In the line of duty

“And the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,” thought Tommy as he climbed a short flight of steps and entered the office. The shepherd, a small, pot bellied man with captain’s bars but no wings on his serge blouse, eyed the newest flying lieutenant, his whipcord uniform and his papers with disfavor.

“All right,” he said in a querulous voice. “Find yourself a bunk in the flying officers’ barrack. You will be assigned to a section for duty. Look on the bulletin board in the operations office.”

Tommy saluted and went out. He saw his baggage still forming an island in the sea of mud, but it seemed to have shrunk appreciably since he left it. He had an idea that he must salvage it before it disappeared entirely.

Walking along the duckboard, he heard a chorus of voices raised in ribald song in one of the barracks and stopped, feeling that he had reached a friendly haven.

“When I joined the Army I was clean and neat, Now--”

The noise ceased abruptly as the flying officer entered.

“Attention!” shouted one voice.

“Ma-a-a-a-ah!” said another.

The place was full of irreverent and antagonistic cadets, and Tommy retreated, feeling that it was not the time to stop and explain that the only reason he was not among them was through the mistake of some nodding Homer in Washington in giving him a commission as soon as he enlisted, instead of when he got his pilot’s license. The song followed him:

“The officers live on the top of the hill, The flying cadets in the slush and the swill-- I don’t want any more Army. Gee, how I want to go home.”

He came to the last barrack of all, which was only about three-fourths built. Going inside, he found it empty of human life, but the contents was reassuring. Under the neatly spread double-decker bunks were officers’ boots, and the walls were covered with overcoats bearing the single stripe of a first lieutenant, and with various flying clothes and equipment. In what would be the middle of the long building was a single large stove which feebly radiated its rays of heat against the blasts of cold damp air from the open end. Near that end were several unoccupied bunks, one of which Tommy decided must be for him.

It was commencing to get dark outside, and colder, too. The little flyer huddled closer to the stove and smoked a cigaret. Somebody must come in before long. Somebody did.

There was a clatter on the duckboards outside and a horde of flying lieutenants trouped in, making loud noises and crowding around the stove. Tommy scanned their faces anxiously, but there was nobody there he knew. A tall, thin man eyed him in a friendly manner, and Tommy asked him to help him with his baggage. The other assented readily, and they excavated the large French trunk and fancy bed roll which marked a man who had enlisted in Paris, and one by one dragged them inside.

“You might as well take this bunk next to me and Fat,” said the tall man, who was known as Long John. “We got left behind for a day in Paris by accident, and when we got here the barrack was almost full up, so we had to take bunks near the end. What ground school did you go to?”

“I never went to ground school,” returned Tommy. “I was an ambulance driver and enlisted in Paris.”

He looked around curiously at his companions in the barrack. They were of an unfamiliar genus, men who had had their preliminary training and got their commissions in the States.

There were various strange divisions in the early days of the Air Service in France. At the French school at Tours there were, outwardly at least, several different breeds of Americans. First the Foreign Legion trained there, and then a lost or strayed detachment of American gobs. Then the Army started enlisting men in Paris, mostly former ambulance drivers, who continued the old feud between the American Ambulance and Norton Harjes, but united in scorn for those whose service had been confined to the Mexican Border.

Then one day a body of men marched into camp in column of fours, a military evolution which the ambulance drivers regarded with pitying contempt.

“Who are those men?” the question ran around.

“Ground school men,” was the reply, and the ex-ambulanciers immediately joined together in one clique against the others.

Now Tommy was meeting a new division in the ranks of the flyers--those who had not only been to ground school, but had had preliminary flying training in the States.

He inquired after various of his friends, only to find that they had been transferred to a more advanced field; and, realizing that more than an hour still remained before supper, he started down the road toward a house he had noticed when the truck brought him to the field. Perhaps he might find a drink there, and possibly some one he knew. He was cold and shivering and thought longingly of the woolen underwear sent him by an aunt, which was buried in his trunk. For years he had worn nothing but so-called athletic underwear, but the time had evidently come to change.

He approached the house, a solitary farm, but still somehow suggestive of liquid refreshment. The door stood open hospitably, and he walked in. His nose had not deceived him, for though there was no one in the room, a small bar stood along one end, and when the gnarled, stooped lady of the establishment came in, he ordered a glass of rum. The strong liquor warmed him.

There was a puttering roar outside, and a motorcycle pulled up at the door. Tommy observed the evident agitation of the Madame with surprise. Then a man with a hard face came inside. He looked at Tommy threateningly.

“Have a drink,” invited the little pilot in friendly tones.

He hated to drink alone, even if he was cold. The other, who wore a brassard around his arm like a stretcher bearer in the French army, agreed in a surly manner. Tommy wondered who the fellow was as he gulped his drink, and waited to see if the other would return the compliment, as was in vogue in those days. He didn’t, and Tommy turned to leave.