"You must ask Mademoiselle Aida. I was mooch too warm; yes, vera mooch.
Yes la -- la! We Flemings know what cold is more than what it is to be
too -- too warm. Don' you bodder, sar!"
And so the many more or less friendly, even solicitous conversations
went on until the midnight hour had fled. By then the groups of
friends and visitors had melted back to the rear into the misty regions
where lay the small French village that had sheltered them together
with the aerodrome itself.
It might have been one o'clock or later when a bugle sounded. Up and
down the long, long line aviators were scrambling into their machines
while the sputter and throb of many engines punctured the night air.
Some of these engines had as much as three hundred horse-power. The
long continuing roar was nerve grating, yet inspiring. Swarms of small
scouting machines were humming, spitting; these were the vipers or
wasps of the air service.
The fleet commander and his observer had taken their places and soared
into the night air. The other machines, some fifty odd in number,
swiftly followed him into the misty heavens, all maneuvering like a
flock of swallows until the air formation was at last right. Then a
crack from the commander's revolver, and they were off like bees,
following the queen, straight for the far-off enemy lines.
Much ammunition had been distributed, for they were going on a general
bombing and foraging expedition over those trenches upon which the now
ready offensive was to be let loose.
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