Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN LINE plenty of them. They had them at the bath-house in town, but he couldn’t get away. However, perhaps something would turn up; it always did, sooner or later. It did the next day. He finished flying early, and returned to the barrack. As he came in, the telephone rang and he an- swered. An excited voiced called: “Hello, is this the Main Field? This is Field 5. Tommy Lang just crashed here in an eighteen.” “Hah?” said Tommy. “Yeah, ‘deader’n a doornail, too. The whole top of his head’s gone above the eyes. Anawful mess. The only way we knew who it was was by his mustache.” The spreader of bad news hung up, leaving Tommy dazed. He pinched him- self to make sure that he was alive. It must be Phil who had crashed. He hada mustache like Tommy’s own, but he was about six feet tall, while Tommy was nearer five. However, no doubt hehad been crumpled up like an accordion in the fall. Then Tommy had another thought. He seized the telephone receiver and called the adjutant. ATER that evening when the orderly came to the operations office with notices for the bulletin board Tom- my was waiting for him. An hour later found him luxuriating in a hot sulphur bath in the town of Issy-la-Boue. He had caught a ride on a French truck from the field, and there had been no M.P.’s on duty when he went in. When he came out there were two near the door, but the night was pitch dark, and they were wrangling about something—a girl, ap- parently—and he passed unnoticed. Then he sought a hotel. The madame in charge was cordial and voluble. But yes, she had plenty of room. That sale guerre! There were hardly any com- mercial travelers nowadays. And then that salaud of a chief American gen- darme who spent nothing himself, and forbade her hotel to other brave Ameri- cans who would! Indeed, he had closed OF DUTY 113 all the cafés and hotels in town to his countrymen, and opened a café of his own, importing two petites femmes from Paris to run it for him. But there was another American officer—a man very distinguished—at her hotel who appeared lonesome. Perhaps this worthy monsieur would like to join him. She led Tommy to a small office of some sort, wherein a man in American uniform was sitting gloomily alone before a bottle of wine. The little pilot recoiled at sight of the gold leaves on his shoulders, but it wasn’t Major Krause who sat there. On this major’s blouse were the Legion of Honor, the Medaille Militaire, and the Croix de Guerre with many palms, instead of the jingling hardware Krause carried to show that he was a marksman or something; and this man’s face lit up with a welcoming smile, instead of the con- gested dignity habitual with the com- manding officer of the flying field of Issy- la-Boue. Tommy gasped as he realized that he was in the presence of the great ace himself! He sat down at the other’s invitation and had a glass of wine. They joined in lamenting the fact that they couldn’t hang all M.P.’s on the meat-hooks in front of butcher shops as the pozlus did the gendarmes at Verdun, and agreed that the French are a great people. “Look at me,” said the ace gloomily. “When I took this commission I had no idea that they were goig to order me away from the front, but now all the others are killing more Boches and get- ting ahead of me while I rot in this hole. They sent me back here to help train you fellows, but Major Krause wouldn’t pay any attention to what I said, so I left. IT heard some guy who had never flown over the front give you a lecture on how to do it, and when he said that if you got lost over Germany the way to find out where you were was to fly down and read the name on some railway station, I couldn’t bear it any more. I don’t know what the devil to do—I’m not doing any good around here.” His gloom was justified. A few months comicloooks.com