their gas cylinders if I
can. The tocsin is the signal for our people in the salient."

"You're crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.

"No; I'll bluff it out. I'm to have a Boche uniform in a few moments."

"You _are_ crazy! You know what they'll do to you, don't you, Jim?"

The bandaged airman laughed, but in his eyes there was an odd flicker like
a tiny flame. He whistled "La Brabanconne" and glanced coolly about the
room.

One of the airmen said to another in a whisper:

"There you are. Ever since they got his brother he's been figuring on
landing a whole bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to finish him,
this business."

Another said:

"Don't try anything like that, Jim----"

"Sure, I'll try it," interrupted the bandaged airman pleasantly. "When are
you fellows going?"

"Now."

"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment----"

"For God's sake, Jim, act sensibly!"

The bandaged airman laughed, fished out from his clothing somewhere a note
book and pencil. One of the others turned an electric torch on the table;
the bandaged man made a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the others
studied.

"You can get that note to headquarters in half an hour, can't you, Ed?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'll wait here for my answer."

"You know what risk you run, Jim?" pleaded the youngest of the airmen.

"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You'd better be on your way."

After they had left the room, the bandaged airman sat beside the table,
thinking hard in the darkness.

Presently from somewhere across the dusky river meadow the sudden roar of
an airplane engine shattered the silence; then another whirring racket
broke out; then another.

He heard presently the loud rattle of his comrades' machines from high
above him in the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous breathing of the
old innkeeper; he heard again the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft,
linger in linked harmonies, die away; he heard Bayard's mellow thunder
proclaim the hour once more.

There was a watch on his wrist, but it had been put out of business when
his machine fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically he saw the
phosphorescent dial glimmer faintly under shattered hands that remained
fixed.

An hour later Bayard shook the starlit silence ten times.

As the last stroke boomed majestically through the darkness an automobile
came racing into the long, unlighted street of Sainte Lesse and halted,
panting, at the door of the Wh