CHAPTER V.
STRIKING IT RIGHT.
How to bring about the flying assignment that would put them on thetrail of the otherwise doomed Cossack was the next problem to engage theyoung aviators.
The boys well knew that aeroplane connection was being constantlymaintained between Warsaw and the center of Russian operations at BrestLitovsk, one hundred miles east, even though numerous telegraphinstruments, in the schoolhouse there occupied as headquarters by themighty commander, ticked messages every minute day and night.
No weather conditions served to check modern aircraft, and hostilewire-cutters had nothing but the laugh due them when it came tointercepting or destroying aeroplane communication.
How much they would be compelled to tell to create an emergency fortheir journey, the boys had no fixed idea.
"Let's try it first on the lieutenant," suggested Billy, "and if hedoesn't see the way, have a talk direct with Colonel Malinkoff."
"Whatever is to be done must be done at once," declared Henri.
So they jointly proceeded in search of the aviation chief.
As though a change of luck had succeeded the recent adverse fortuneassailing the lads, whom should they meet in crossing the aviationgrounds but Salisky and Marovitch, the scouts and special messengerslately back from important mission to the front.
"Joy of my heart," was the hail of Salisky, at sight of the pilots whohad made the record flight from Petrograd, "if here isn't the salt ofthe earth in two good packages."
His companion observer showed equal pleasure in greeting the lads, andthe four of them had a busy moment voicing questions and answers.
"Thought you had skipped with the Cossacks," bantered Salisky; "the bigchief of the riders put me through a regular course of sprouts in tryingto get a line on you. I knew precious little, except that you were theright stuff and more than full hands in an aeroplane. Did he find you?"
"Not that anybody knows about," replied Billy, "but we would like tofind him just now."
"You would have a noble chance of making that discovery if you weregoing with us," put in Marovitch.
"Where are you going?" was Henri's eager query.
"In two hours we will be in full sail for Brest Litovsk," announcedSalisky.
The boys each took an elbow grip on the speaker.
With one voice they cried: "Count us in on the flight, if you can!"
"Suits me all right," promptly agreed Salisky, "but it is the lieutenantwho names the pilots, and we are hunting for him now."
"He's the very man we have been looking for ourselves," said Billy, "andwe are more in a hurry than ever to get hold of him. Come along."
The aviation chief had just emerged from the house quarters of a brotherofficer when the searchers surrounded him, Salisky presenting a writtenorder, and the boys with difficulty refraining from putting theirrequest in advance of the reading.
Indeed, the lieutenant had barely comprehended the text of the officialbillet before Henri was talking in one ear and Billy in the other. Itwas breach of discipline for which any of the veterans in the aviationcorps would have forthwith been called down, but exuberant youth couldnot be denied.
The upshot of it was that the young aviators carried their point, havingthe hearty endorsement of the two men directly responsible for thesuccess of the mission assigned to them.
"Talk about striking it right," rejoiced Billy as Henri and himself weregetting into suitable outfit for a long drive in the cold; "it certainlyseems as if our good fairy were on the job to-day."
"Maybe it was good intent that had something to do with the shaping ofthis venture," added Henri. "It isn't just like we were backing thiseffort with a solely selfish motive. If we have nothing to gain we mighthave everything to lose."
"Come to think of it in that light," said Billy, "if we don't gain asmuch as the point at which we are aiming, it is somebody else that willlose--the Cossack will be minus his life."
A corporal was calling from the hall below, and the pilots hastened toreport themselves at the hangars where the military biplanes--the famousNo. 3's--were in trim for instant flight.
Salisky and Marovitch were ready and waiting, and at the signal from theaviation chief the aeroplanes were off like a shot, soon to be in touchwith the directing power of the biggest army under one command in theworld's history of warfare--the Russian forces maneuvered by Grand DukeNicholas along a battle front of 1,500 miles.
Yet in all the legions before them the hooded pilots, holding hard tothe compass-set course of the winged cyclones, would first have eyes forbut one equestrian figure, scarlet clad, with a sleeping death coiled inhis hand.
From the observers behind them the Boy Aviators had withheld all mentionof the original incentive for this particular service--but the time wasapproaching when this confidence must be extended. As well address anEskimo in Arabic as to trip the tongues the lads knew over the languageknowledge of Nikita, the wild horseman.
They must speak through the city-bred Muscovites with whom they weretraveling--friends in need.
The main thing was to locate immediately the man they would warn andsave, and with this end in view, a plea had been made to the observersto give note if in the sweep of their glasses they caught the groundpicture of the crimson cavalcade.
But not once during the flight was there even a snapshot of anythinglike that picture--and it must needs be a waiting game, to be finishedwith the journey's end.