Air Service Boys in the Big Battle | Page 7

them.
Tom and Jack found Miss Leroy, looking pale, but prettier than ever, sitting up in a chair.
She leaned forward eagerly as they entered, and, holding out her hands, exclaimed:
"They tell me you are my brother's chums! Oh, can you not get me some news of him?
Can you not let him know that I have come so far to see him? I am anxious! Oh, where is
he?" and she looked from Tom to Jack, and then to Tom again.
CHAPTER III
ANXIOUS WAITING
Nellie Leroy--for such the boys learned was her name--broke the silence, that was
growing tense, by asking:
"Is there any hope? Tell me, do you think there is a chance that my brother may be
alive?"
"Yes, there is, certainly!" exclaimed Tom quickly, before Jack had an opportunity to give,
possibly, a less hopeful answer.
"And if he is alive, is there a chance that he 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