CHAPTER XIII
MORE WORK IN PROSPECT
"Tom, sit down here on this bench, won't you? I want to have a littletalk with you about some things that have bothered me a whole lotlately," said Jack, some days after the exciting experiences narrated inthe two preceding chapters.
"I can give a pretty good guess what they are, Jack, since I see youstaring hard at the slip of paper found attached to the toy balloonwhich drifted over our lines from somewhere back of the German front."
"Yes; I own up I do sit and look at that paper, Tom. If it could onlytalk I'd know who penned that warning, and my curiosity'd be satisfiedfor one thing. But try as hard as I may, I can't be certain whether itwas Mrs. Neumann, or somebody else. But I wanted to speak to you aboutBessie just now."
"What about her, Jack?" asked Tom, knowing how much his chum wasconcerned over the unknown fate of the pretty young girl they had met onthe Atlantic liner, and who was apparently anything but happy in thecharge of her legally appointed guardian, Carl Potzfeldt.
"There are several things she told me, half unwillingly, I admit, that Iguess I haven't said anything about to you, Tom."
"Then she confided her secrets to you, eh?" half chuckled Tom; though hesaw his chum was in anything but a humorous frame of mind. "I rememberyou told me she felt very bitter toward all Germans because she had losther mother when the _Lusitania_ went down."
"Yes. But this had to do with her guardian," Jack continued.
"Oh, I see! Mr. Potzfeldt, Jack? You haven't felt favorably disposedtoward that gentleman at any time since first meeting him."
"Neither have you, Tom, to tell the truth!" declared the other quickly."In fact, as I remember it, both of us were pretty much inclined tobelieve he was a paid spy of the German Government, working on some lineof dark business over in America. Well, he had to clear out in a hurry,Bessie told me."
"Did the authorities get track of his scheming work, and was he indanger of being arrested for plotting against Uncle Sam's interests as aneutral?" Tom asked.
"It may have been that; but Bessie wasn't sure about it. In fact, sheseemed inclined to believe her guardian had some secret, which was indanger of being exposed. An old friend of her mother's was interestinghimself in the matter. Given time, he might have made it uncomfortablefor Carl Potzfeldt; and so the gentleman cleared out between two days."
"Taking Bessie with him!"
"Yes. They made as if to go to Chicago, but instead hurried to New York.When he came aboard at the last call he kept to his cabin for a time,until we were well away from land. There has been considerable ofmystery about his actions. Bessie is afraid of him, too. She even hintedthat she believed he might have obtained control of her fortune andherself through fraud, and that this was in danger of being found out atthe time he cut stick and ran."
"All this is interesting, Jack; but just when and how we're ever goingto learn the truth about it I'm unable even to guess. It would be likehunting for a needle in a haystack to try to find Potzfeldt. He and hispretty little ward may be hundreds of miles away from here."
"Perhaps you're right, Tom," mused the other sadly, as he stared afaroff toward the north. "I'd be glad of a chance to do something for thatpoor girl. She is to be greatly pitied, if she's wholly in the power ofa man who wouldn't hesitate to do _anything_, if he saw a chancefor gain ahead."
"Well, all you can do, Jack, is to live on and hope a lucky chance willbob up for you. But there's our captain beckoning to me. Perhaps anotherbattle is on the carpet for to-morrow, and I'll be given a look-inagain."
"Oh, if the lightning would only strike me too!" sighed Jack, enviously."Please beg him to figure out something I can do, Tom. If it's onlyoccupying a place aboard an observation plane or taking photographs ofthe Germans regrouping far back of the lines, I'd gladly welcome it.Anything but sitting here, when all the other pilots are at work."
Tom hurried to join the commander of the Lafayette Escadrille. He hadtaken a great fancy to the gallant man, and believed this feeling was ina measure returned. Jack continued to sit and mope. He really feltslighted to be left out when so much thrilling work was being done.
He had put away the well-thumbed scrap of paper with its mysteriouslines of warning, for the time being Bessie and all her troubles passingfrom his mind. Jack was now full of his own affairs. He found himselfgrowing a bit discontented because thus far he had been allowed to do solittle for the cause, when his heart was full to overflowing with adesire to assist.
There were aviators going and coming all the time, and surely many ofthem did not excel him appreciably in talents. Why did not those incharge find something for an ambitious pilot to do? He was strivingdaily to master the weak spots in his education; and had not the captainhimself assured him he was doing bravely? He turned to cast anoccasional look toward the spot where Tom and the commander of the airsquadron still talked earnestly. Yes, something was certainly "on tap,"as Jack expressed it, for he saw the other carefully examining a bit ofpaper his companion had evidently placed in his hand.
Jack began to be interested. Perhaps after all it might turn out to besomething quite different from what Tom had anticipated. Had the captainsimply wished to notify the other to be ready to answer a call on thefollowing morning, surely he need not have taken all this time; norwould he have given Tom that paper, undoubtedly carrying explicitinstructions.
How the minutes dragged! Jack thought it an eternity before he saw Tomand the captain separate. He was glad to notice that his chum once moreheaded in the direction of the spot where they had been seated on abench back of the long row of frame buildings used for permanent hangarsat the Bar-le-Duc aviation field.
Yes, Tom had evidently been told something that pleased him very much.His smile admitted the fact, and Jack knew by now just how to read theface of his comrade so as to get a good idea of what was passing in hismind.
"Looks like good news, Tom," he cried out, for motors were rattling andthrobbing, mechanicians and helpers, as well as pilots, calling to oneanother, and all manner of sounds combining to make a great racket.
Tom shrugged his shoulders in a non-committal way, which might mean awhole lot, and again might express a small fraction of disappointment.
"Yes, I've been given a job, if that's what you mean," he admitted, ashe dropped down once more on the bench alongside Jack, and threw one legover the other.
"More fighting to-morrow, possibly?" queried Jack, anxiously. But hefound his curiosity further whetted when Tom shook his head in thenegative.
"Not necessarily this time, it seems," he went on to say; "though ofcourse you never can tell what you'll strike when once you pass fiftymiles, more or less, behind the enemy front."
Jack pursed his lips up as if about to whistle, but he made no sound. Itwas only a visible indication of surprise on his part--surprise, and aneager desire to know just what his chum was so slow in telling him.
"Another bombing raid, then, is it?"
"Never a bomb going along this time," came the puzzling answer. "Nor isthere going to be a big bunch of planes starting out. I'm to be the onlypilot in the game this time, Jack."
"You're knocking me silly with that, Tom," protested the other youngaviator. "I can see the twinkle in your eyes, as if you were holdingsomething back, so as to tantalize me. Are you free to tell me what thisbusiness of yours it is the captain has just handed over to you?"
"Oh, surely, Jack. He told me I could take _one_ fellow into myconfidence, and no more. So I mean to tell you all about it."
Tom turned and cast a careful look around. They were not very close toany of the hangars, it happened; and none of the many helpers andattendants could possibly overhear what was said, with all that clatterconstantly going on.
"I guess it's perfectly safe for me to talk here, Jack, and not give thething away. You know it does seem that the German spies are able topenetrate nearly everywhere, and pick up all sorts of valuableinformation, to send across the line in any one of a dozen differen
tways."
"Yes. But go on, Tom."
"It seems there is need of some one to go to-night to a particular placefar back of the German lines--in fact, close to the fortified city ofMetz itself. In a certain place, inside a hollow post, will be found apaper marked in cipher, and containing much valuable information whichhas been collected by one of the ablest of the French spies. He isreally a native of Alsace-Lorraine, and well thought of by the Germans.As it is utterly out of the question for him to report in person, he hasadopted this way of getting his news to General Petain. And as there isa scarcity of pilots capable of doing this work our captain has selectedme to undertake it for the cause."
"But Tom, I should have thought he would have picked out some one morefamiliar with the ground back there. How can you find your way to thatparticular place, if you've never been there before?"
"I've been given directions that are bound to take me right," Tomassured his worried chum. "There was a man they used for this purpose,and several times he's brought back the papers; but on his last trip hehad the misfortune to run into a bunch of cruising Fokkers, and theybrought him down. He fell fortunately inside the French lines, so hispapers were saved; but Francois will never handle the controls of aplane again. He was killed."
"Then there is danger in the game!"
"Certainly there is. But in these times who could dream of passing sofar back of the German front without expecting to be in constant peril?The papers will be put in a little box previously prepared. Shoulddisaster overtake us, it will be flung overboard, and before it reachesthe ground everything will have been consumed by the fire that follows."
Jack's eyes began to glitter.
"Just so, Tom! But I notice that you used the plural pronoun when youspoke. Then you do not go on this mission alone?"
"No, that's right. I have been given permission to pick out my onecompanion, for there will be two of us aboard the plane to-night."
Jack tried to keep calm, but it was indeed difficult, and his voicefaltered more or less as he hurriedly went on to say:
"Have you already made your selection?"
"Yes," the other assured him in his tantalizing way. "I wanted to knowwhether the captain approved of my choice; which I am glad to say turnedout to be the case."
Jack gulped something down, and then blurted out:
"Did you mention my name at all, Tom?"
"Yours was the only one I had in mind; and Jack, rest easy, you're goingalong with me to-night to glimpse the lights of Metz!"