HE men soon fell to quarreling, and down their burdens set And while they jostled, stamped, and fumed, and raised a hue and cry, A band of mischief-making boys, alas, came strolling by! (Now you would not have done it! No more, indeed, would I—) But noting all those squirming cats, unheedful of the king, What did those boys but grasp their knives and sever every string, And raise the basket-covers, and give each bag a fling! When out came cats- and cats- and cats, that snarled and wailed and mewed, And empty bags and baskets around the market strewed. HERE were white cats, and brown cats, and cats as black as crows. And Maltese (they're the best of cats, as everybody knows), And gray cats, and stray cats, and cats with seven toes ('T was certainly as queer a sight as one would care to see!), P shot the people's windows, and open flew their doors, UT roused from all desire to bicker and dispute, The owners of the animals were close in their pursuit; So wroth to lose their shillings and to find their victims free,, Full many a cat was sacrificed (a sorry tale, ah me!!)) And floated down next morning upon the River Dec. A Perhaps you'll think it fanciful, perhaps you'll call it true. But all I know (a century is surely quite a while!), The rats are yet surviving on St. Helena's isle; And roaming through the city, all undisturbed and free, A Story of the Flying Squadron By C. H. CLAUDY "ENOUGH initiative for a whole squadron-and not enough responsibility for a kitten!" Thus his flight captain remarked of Pilot Benny Lorimer, "Bugs" to his intimates, which meant the entire squadron. There had never been a flier more beloved in "The Angels" than "Bugs." Neither had there ever been one who was more often the target of vigorous language from his superiors. If he was n't opening a box from home and giving away ninetynine per cent. of its contents, he was opening some other fellow's box and appropriating as much of the goodies as his hungry inside could contain. If he was n't sitting up half the night when he ought to be sleeping, to go over a map he knew with some one who was going to make a flight in the early hours, he was getting up at all hours to strum on his captain's banjo until boots and emphatic language persuaded him others would like to slumber if he did n't. When he made a flight in squadron, his captain gave everybody else instructions together and then took Benny off in a corner and talked to him "like a Dutch uncle." "You 've simply got to keep up," he would be told. "I won't accept any excuses of 'getting lost,' or 'hidden by a cloud,' or any of those things. First thing you know we won't have you any more if you don't." And Benny would nod his curly young head soberly and twist up his lips, and do his best to keep his eyes from dancing -go up with the squadron, "get lost," and proceed to make himself happy in the way he loved best of all, hunting singlehanded for anything with a Maltese cross on its wings. And the trouble was, that he was so uncannily successful. He bore a charmed life. "The Lunatic" was his special pet, and as crazy a mechanical bird as ever flew. She had every known trick, and several all her own, but Benny loved her with the fierce partisanship of nineteen summers, and, indeed, in his hands she was docile and exemplary-usually. Probably it was because he was so young. Strange though it appear to older minds, the younger the lad who flies, the better he is, as a general rule. Your experienced ace with many machines to his credit and hung all over with decorations is rarely twenty-three; and when they get to be twenty-five they have to drop back to bombing and observation and instruction plane work-they have n't the kind of attitude of mind which the single-seater fighter must have. It is n't that they have n't courage, these older men. It is not a question of courage. But they lack dash and daring, perhaps because they have learned responsibility and caltulation of chances, which the younger flier knows nothing about. It Benny, as his captain said, had no sense of personal responsibility whatever. was all one to him whether he sighted Maltese crosses singly or in battalions. Now you are not to think that discipline is so lax in flying squadrons in general and "The Angels" in particular that Benny simply did as he pleased and obeyed orders or not as he felt like it. It was n't so bad as that! But when the sky is so very large and the clouds so very numerous and the signals so very confusing, it is n't any special wonder if a machine does sometimes get lost from its mates on patrol and-who is to know if he turns immediately homeward or not? Moreover, there were times when Benny was actually ordered up alone. These were the days or nights-to be marked with a white stone and remembered forever, because it is nicer to go Hun hunting according to orders and come back and be praised for success, than go on the sly and come back and get a without the rudder-darn her!" wigging because one has risked a valu- showing me how she could do spiral dives able life and a crazy airplane without any instructions or real necessity so to do! Of all these things Benny thought as he walked slowly about "The Lunatic" preparing her for her afternoon's work. "She'll kill ye yet-crazy bird!" was Gilroy's answer. "One of them new Spads, sir-won't ye try one?" "Who-me? Give up 'Lunatic'? Man, And his sergeant went about with a frown, and some mechanics whispered behind their hands. For the sergeant was a famous "eye vetter," and Benny was his pet, even as "The Lunatic" was his abomination; and he liked it not at all that the dancing-eyed aviator should want to "vet" his own plane after he, Sergeant Gilroy, had finished. "Not looking over your work, Sergeant," Benny said brightly. "Just seeing if she has pulled any tricks since you finished. You know," apologetically, "she does buckle up the most curious way-" "Yes, sir," agreed Sergeant Gilroy, but his eyes smoldered. As if he would n't have seen a wire sagging, a strut out of alignment, an angle not quite true! "And I 've a very particular job on hand to-day-I don't want her pulling any new stunts. Last time she started there never was a Spad made could climb like her or get away like her or handle like her-" "No, sir, nor land like her! Me heart's in me mouth every time she comes down!" "That's a fact, is n't it?" Benny did n't regard it as important that "The Lunatic" would n't land at less than eighty miles an hour and had to be handled with the utmost daintiness to make her land at all and not just "come down." "I wish she had more gas capacity." Benny whistled as he "vetted," whistled his way into the mess for lunch, whistled his way out again at four in the afternoon, and was still whistling when what he called "my zero hour" came at five-thirty. "Don't you be later than eight-thirty, now," warned his captain. "You are n't going up to see how many you can strafeyou are going up to see if you can find out where that three-cross two-seater lives, and for nothing else!" "Yes, sir. I could n't be much later. plane. Have n't gas-tank enough!" "Well, then! Go ahead!" "Contact, sir?" snapped Benny. The propeller whirred, and in a few minutes (it was warm and the engine needed little encouragement) "The Lunatic" bounded into the air, and Benny settled down for his afternoon's "joy-ride." It was a beautiful afternoon for flying. There was n't a cloud in the sky, at which Benny rejoiced, for the clouds are most excellent hiding-places for enemy machines. Of course they are as good for Allied machines, but "The Lunatic" had great speed and unusual climbing ability, and Benny did n't want to hide. What he wanted to do was to follow the threecrossed two-seater which had accounted for four machines in less than a week, and see if he could find out where it lived. It did n't live in any of the well-known German flying camps; and although it had been followed twice and pursued with vicious intent two other times, it had managed to escape observation. The twoseater had been flying about this hour every week, and only a shortage of planes had kept "The Angels" from going up en masse to "tell it where it landed!" Benny devoted his first few minutes to getting some twenty miles over Bocheland. Then he screwed himself up in the air until he was a couple of miles from terra firma, and with one eye on his map and the ground, and the other looking for drifting spots below, he zigzagged back and forth over his prescribed territory. That Benny had but two eyes and occupation for four bothered him not at all. He had but two hands and occupation for six, when he got into a fight, but managed very well, thank you, as four little notches on his nacelle edge showed. "And if I happen to get this chap, I'll be an ace," said Benny, to himself, making no secret with "The Lunatic" that, though all he was expected to do was to get information, if he had a real chance, he would get information and a plane, too! It is a peculiar thing, this flying at a great height. Everything moves but the plane. That and time stand still. If one dives, it is the earth. which rises up. If one banks, it is the earth which tilts crazily. If one loops or ffies upside down, only the blood in one's face tells that the earth has n't swung in a half-circle and climbed into the sky. As for time, if it was n't for the clock, there would n't be any. Benny had a clock, but no responsibility. Five times during the afternoon he sighted floating specks below, and dropped down enough to see that they were not the one he looked for. Five times his captain would be pleased-he resisted the temptation to fling himself headlong at those tempting low-flying planes, of which he had both the sun and the height to send them to earth in flames. But each time he started, his captain's warning face came before his eyes, and up again he climbed. The sixth time that he saw something below, he whistled through his teeth. It was the plane he had been sent to watch. And it was winging its way, not very rapidly, due north. Due north from Benny's standpoint meant straight into Bocheland. And Benny, his heart pounding with hope and delight, followedtwo thousand feet higher. Had Benny had any responsibility, he would have looked at his clock. And had he looked at it, he would have seen that he could n't get home by the time set, and that he would be lucky to get home at all, since his gasolene must be running very low. But Benny saw only the three crosses below him and the chance to win a smile from his captain for the needed information and followed. But not for long. A heart-jumping miss from his engine, a warning cough from his carburetor-and Benny knew. There was n't any one there to see, so if his lips whitened a little and the smile which was normally theirs disappeared, no harm was done. But they did n't stay white long-Benny knew what he had to do and did it. |