"I have three of them in the hangars now. You have one at headquarters
named Corwin that knows a bit for a lad. Why not let me have him?"

"The four I have at the offices are really valuable, but I suppose if
they are to learn flying they had better be with you. Can you find
something to do for the lot?"

"I guess so. If they are all as good as the three I have already
I can do with them."

"Well, it's rather irregular, the whole business. But they began
with us when we came here, and they are just the sort of stuff, as
far as I can see, that we want in this game, so the sooner we push
'em along the better, I think."

Thus it was settled. The Brighton boys were one step further on their
way to membership of an air squadron at the front, far off as the
front seemed to them. With Fat Benson in the stores and the other
seven boys in the hangars, they felt themselves truly part and parcel
of the airdrome. This feeling of responsibility was aging them, too.
Already they looked years older, every one of them, than they had
looked on that day in the previous spring when they had decided to
study aeronautics in concert.




CHAPTER III

IN THE AIR