s of embarkation, the dash across the Atlantic, and the landing
in France came in due sequence. They had expected some excitement
on the ocean voyage. The group of transports, of which their ship
was one, steamed warily eastward, convoyed by a flotilla of grim
destroyers, swift, businesslike, determined. Extra precautions were
taken in the submarine zone; but none of the German sea wolves rose
to give battle with the American ships.

The coming into port, too, was less exciting than they had thought it
would be. The French people who were grouped along the quayside
cheered and waved, but the incoming American contingents were arriving
with such regularity that the strangeness had worn away. America
was in the war to do her utmost. France knew that well by the time
the Brighton boys crossed the ocean. The welcome was no less warm,
but there was no element of novelty about it.

A troop train, consisting mainly of cattle trucks, puffed away from
the coast town next morning, and attached to it were the cars containing
the new air squadron. Late that night it had reached one of the
huge airdromes, the vastness of which unfolded itself to the astonished
gaze of the boys at daybreak of the morning after. They had not
dreamed that such acres and acres of hangars existed along the whole
front. The war in the air assumed new proportions to them. They
were housed in huts, warm and dry, if not palatial.

During the day, given leave to wander about the airdrome, the six
Brighton boys took a stroll in company, eager to inspect at close
quarters the latest types of flying machines.

"These airplanes are stronger than any we have ever seen," remarked
Joe Little, as they paused before a new-type French machine.

"Yes," cheerily commented an aviator---a clean-cut young Englishman---who
was grooming the graceful plane. "This very one crashed into the
ground two weeks ago while going at over sixty miles an hour. She
is so strongly built that she was not hurt much and the pilot escaped
without a scratch. This is what we call a 'hunter.' She has an
unbeaten record for speed---can show a clean pair of heels to anything
in the air. She has tremendous power; and the way she can climb into
the clouds---my word!"

"Is she easy to fly?" asked Dicky Mann.

"Not bad," was the answer. "The high speed makes for a bust-up once
in a while. A pilot who gets going over one hundred and fifteen
miles an hour, and yanks his machine u