"Members of Bombing Squadron No. - will be on the qui vive at 7 p.m.
tonight. Specific orders will be issued to each at that time."

Not much in that, an outsider might think. But wait! Listen!

"Say, Orry," remarked an athletic youth, throwing an arm casually over
the shoulder of a smaller companion beside him and tweaking the other's
ear, "does this mean that you and me go up together in that crazy old
biplane they foisted on us before?"

"How should I know?" replied the smaller lad, a nervous, sprightly
youngster, dark-eyed, curly-headed, thin-faced. "Did she get your
nerve last time?"

"Not by a long shot! But when we made that last dive to get away from
Fritzy in his Fokker, I noticed your hands on the crank were shaking.
Say, if that Tommy in the monoplane hadn't helped us, where'd we been?"

"Right here, you goose! We'd have got out somehow, but it was squally
for about five minutes."

The two strolled off together as others, also in khaki but with
different fittings or insignia, gathered about to read, comment and
then turn their several ways.

"We are in that bombing squad all right, I guess remarked Lafe Blaine,
the athletic youngster. "But I am tired of this everlasting bombing
that goes on, mostly by night. We're chums, Orry; we work together all
right. There is no one in this camp can handle a fighting machine
better than I; nor do I want a better, truer backer at the Lewis than