Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

126 bugle call to high adventure rang clearly and compellingly in the ears of the young ranch lad. Cy Hawkins knew, deep in his heart, that he was of the eagle breed. He would fly! Old man Hawkins made little fuss about the kid’s running off. Cy was a big husky boy, he knew; large for his age, well able to take care of himself. Hell’s bells, hadn’t his old man served more than ten years in the cavalry dur- ing the Indian wars? Why, the kid was even named after General Crook, the famous Indian fighter who had been his dad’s commanding officer. Old man Hawkins was secretly proud that young Cy had a share of the family’s fighting streak. Of course, this business of sail- ing up into the air to do your battling was something new to a veteran horse soldier, but fighting was fighting, the old man figured, whether you did your shooting off a cayuse or in one of them cloud-jumping doodle-bugs. Old man Hawkins looked again at the snapshot of young Cy, now re- splendent in the uniform of a Canadian flying cadet. That there airship seemed a mite rickety, but he guessed it was all right. The lad had already soloed, whatever in tarnation that meant, and was now ready for advanced training. Cy’s letter was full of a lot of other trick words and terms that his dad couldn’t make head or tail of. All he was sure of was that the kid was flying and was happy. A couple of weeks later, Cy’s father received another hasty scrawl in the mail. His son was feeling fine, in excellent health—and on his way across the broad Atlantic, bound for Europe! IN ENGLAND the youthful volun- teer from the ranch country went through the regular routine that pro- duced the war-time pilots of the Royal Flying Corps. There were other Ameri- cans among the students, but most of them older and more mature men. How- BILL BARNES ever there was a scattering among the “bloody Yanks,” of young kids like Cy who had lied about their ages in order tO. ef into the service. [he lexas youngster soon made some good friends among this crowd and, between ground school, flying lessons and jaunts to town, he had little time for homesickness for the cow waddies of the Hawkins spread in far-away Texas. In due time the kid and his friends received their “wings” and were trans- ferred to advanced schools. Cy went to the combat school at Ayr in Scotland and began combat training on Camels and S. E. 5s. Before long he became accustomed to the fast, highly maneu- verable single-seaters and his days were spent in practicing formatton flying, combat acrobatics and firing on the machine-gun targets. Young Hawkins did pretty well. He was not only getting bigger physically, but was also learning something about a world that the Texas ranch lad hadn't even dreamed of. Gradually he lost his bashfulness, was able to talk in the lan- guage of men to other fighting men like himself. Cy was invited to their parties and, during the short periods of leave, visited some of their homes. The inti- mate view of English family life and a realization of the plucky way in which the old folks in England were “carrying on” so bravely, confirmed in the young American a determination to do his bit to bring the War to a successful end. Arrived in France, Cy Hawkins was posted to an S. E. 5 squadron com- manded -by Major Wyndam, a trim young example of British officer. Al- though not very much older than Cy in years, the major was a veteran of the War in the air and already had a tally of no less than sixteen official E. A’s to his credit. The two and a Yank called Shorty, became quite friendly. After a while the three spent their leaves to- gether, either in Paris or back in “Blighty” with Wyndam’s family. COMMlclOOoOlkS.COuM