Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/130

Rh it. Tom was one of those who mastered the feat, just as his far-seeing instructor believed he would be. Before he left the school at Pau he was able to do the "vrille" wonderfully well, and thus became an object of admiration and envy to the American colony of intending fliers.

One day there unexpectedly turned up there an old friend from the other side of the Atlantic—no other than Dawes, whom they had left working steadily away at the Government aviation school in Virginia. The boys were delighted to see him again, and during the remainder of their stay at Pau the trio were much in one another's company.

Jack continued to make steady progress, although it was evident that he would never be in the same class as his more brilliant chum. Finally their eagerness to get nearer the front was rewarded, for they received permission to go to another aviation field.

This was also in southern France, at Casso, on the shores of a long lake less than an hour from Bordeaux. Here the Flying Corps has a range of its own, with a number of captive balloons and a series of moving targets out on the lake.

The pupil is taken up in a double-seated plane, and operates the quick-firing gun or, as the French call it, a "mitrailleuse." At first it