Air Service Boys over the Atlantic; Or, The Longest Flight on Record

does that

Yankee plane, and perhaps finish the fli

y. Take a nosedive, Tom, and le

, for I saw a second

su

e jackals away, no matte

old s

pside-down, so that its nose pointed at an angle close to forty-five degrees. Like a hawk plung

t the right second Tom Raymond, by a skillful flirt of his hand, brought the Ya

rain, while the buzz of the spinning propellers announced that the

like David and Jonathan in their long association. It was Tom who acted as pilot on the

ing under French leadership as members of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. The adventures they encountered

kee fliers, the two Air Service Boys offered their services to thei

ecognized "aces" by the time Pershing's army succeeded in fighting its way t

d back all along the line from Switzerland to the sea. Under the skillful direction of

and next came the turn of the Americans under Pershing. Everywhere the discouraged and alm

ine. Some even went so far as to predict that their next Christmas dinner would be eaten in Ber

s of the Hun forces that

rap and was using the

ing wedge between Ludend

nder must inev

avoided solely by their demand for an armistice, with an agreement on ter

could no longer be regarded as novices. Each of them had for some time been anti

utting these through. Like most other ambitious young fliers, they hoped soon to merit the title of "ace," when th

ble," as Jack put it; which, in so many words, meant daring an

ing in an easterly direction; but as a rule these bore signs of being A

ghtfall, gathering in force, and often taking a strange satisfaction in bombing some Red Cross

of their ability to each daily drive. Again and again had they taken part in such dangerous work as fell to the portion of the avia

Through it all they had been highly favored, since neither of them had thus far met with a serious accident

ning, for a Hun pilot to sail over and drop a note telling that he had fallen in combat,

last, such as had not marked any other branch of their fighting forces, certainly not the n

once it had extricated him from a "pocket" into which he found himself placed by circumstanc

ity to drop down as if his machine had received a fatal blow and

hed downward; and just when objects on the ground loomed up suggestively there was the expected sudden shift of the lever, a consequ

s he had suspected when using the glasses from the higher level, it was a Yankee bomber that lay partly

k imagined he must suspect the approach of danger, for he gripped something that

ane, must have come out from some place of concealment and were bent on finishing the pilot, or at least taking him pri

an observer with him, which was most likely, considering the fact that he had been usi

ched close to the machine gun, and pointing as he

cape their hands. Even as Jack spoke there came a shot from below, and a bullet went screaming past c

part of the engine, thus disabling it and wrecking the plane. Those were chances which had

d friendly trees, and but a small chance remained that he might catch t

. The chatter of the machine gun drowned any cries from the two men below. The Yankee plane swooped p