The Flying Cavalier

by Gilbert, Morris

  Later that night, after supper in a café, they sat talking until late. “There’s nothing more to be done. As the Lord says, ‘The lot is cast into the lap, but the vision thereof is of the Lord,’ ” Revelation announced.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you can cast dice or draw cards to try to find out what to do, but when all that’s done, then God makes a decision. He didn’t bring us over here to pick daisies, and if the only way we can fight is to join the Foreign Legion, that’s what I plan to do.”

  “All right. I’ll do the same,” Logan said firmly.

  “But you don’t know anything about the Legion. I’ve heard terrible things about them. They treat their men like dogs,” Jo countered.

  The argument went on for some time, mostly with Jo protesting that it was too rash an act. But the two men settled down into a defiant resolution, and finally just before midnight, Jo said wearily, “I’m tired, but I hope you won’t do it.”

  “Don’t you worry about us, Miss Jo,” Revelation said. “The Lord’s brought us over here, and the Lord’s going to take care of us. He gives His angels charge over us. That’s one advantage we’ll have.”

  The three returned to the hotel, and the next day they went out to locate the office of the Foreign Legion. To their surprise, they were met by a muscular lieutenant who smiled sourly. “So many of you Americans are coming in, we’ll have to have a special swearing in. It will take until the twenty-first to get the paper work done.”

  “That’s all right,” Logan said quickly. He and Revelation filled out the preliminary paper work, and when they left, Logan threw back his shoulders. “Well, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Not happy with their decision to enlist, Jo said, “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.” But turning to Revelation she smiled. “I’ll be praying that you’re right that God will give His angels charge over you.”

  “We’ve got to get you started taking pictures and getting stories about this war,” Logan said. “Why don’t we find a French airfield? Go out and meet the officers.”

  “Why, we couldn’t do that!” Jo protested.

  “Yes, we can,” Revelation nodded firmly. “Let’s go get your camera and a pocket full of them little bulbs, and they’ll be plum glad to see us.”

  ****

  They hired a taxi to take them fifteen miles outside of Paris, where they found a haphazard collection of tents and mobile homes. They got out of the car and stared at the scene, and Jo said quietly, “It’s not much, is it?” The aerodrome, as it was called, was a disappointment to all three of the American visitors.

  “Look at that field,” Logan said. “I don’t see how they can land anything on it.” The airstrip was nothing but a pasture and meadow that had been grated and rolled, but the heavy rain had washed craters into it. “I guess that’s what they use for lighting, those oil flares over there. But it’s not much,” Logan said.

  “Look on the bright side of it. These fellows are just getting started,” Revelation said cheerfully. “ ‘Do all things without murmuring and complaining,’ so the Scriptures say. Come on. Let’s find us a general and tell him we’ve come to save him from the Huns.”

  After a few attempts, Rev found a man who could speak some English, and he pointed them to the sturdiest building near the airstrip, which was the operational headquarters. When the three made their way inside, they were greeted by a French officer whose English was very poor. He turned them over finally to another officer, this time a captain, who listened carefully as Jo explained rather awkwardly what she had come to do.

  “So my friends are hoping that one day they’ll be in your flying service.”

  “Ah, but they must go through the Legion, I understand. It is a difficult way. I wish you success, my friends. And you, mademoiselle, what is your purpose?”

  “I have come over to write the story of the war so that Americans can understand it.” Jo was wearing a green dress that narrowed down from knee level to ankle. It had yellow trim, and she wore a hat of dark crimson velvet. Her eyes were bright with excitement as she explained quickly, “My countrymen need to know why France is fighting. One day Americans will come by the thousands, not just a few such as my friends.”

  The officer, who had given his name as Captain Clairmont, said quickly, “That would be most helpful to our cause, but what is it exactly you would like to do?”

  “I would like to take pictures of your men and of the planes they fly, then I will write a story, which I would send back to America.”

  “You understand that such material would have to examined by the authorities?”

  “By you, Captain?” Jo smiled.

  “Yes, by me, Mademoiselle Hellinger.”

  “Then you will help me?”

  “Of course, I will do what I can. Come. I will show you around.”

  The next two days Jo collected a tremendous amount of material and used up all of her film. She discovered, as did Logan, that the situation was very bad. The planes were old and not designed for military purposes at all.

  Captain Clairmont said, “We will have better planes soon. Even now our factories are going into full production.” He smiled then and lifted an eyebrow at the two men. “By the time you do your service and get enough of the ground war, perhaps you may transfer into our service.”

  “Would you be willing to help them, Captain Clairmont?” Jo asked.

  “There’s little that I can do, but I am always at the service of those who want to help France.”

  That night, Jo strolled around the airfield with Logan and Revelation. Logan looked at the planes and said longingly, “I wish I could just get in one now and start flying.”

  “Be humble. Be clothed with humility, brother. That’s what the Scripture says. ‘Humble yourself unto the mighty hand of God and he shall exalt you in due season.’ ”

  “You always have a Scripture for everything, don’t you, Revelation?” Jo smiled, thinking how much she would miss these two.

  “Well, I usually do. One time,” he grinned, “I was trying to speak to a church group, but a big bug flew in my mouth. Wasn’t nothing to do but swallow him, so I did. One of the deacons came up later, and he asked me, ‘What Scripture you got for that, Revelation?’ Well, it come to me, and I said, ‘He was a stranger and I took him in.’ ”

  “You two be careful,” Jo said suddenly after she had stopped laughing at Revelation’s story. “I worry about you.”

  “That’s good to know that somebody cares. Look, you’ve got my folks’ address. Write them once in a while, will you? Mail may not get through so well from the Legion. Just don’t know about that.”

  “I’ll be praying that both of you will be able to get into the flying service very soon.”

  “We’ll all agree on that,” Revelation grinned. “ ‘And if any two or three of you agree on anything, it will be done.’ So the Scripture sayeth.” He looked up at the sky and said loudly, “Lord, we agree that we want to come out of this here war alive.”

  Jo sobered then and said quietly, “Lord, I’ll second that. Give your angels charge over Logan and Rev.” She felt sad but covered this with a smile, saying, “Let’s go eat some snails. I feel like living dangerously!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Death of a Lover

  Paris held a charm for Jo Hellinger she had found nowhere else. Though the urgency of the moment dulled some of the pleasure she was enjoying, as she sat in a sidewalk café across from Logan and Revelation, she thought, This city is wonderful! I’ve never seen one like it anywhere in America.

  The three had roamed around Paris, the men waiting impatiently for the real thing to begin, but for Josephine, Paris was the real thing. Somehow the sunlight was different here, brighter, warmer, bringing to life the brilliant colors of the flowers that filled gardens and window boxes all over the city. The colors were richer and deeper, at least to her eyes, and the city had a grandeur that seemed to be missing in the modern cities of
Chicago and New York.

  She delighted in the age of the city, and as they had crossed the Seine and left the Boulevard St. Germain, they had strolled into neighborhoods that were nothing like what she had seen in America. They were very old, and poverty was evident in many of them, yet the colorful little neighborhoods that were studded throughout the area seemed more delightful to her than anything she had seen in her native country.

  She talked excitedly and practically dragged her two companions through narrow cobbled streets lined on either side with rows of gaily painted flats. True enough, some of them were stained with soot washed down from the chimney pots and the tile roofs, but she found even that picturesque. The houses were all jammed side by side, and narrow avenues intersected them. When they explored one of them, they discovered they led to small courtyards in the rear.

  As they passed on to other neighborhoods, they came upon shops that sold everything imaginable. In America the department store had become the new rage, but in France, specialty stores were still in vogue. Jo had said to her companions, “It’s so much better to go into a shop and talk to the owner than to go into a huge department store and talk to a girl popping her gum who’s only waiting for quitting time.”

  Now as Jo sat at the sidewalk café, she leaned back and observed the crowd that had gathered. The streets were packed with people of all sizes and descriptions, but there was something undeniably Gallic about the scene.

  “I wish there were no war,” she said dreamily. “It would be wonderful just to stay here and enjoy this place.”

  “I don’t know. It ain’t so nice as home, I don’t think,” Revelation said. He sipped at the glass of water that was before him and took a bite out of the piece of bread he had lathered with butter. “The butter’s not as good as it is at home, either,” he murmured. “ ‘But as a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.’ ”

  Logan laughed. “Well, we wandereth from our place all right. This doesn’t look like anyplace I’ve ever been. It’s so different from Montana.”

  The three sat there talking and nibbling at the food. Revelation, suspicious of everything he did not know, had finally settled on what was supposed to be a chicken sandwich. But when he tasted it, he said, “Well, it don’t taste like no chicken I ever bit into.”

  “What does it taste like, Rev?” Logan teased, as he winked at Jo.

  “Well, kind of like an owl, I guess.”

  “An owl!” Jo’s eyes flew open. “You’ve eaten owl? What do those taste like?”

  “Well, somethin’ like this.” Rev suddenly grinned. “I ain’t makin’ no complaints. When a fella’s away from home, he eats what’s set before him.”

  They sat there enjoying the hum of conversation of which they understood practically nothing. The chairs and tables were packed so close together that a thin man with an olive face listened for some time. Finally he said, “Welcome to Paris. Just from America, I take it?”

  “Why, yes!” Josephine said. She introduced the three of them, and the man bowed slightly.

  “My name is Pierre Guillon. You’re here on business?”

  Jo hesitated, not knowing how much to tell.

  Logan spoke up and said, “We’ve come over to join up in this fight.”

  The man’s face changed at once. He had been withdrawn, but now his eyes beamed. “Then I must buy you all a drink, and we will have a toast.”

  “I guess you’ll have to excuse me, partner,” Revelation said. “I don’t drink any intoxicating liquors.”

  Guillon laughed suddenly. “You will have difficulty in France, then. Some people haven’t tasted water here in years! To be truthful, that’s why many people here drink the wine. It’s safer than water, especially for foreigners.”

  “I’ll just take my chances. The Bible says if a man eats any deadly thing, it will not harm him.”

  “Ah, you’re a minister?”

  “Me?” Rev grinned. “No. Not a bit of it. Just a believer. Are you saved, brother?”

  Jo and Logan expected to see the man’s face freeze up, but instead he laughed aloud. “But oui. I am a believer in the Lord Jesus.”

  “Well, hallelujah! Praise God and glory to God and the Lamb forever!” Rev shouted. He put his hard hand out and said, “Put ’er there! A fellow believer here in the middle of Paris!”

  Guillon found his hand crushed by Revelation Brown’s enormous paw. “I’m most pleased to welcome you again the second time. I attend a small Protestant church here in the heart of Paris. Perhaps you could come and attend our services.”

  “Why, we’d be proud to, brother! You just draw us a map and we’ll come. Of course, we don’t understand the lingo.”

  “I would be glad to interpret.”

  Logan leaned forward and said, “Mr. Guillon, I’m a little confused about what’s going on here.”

  “You mean the war?”

  “Yes. We’ve been trying to listen, but since we don’t speak French, it’s quite difficult. I can’t even make out through the papers what’s going on.”

  “Well, poof!” Guillon kissed his fingertips with an inexpressibly French gesture. His eyes rolled back, and he shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “You must not pay any attention to the newspapers. They are, as usual, not accurate.”

  Rev reached over with his stiff fingers and poked Jo’s shoulder. “There you are. You see what Mr. Guillon says about your profession?”

  “Ah, you are a journalist! I am sorry. I did not mean to offend. But, on the other hand, one sees few women journalists.”

  “I’m not offended, Monsieur Guillon, but I’ve come over to get the truth to send to the newspapers back in America.”

  “Well, truth is a rare bird. You must catch it quickly before it flies away,” Guillon said. He seemed to turn moody then. His olive complexion gave him a rather dour cast, and yet there was an innate cheerfulness in this man. He sat quietly for a moment sipping his wine, then shrugged. “Well, I can tell you what I think.”

  “We would be glad to hear it, monsieur,” Jo said quickly. She whipped out her pad and pencil, which caused the Frenchman to smile. “I’ll take notes, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do not mind. You can even use my name. Imagine, Pierre Guillon being printed in an American newspaper!”

  “What’s going on? We hear all kinds of rumors,” Logan said, leaning forward, his eyes intent on Guillon. “One minute we hear that the Germans have retreated. The next we’re hearing that we’d better get out of Paris. That they’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

  Guillon made a steeple out of his fingertips and thought for a long moment. Finally he shrugged again, a habitual gesture with him, and began to speak. “The strategy of our army has been well planned,” he said quietly. “We have seen for some time that war with Germany was inevitable. So here is what the masterminds at headquarters have decided.” He took a pencil out of his pocket and said, “May I borrow a page of your pad, mademoiselle?” Taking the page, he began to draw lines.

  “We have mustered three-quarters of a million men here in the eastern corner of France. It is the intention of the general to forge through Alsace and Lorraine.”

  “I see. And drive on up the Rhine, is that it?” Jo said.

  “Ah, you are very quick, mademoiselle! Yes. We will drive up the Rhine and the Grandquartier Général—that is general headquarters—feels that we can win using the courage and the dash of the French infantrymen.”

  “And you do not think, monsieur, that that will work?”

  “I do not.” Guillon shook his head, and a sadness clouded his dark brown eyes. “Courage is necessary, and French soldiers are noted the world over for their élan, but these qualities will not substitute for heavy guns.”

  “You do not have enough artillery.”

  “No. Our general said they were not needed because the courage of the soldiers would be enough.”

  Logan had listened intently, and now he leaned over and said, “Y
ou think your army’s going to take a beating.”

  “Our generals apparently have never heard of machine guns,” Guillon said bitterly. “A bayonet was a fearsome weapon back in the day of Napoléon when all one needed was a superior number of men. Each man, for the most part, had only one shot. When that was fired, it was up to the bayonet to win the day.”

  “I remember studying the Civil War,” Jo said. “The leaders on both sides never seemed to learn that the bayonet was useless against entrenched troops.”

  “Exactly! They were foolish and our leaders are foolish, too! They will be no match for the German machine guns!”

  “What is happening, monsieur?”

  “What is happening? A slaughter is happening!” Guillon drank his wine and put the glass down with unnecessary force. “The bugles blow, the masses of our infantry charge, there are long bayonets gleaming in the sun. Ah, the courage and the nobility and the honor of it all! They fling themselves against the machine guns with inhuman valor. Divine valor, I might even say. And—”

  “And the slaughter, I suppose, is unbelievable?” Jo asked quietly with her eyes on the face of the small Frenchman.

  “It is inhuman and unthinkable. Bodies piled high, and still the general sends the men in.”

  “But they will learn, won’t they?” Revelation Brown asked. “I mean, after all, when you send men in and lose them like that, you have to learn something.”

  “You and I might, but we are only ordinary human beings, monsieur. What is your name, sir? Revelation?”

  “That’s it. It’s Revelation.”

  “A most pleasing name. Well, generals are not ordinary men. They apparently learned nothing. They are still sending mass troops against artillery and emplaced machine guns.”

  “What are the Germans doing?” Jo asked quickly.

  “They are following the plan laid down by Count Alfred von Schlieffen. I think it is an old plan. Germany has had this war at the back of its mind for a long time.”