for women and their love for children.
Those boys in khaki captured myriads of French mothers' hearts by the
way they romped with the youngsters and bought them all sorts of
dainties at the Y. M. C. A. huts.
"I came on her suddenly, and of course stopped to say a few words,
because it is hard for me to pass a child by," Jack continued. "And
after I'd asked her a few questions I found that I was getting mightily
interested in Jeanne.
"Then she began tugging at something that was fastened by a ribbon about
her neck. I soon discovered it was a locket, somewhat battered to be
sure, but still pretty. She proceeded to try to open this, but her
chubby little fingers didn't seem equal to the task, so I did it for
her.
"It held a bit of very thin paper, and on taking this out I found it was
covered with writing, in French of course, and done with a lead pencil
at that. Slowly I managed to make out what the letter said, for it was a
letter, Tom, meant especially for me, simply because I had been, by
chance, the one to stop and speak to the child.
"Listen now, Tom, and I'll read you what is written here on the paper,
just as I managed to translate it. And be ready to hold your breath,
too, because there's something of a real thrill connected with it."
"Shoot!" was all Tom said in reply.
CHAPTER IV
THE STORY OF THE LORRAINE WAIF
JACK had taken the locket in question out of his coat-pocket and opened
it, extracting the folded paper it contained. This latter he smoothed
out, for it was a mass of creases, from having been crushed into so
small a receptacle.
"'To the kind friend who finds my child,' it
starts," said Jack impressively. "'Her name is
Jeanne Anstey. I am her wretched and dying mother,
dying for my beloved France. It is the Boche who
has done this. They came at daylight, and burned
the poor cottage in which we have been making our
home.
"'That terrible man was here with them as before,
mounted on his horse, and with all his trappings.
His name it is Anton von Berthold, and he is my
half-brother. To my face he boasted, knowing that
I was surely dying, that through Helene he meant
some day to claim our estate in Lorraine, where
there are deposits of iron that will be worth
millions of francs yearly.
"'I believe he has long plotted to get hold of
this property, and schemed to secure his ends
through one of my poor children. Oh! if you have a
heart, my friend, I pray you by all you hold
sacred to see that my Jeanne is cared for; and, if
it be possible, try to save my poor Helene from
that monster.
"'This is the plea of a dying Frenchwoman. I have
faith to believe Heaven will not desert the
innocent in their hour of suffering. So I lay me
down to rest, while my Jeanne will go forth in
search of you, kind friend. And with my last
breath I still proudly say, "_Vive la France!_"'"
"Is that all?" asked Tom, as his chum stopped.
"Yes, and there are some of the words blurred. I think it must have been
through the tears of this poor woman. She seems to have been wealthy
before the Huns drove her out of Lorraine because she had French blood
in her veins, and was probably married to an Englishman. What do you
think of it, Tom?"
"It's certainly a dreadful thing for so small a child as Jeanne to be
left alone in the world," replied the other. "What can we do about her,
Jack, have you any idea?"
Jack remained for a moment in deep thought. Then he gave his comrade a
sidewise look as he spoke again.
"Do you know," he ventured to say, "it has struck me that if we could
get an hour or two off duty this evening you and I might take the
little thing to Nellie and ask her if she couldn't have her looked