Jimmy laughed.  He was so glad Parker was home safe and sound that he did not mind being chaffed.  So Parker had accounted for two enemy machines?  And he had been worrying about Parker!  Well, he might as well own up to himself, he thought, that he had been acting like a very green hand at the game.  But never mind!  They had done a good day’s work, both of them.  No mistake about that.  He felt good.  The reaction had set in in earnest.  Jimmy was simply happy.

At that moment the flight commander came in.  Parker and Jimmy rose, stepped forward and saluted.

“Back?” said the chief laconically.

“Yes, sir,” answered Parker.

“Did you find any of their scouts?”

“Yes, sir.  One.”

“Get him?”

“Drove him down, sir.  I could not tell much about his damage from his landing, though I think he smashed a bit.  I had a good chance at him.”

“That all?”

“Yes, sir.  Except that four of their hunters attacked Hill.  He side-looped and got free, then looped again and caught one well, finishing him.  He threw one other right into my hands, too.”

“Get him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right.”  The flight commander turned to go out, then, as if suddenly remembering that Jimmy was a new hand at the game, he said over his shoulder:  “Very well done.  Get Parker to show you how to make out your report.  Very good, both of you.”

“H’m,” said Parker as the chief stepped out of the door.  “He is getting talkative.”

But the flight commander was more voluble when he saw Jimmy’s squadron commander that night.  “I think that youngster you brought up with you—–­boy by the name of Hill—–­is made of good stuff,” he said.  “He went with Parker to-day, and between them they managed a very pretty show.  I shall read their official reports with interest.  It isn’t very often a young fellow gets such a baptism, and it’s still more rare for one to pull it off the way Hill did.  Why, those two got two, if not three Boches.  Think of it!  If Hill keeps on the way he has started out he will make a name for himself.”

“I picked him as a possible good one,” said the squadron commander proudly.  “I think he will keep it up.”

Jimmy, though tired, did not go to sleep the minute he went to bed that night.  He lay for ten or fifteen minutes going over what the day had brought him.  Curiously enough, the last thing he said to himself, before he dropped off to sleep, was very much akin to what his squadron leader had said.

“It’s not a bad start,” was his good-night thought, “but I must keep it up.”

CHAPTER VIII

THRILLS OF THE UPPER REACHES

To the great delight of the Brighton boys, Will Corwin paid a visit to them one evening, and stayed to dinner at their mess.  Will was not much older than his brother Harry, so far as years went, but he looked ten years older.  The constant work on the French front had bronzed him and made him leaner and harder than when he left his home in America.