Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/127

Rh for the machine guns of the intrepid Frenchmen, and more than one Boche never got back over his lines again, while several Frenchmen found heroes' graves on the soil they had died to defend.

"Oh, if we were only up there helping," said Tom, as he and his friends watched.

"We shall be there very soon," murmured Jack. "And it can't be any too soon for me."

The tide of battle turned in favor of the French, the Hun planes withdrawing as the fire got too hot for them. And soon after that the long-range gun ceased firing.

It was rather a "pull" for Tom and Jack to say good-bye to Bessie and her mother in Paris, but they knew they had to do their duty. Nor would Mrs. Gleason and her daughter have kept the boys back for the world. They realized that the Air Service boys were helping to make the world safe for democracy, as they themselves were doing in their way.

And so Tom and Jack, their mission to Paris, which was the discovery of Mr. Raymond, having failed, went back to the hangars, there to be welcomed by their comrades in arms.

They arrived one morning, just after some planes from a bombing expedition over the German lines returned.