Battling the Clouds; or, For a Comrade's Honor Read online

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  Battling the Clouds

  Aeroplane Boys Series]

  "Stop!" cried Ernest. "Stop, Bill! What does this mean?"]

  _AEROPLANE BOYS SERIES VOLUME 1_

  BATTLING THE CLOUDS

  OR

  FOR A COMRADE'S HONOR

  BY

  CAPTAIN FRANK COBB

 

  THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK

  Copyright, 1921, by THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

 

  AEROPLANE BOYS SERIES

  1 BATTLING THE CLOUDS, OR, FOR A COMRADE'S HONOR

  2 AN AVIATOR'S LUCK, OR, THE CAMP KNOX PLOT

  3 DANGEROUS DEEDS, OR, THE FLIGHT IN THE DIRIGIBLE

  BATTLING THE CLOUDS

  CHAPTER I

  The vast aviation field at Fort Sill quivered in the grilling heat ofmid-July. The beautiful road stretching through the Post looked smoothas a white silk ribbon in the blazing sun. The row of tall hangarsglistened with fresh white paint. On the screened porches of theofficers' quarters, at the mess, and at the huts men in uniform talkedand laughed as though their profession was the simplest and safest inthe world.

  Around the Post as far as the eye could reach the sun-baked prairiesstretched, their sparse grasses burned to a cindery brown. From thedistant ranges came the faint report of guns. The daily practice wasgoing on. Once in a while against the sky a row of caissons showed up,small and clear cut.

  Overhead sounded the continual droning of airplanes manoeuvering, nowrising, now circling, now reaching the field safely, where they turnedand came gaily hopping along the ground toward the hangars, like hugedragonflies. And when they finally teetered to a standstill, whatsplendid young figures leaped over the sides and stretched their crampedlegs, pushing off the goggles and leather headgear that disguised them!Laughing, talking, swapping experiences, listening in good-naturedsilence to the "balling out" that so often came from the harried andsweating instructors, splendid young gods were these airmen,super-heroes in an heroic age and time.

  In the shade of one of the hangars sat two boys. They were blind anddeaf to the sights and sounds around and over them. The planes were ascommonplace as mealtime to them, and not nearly so thrilling. All theirattention was centered on a small box on the ground before them. It wasmade of screen-wire roughly fastened to a wooden frame. One side wasintended for a door, but it was securely wired shut. The box had anoccupant. Furious, raging with anger, now crouching in the corner, nowspringing toward the boys, only to strike the wires, an immensetarantula faced his jailers with deadly menace in his whole bearing. Oneof the boys gently rested a stick against the cage. The great spiderinstantly hurled himself upon it.

  Involuntarily both boys drew back.

  "What you going to do with him now you have got him?" asked the tallerof the two boys.

  "Dunno," said the other, shrugging his shoulders. "No use expectingmother to let me keep him in quarters, and the C. O. won't have 'emaround the hangars. I guess I will have to give him back to Lee and lethim get rid of him."

  "What does C. O. mean, and who is Lee?" asked the first boy.

  "Gee, you are green!" scoffed the smaller of the two. "Tell you whatI'll do, Bill; I will take a day off and teach you the ropes."

  "I will learn them fast enough if I can get a question answered once inawhile," answered Bill, laughing pleasantly. "You can't expect to learn_every_thing there is about the Army in a week."

  "It is too bad you are in Artillery," said the other boy, whose name wasFrank and whose father was Major Anderson, in the Air service. "There isa lot more doing over here, but of course as long as I am sort of yourcousin, why, you can get in on things here whenever you want to."

  "Much obliged," returned Bill. "And of course whenever you want, I willtake you any place you want to go in my car."

  "That car is the dandiest little affair I ever did see," said Frank halfenviously. "Just big enough for two of us." He glanced over to theboy-size automobile standing in the shade. It was a long, racy lookingtoy, closer to the ground than a motorcycle, but evidently equipped witha good-sized engine. "Where did you get it, anyhow?"

  "I have an uncle in the automobile business, and he had it made forme."

  "Some uncle!" commented Frank. "How fast will she go?"

  "A pretty good clip, I imagine," said Bill. "I have never tried herout."

  "What's the matter with you? Scared?" asked Frank. "I say we speed herup some of these days."

  "Can't do it," said Bill, shaking his head. "There is a speedometer onit, and I promised my mother I would never go over fifteen miles an houruntil she gives me leave."

  "Fifteen miles; why, that's crawling!" said Frank scornfully. "I tellyou what. I can drive a little, and you can let me take the wheel, andsee what she will do. That won't be breaking your word."

  Bill shook his head. "It isn't my way of keeping a promise," he said.Then to change the conversation before it took a disagreeable turn, heasked, "You didn't tell me what C. O. means and who Lee is."

  "C. O. means Commanding Officer; you had better keep that in your head.And Lee is the fellow who gave me this tarantula. He takes care of thequarters across from yours at the School of Fire. I go over there toplay with the Perkins kids a lot. Lee fools with us all he can. He is adandy. He is half Indian. His father was a Cherokee."

  "I know whom you mean," said Bill. "He is awfully dark, and has squintyblack eyes and coal black hair. He has been transferred to our quartersnow. He is splendid--does everything for mother: brings her flowers andall that, and a young mocking bird in a cage he made himself."

  "I didn't know he had been transferred," said Frank. "I bet he won't belet to stay long. The Perkins family like him themselves."

  "Can they get him sent back?" asked Bill anxiously.

  "Sure," said Frank. "Colonel Perkins can get anybody sent where he wantsthem. If he was your orderly he would stay with you, of course, but heisn't; he is working as janitor."

  "What's an orderly?" asked Bill.

  "You sure have a lot to learn!" sighed the learned Frank. "It is likethis. That new dad of yours is a Major, isn't he? All right. He has theright to have a special man that he picks out work for him, and takecare of his horse and fuss around the quarters and fix his things. Butthe man has to belong to his command, and Lee is attached to the Schoolof Fire."

  "I see," said Bill, thoughtfully. As a matter of fact he did not see sovery clearly, but he knew that it would be clearer after awhile, and hehad the good sense not to press the matter further. Bill had the greatand valuable gift of silence. To say nothing at all, but to let theother fellow do the talking, Bill had discovered to be a short cut toknowledge of all sorts.

  "Yes," said Frank, "you see now that you can't get Lee for orderly."

  Frank was glad of it. He did not know it, but down in his heart, he wasjealous of this Bill boy, who had appeared at the School of Fire withhis quiet good manners and his polite way of speaking, his good clothesand, above all, his wonderful little automobile scarcely larger than atoy, yet capable of real work and speed.

  He rejoiced that Bill at least was not going to have Lee for an orderly.He knew what it was to have a fine orderly, and Lee was almost too goodto be true at all. Why, only the week before, Lee had offered to getFrank a wildcat cub for a pet. Frank's mother, Mrs. Anderson, and hisfather, the Major, had refused to have the savage little creature aboutand Frank had had to tell Lee so. He had kept teasing Lee for some sortof pet, however,
and as a joke Lee had just presented him with thebiggest tarantula he could capture.

  The tarantula, taken as a pet, was not a great success. Frank poked thestick at the cage and watched the ferocious creature dart for it, anddecided that the wisest thing was to get rid of it at once.

  "I will give you this tarantula, Bill," he said with an air of bestowinga great benefit. "I bet your mother has never seen one, and you can takeit home with you in your car and show it to her. If she has never seenone, she will be some surprised."

  "I suppose she would," said Bill, "but for all I know it might frightenher, and I couldn't afford to risk that. Mother isn't so very strong,and dad says it is our best job to keep her well and happy. I don'tbelieve it will help any to show her something that looks like a badnightmare and acts like a demon, so I'm much obliged but I guess I won'ttake your little pet away from you, not to-day at any rate." He laughed,and jumped to his feet.

  "Where you going?" demanded Frank.

  "Home," said Bill. "It is nearly time for mess. Get that? I said _mess_and not _dinner_."

  "Don't go yet," pleaded Frank. "What if you are a little late?"

  "Mother likes me to be punctual, so I'll have to move along," said Bill.

  Frank looked at him. "Say," he said, "aren't you just a little tied toyour mother's apron strings?"

  "I don't know," replied Bill good-naturedly. "I think it is a prettygood place to be tied to if anyone should ask me, and if I am, I hope Iam tied so tight she will never lose me off."

  He shook himself down and started toward his little car. "So long! Comesee us!" he called over his shoulder.

  Frank scrambled to his feet and followed. He stood watching while Billsettled himself in his seat and started the engine. He stood lookingafter him until the speedy little automobile swept out of sight acrossthe prairie and down the rough road that led to the New Post and fromthere on to the School of Fire.

  Frank gave a grin. "It's a dandy car, all right," he said, "and he maybe able to swim and ride the way he says he does, but I can beat him outon one point. I can pilot a plane, and I have been up in an observationballoon. I wonder what he would look like up in the air. I bet he wouldbe good and sick!"

  Bill, guiding the car with a practiced hand, swept smoothly along,avoiding the ruts made by the great trucks belonging to the ammunitiontrains and the rough wheels of the caissons.

  Bill was thinking hard. The years of his life came back to his thoughtsone by one.

  When his father died, he was only four years old, and his pretty youngmother had been obliged to go out into the world and support herself andher little son. They had lived alone together, in the dainty bungalowthat had been saved from the wreck of their fortunes, and had come to bemore than mother and son; they were companions and pals.

  So when Major Sherman appeared, and surprised Bill greatly by wanting tomarry his mother, he was not surprised to hear her say that the Majorwould have to get the permission of her son before she could say yes.

  Bill and his mother had many a long and confidential talk in those daysand Bill learned, through her confidences, a great deal about thestrange thing that grown people call love. Bill's mother talked to herson as she would have talked to a brother or a father, and the resultwas that one day young Bill had a long talk with Major Sherman, a talkthat the Major at least never forgot. After it was over, Bill led theway to his mother, and taking her hand said gravely:

  "Mother, we have been talking things over, and I think you ought tomarry the Major. You are a good deal of a care sometimes, and I have hispromise that he will help me."

  Bil's mother laughed, and then she cried a little, while she asked Billif he was trying to get rid of his troublesome parent. But Bill knewthat she was trying to joke away the remembrance of her tears, so hekissed her and went out, wondering if he had lost his darling mother orhad won a new and dandy father.

  It proved that he had found a real father after so many years, a fatherwho understood boys and who was soon as good and true a pal as hismother was. Bill commenced to whistle when he remembered up to thispart, and then he laughed to himself when he recollected a couple of oldlady aunts who had offered to take him to bring up, because they weresure that Major Sherman, being a soldier and no doubt unused to boys,might abuse him!

  It was enough to make Bill chuckle. His mother said that the Majorspoiled Bill. And in his secret heart Bill knew that there were times,off and on, say a few times every week, when the Major gave him treatsthat he would never have been able to coax from his mother. The littlecar for instance. His mother had declared that it was a crazy thing togive a boy twelve years old, no matter how tall and well grown he was,but the Major had prevailed, and she had at last given a reluctantconsent. There had been an endless time of waiting, indeed a matter ofseveral months while the small but perfect car was assembled, and Billcould never forget the day it arrived and the Major squeezed his bigframe into the driver's seat and gave it a thorough trying out.

  Pets, too. Mother was brought to see that pigeons and white rats and atame coon and indeed everything that came his way, was a boy's right tohave. The Major was educating Bill in the knowledge of how to care fordumb animals: he was learning the secret of self-discipline andself-control, without which no man or woman or boy or girl is fit to bethe owner of any pet.

  The Great War was ended when Bill's mother married the Major, justreturned from foreign service, and immediately they packed theirbelongings, putting most of them in a storehouse for the happy day whenthe Major should retire and be able to have a home. This is the dream ofevery officer who gives his days and strength and brains to the serviceof his country. Then they packed the few articles that they felt mostnecessary to their comfort, gave away ten guinea pigs, eight white rats,four pigeons and a kitten, crated Bill's collie and the Major's Airdale,and started off for their first post, Fort Sill, where the Major wasstationed at the School of Fire as instructor.

  Fort Sill rambles all over the prairie. Not the least of its variousbranches is the Aviation School. And when the Major arrived with hiswife and son, he found that his cousin, Major Anderson, who was in theAir service, was stationed at the Aviation School. Major Anderson hadtwo children: a little girl, and a boy just the age of Bill. FrankAnderson liked his new cousin, but scorned him for his very naturalignorance on subjects referring to the Army. He did not stop to discoverthat in the way of general information Bill was vastly his superior.Major and Mrs. Anderson were quick to see a certain clear truthfulnessand good sense in Bill that they knew Frank lacked and they were anxiousto have the boys chum together for that reason.