Chapter VIII.
Le Cigar Mysterieuse
“How long did you say it was going to take?” asked Allison the next day as Renhard brought out the little phials of acid from his rucksack.
“Twenty minutes at least. I’ll go as quickly as I can. If anyone comes all you have to do is give me the signal—whistle ‘Roses in Picardy’—and delay ‘em a bit so I have time to get things out of sight.”
“How do I delay them?”
“That’s the part you have to figure out. I suggest you start thinking of things to talk about while you’re waiting.”
“Oh, all right. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Renhard pushed him into the hall and closed the door. Allison pulled a piece of wood from his pocket and began to whittle. Ten minutes passed. Allison began to relax. This isn’t going to be so hard after all, he thought.
“Hullo, Allison, what are you working at?” said a voice behind him.
“Oh! Hello, Randolph. Nothing much; just whittling.”
Allison started whistling “Roses in Picardy”.
“How’s your hand?”
“All right.”
Randolph put his hand on the knob of the door.
“It’s mending fast,” added Allison. “Just a bit stiff. I think I can work a machine gun with it.”
“Good! How does it look?”
“Still pretty bad, but it doesn’t hurt much.”
Randolph turned again to the door. Allison cleared his throat desperately.
“I suppose you want me to thank you for saving my life and all that the other day,” he said.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Randolph. He hesitated. “I didn’t do much, really—there were two of us. You saw, didn’t you?”
“It was Kearns, wasn’t it?” asked Allison.
“Yes, it was.”
“He never said anything about it.”
“Of course not. He’s not that sort of a chap—you know that. He doesn’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Well if it makes him happy I don’t feel obligated. It’s just what any one of the men would have done.”
Randolph did not think that very many of them would have done it for someone who had treated them so badly as Allison had treated Kearns, but he kept this thought to himself. “You ought to make things up with him, you know, Allison,” he said.
“Why?”
“You know the major will have to transfer one of you, and it’s seems a pity, since that sort of thing has never happened at 11 squadron before.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“There wouldn’t have to be if you two could work things out.”
“Fine chance of that!”
“Look, Allison, you don’t have to apologize, exactly—just smooth things over a bit.”
“Why doesn’t he do it?”
“Well, you started it, you know.”
“Well, I don’t care if I do get sent away. I prefer that to staying here with him.”
“Then you’re quite determined not to ‘bury the hatchet’?”
Allison said nothing and whittled viciously.
“Look here,” said Randolph, dropping his voice slightly, “I know how you feel about Kearns, but won’t you do it anyway? For a friend?”
“Humph. What friend?”
“Why, me, of course.”
“You?”
“Yes.” Randolph looked down. “Well, I thought I was your friend.”
“If you are it’s a one-sided friendship; I never did anything for you.”
“No, but we’re comrades, you know. I always considered you my friend.”
“Why?”
Allison surprised himself by asking the question, but he waited, wondering what Randolph would say. The fellow had always mystified him.
“Why? Well—” To his surprise, Randolph could not think of a single reason he should consider Allison his friend. “Well, I do,” he said truthfully. “Don’t tell me you don’t have any friends yourself—surely you must.”
“Well, I don’t. Anybody who’d have friends in a war like this is crazy.”
“Can’t help it, I suppose,” said Randolph, thinking of his own position. “You’re right, it is rather crazy. It’s a crazy war.” He was silent for a minute.
“I don’t see that my getting sent away makes any difference anyway,” said Allison.
“Yes it does. I’d hate to see you go.”
“Oh? You would? Well, I’m…sorry.”
“Then you won’t do it? Make it up with Kearns, I mean?”
Just exactly what he was going to do presented itself to Allison’s imagination at that moment and his conscience gave him a vicious twinge.
“Ah, go to—____”
He actually did say it, and Randolph, although he did not go there, walked sadly away, his errand forgotten.
Renhard opened the door.
“Nobody about? Good. Come in here. I’ve got it all finished. Have a look.”
Allison looked. The bomb appeared to be an ordinary cigar. It was wrapped in a thin outer layer of tobacco and had a brand label around the center like a genuine Havana.
“Looks good enough to smoke, eh?”
“It’s heavy,” remarked Allison.
“That won’t be noticed if it’s in a box with a lot of others. All the hard part’s done now, which I’m sure will be good news to you.”
“So now we can relax?”
“Certainly not. Not until it’s on the train, but we’ve only tomorrow and half of the next day to get through and then the thing’s done.”
“When do we get out of here?”
“As soon as we safely can. I’ve got the passes forged and everything’s all ready.”
“Good. It won’t be too soon for me.”
“Scared, huh?”
“No, I’m no fraidy cat.”
But he didn’t tell Renhard why he was so anxious to leave the airdrome. He wasn’t entirely sure why himself.
“What’s the job today?” asked Hayes the next morning, coming up behind Farnsworth who was reading the bulletin.
“’C’ flight? Let’s see, ‘escort duty’.”
Allison, overhearing him, groaned.
“Why don’t they send ‘B’ flight?” he asked.
“We haven’t had escort duty for almost a week,” said Clark, the man who had replaced Anderson.
“It’s about time we took a break from balloon-strafing, anyway,” said Hayes.
Despite their efforts to mollify Allison, all of the men shared his dislike of escort duty. The fighter squadrons were required to guard bombing ‘planes as they carried out their missions but as the enemy rarely attacked ‘planes with an escort the job tended to be rather dull.
Allison rubbed his cheek and then had an idea.
“Dentist, eh?” asked the major as Allison stood before his desk later that morning. “Couldn’t you wait until after your mission this afternoon?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Allison, pulling a grimace. “It’s been bothering me for several weeks now—just ask the other men.”
“Let me have a look at it,” said the major. “Which one is it?”
“Thish one.”
“It looks all right to me.”
“Oh, it hurts just awful, sir.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” said the major, “I suppose I could send Ross in your place and you could go up with ‘A’ flight this evening for Ross.”
The major was hesitant to make this decision for he disliked switching men to different flights. They worked best when they flew with the men they were used to. However, in the end he wrote out a leave for Allison and gave him the use of the squadron motorcycle.
Allison was elated. Yes, he had to go to the dentist and have his tooth pulled, but after that he might spend some time in town and use up his month’s pay.
He was just climbing onto the motorcycle when Randolph came out of the barracks and hurried towards him.
“I heard you were going into town,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Would you mind picking up that picture that fellow took of us?”
“All right.”
“Thanks. Good luck.”
He shook Allison’s hand. “Oh sorry,” he said, remembering the bandage.
“Never mind; goodbye,” said Allison kicking up the stand and cycling off in a hurry.
He glanced back once and saw Randolph standing there looking after him.
Allison spent several hours in town and returned to the airdrome in high spirits. Everyone was very quiet as he entered the barracks.
“What’s the matter with everybody?” he asked. “Did you have beans again for dinner?”
No one smiled. No one even answered.
“What’s wrong?” asked Allison.
Kearns looked up.
“Randolph’s gone,” he said.
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