Air Service Boys in the Big Battle | Page 7

may be rescued--that I may go to him?" she went on.
"Hardly that," said Tom, slowly. "It's a wonder you ever got as near to the front as this. But as for getting past the German lines--"
"Then what can I do?" asked Nellie Leroy, eagerly. "Oh, tell me something that I can do. I'm used to hard work," she went on. "I've been a Red Cross nurse for some time, and I helped in one big explosion of a munitions plant in New Jersey before I came over. That's one reason they let me come--because I proved that I could do things I" and she did look very efficient, in spite of her paleness, in spite of her, seeming frailness. There was an indefinable air about her which showed that she would carry through whatever she undertook. "I never fainted before--never."
"It's like this," said Tom, and Jack seemed content, now, to let his chum play the chief role. "When one of us goes down in his machine back of the enemy's lines, those left over here never really know what has happened for a few days."
"And how do they know then?' she asked.
"The German airmen are more decent than some of the other Hun forces we're fighting," explained Torn. "Generally after they capture one of our escadrille members, dead or alive, they fly over our lines a few days later and drop a cap, or a glove, or something that belongs to the prisoner. Sometimes they attach a note, written by one of their airmen or from the prisoner, giving news of his condition."
"And you think they may do this in my brother's case?" asked Nellie.
"They are very likely to," assented Tom, and Jack, to whom the girl looked for confirmation, nodded, his agreement.
"How long shall we have to wait?" Harry's sister asked.
"There is no telling," said Tom "Sometimes it's a week before their airmen get a chance to fly over our lines. It all depends."
"On what?"
"On how the battle goes," answered Tom. "If there is much fighting, and many engagements in the air, the Boches don't get a chance to fly over and drop tokens of our men they may have shot down. We do the same for them, so it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. Often for a week we don't get a chance to let them know about prisoners we have, because the fighting is so severe."
"Will it be that way now?" the girl went on.
"Hard to say--we don't have the ordering of battles," replied Jack. "But it's been rather quiet for a few days, and it's likely to continue so. If it does one of their men may fly over to-morrow, or the next day, and drop something your brother wore--or even a note from him."
"Oh, I hope they do the last!" she murmured. "If I could have a note from him I'd be the happiest girl alive I I'd know, then, that he was all right."
"He may be," said Tom, trying to be hopeful. "You see Du Boise, who was with Harry when the fight took place, is himself wounded, so he can't tell us much about it."
"Yes, they told me that my brother's companion reached here badly hurt. He is so brave! I wish they would let me help take care of him. I understand a great deal about wounds, and I'm not at all afraid of the sight of blood. It was silly of me to faint just now, but--I--I couldn't help it. I'd been counting so much on seeing Harry, and when they told me he was gone--"
She covered her face with her hands, and endeavored to repress her emotion.
"You're not Harry's little sister, are you?" asked Jack, hoping to change the current of talk into other and happier channels.
"No; that's Mabel--Mab he calls her. She's younger than I. Did he often speak of her?"
"Oh, yes; and you too!" exclaimed Tom, so warmly that Nellie blushed, and the damask tint in her hitherto pale cheeks was most becoming.
"We've seen your picture, and Mab's too," went on Tom. "Harry keeps them just over his cot in the barracks. But I didn't recognize you when I saw you a little while ago in the machine. Though I might have, if so many things hadn't happened all at once, and made me sort of hazy," Tom explained.
"Then are you and my brother good friends?" asked Nellie.
"The best ever!" exclaimed Tom, and Jack warmly assented. "Not so many Americans are in this branch of the escadrille as are in others," Torn went on; "so Harry and Jack and I are a sort of little trio all by ourselves. He hardly ever goes up without us, but we are on a rest billet; and to-day he went up with Du Boise."
"If he had