THE BRIGHTON FLYING SQUADRON

“The war will be won in the air.”

The headlines in big black type stared at Jimmy Hill as he stood beside the breakfast table and looked down at the morning paper, which lay awaiting his father’s coming.

The boys of the Brighton Academy, among whom Jimmy was an acknowledged leader, had been keenly interested in the war long before the United States joined hands with the Allies in the struggle to save small nations from powerful large ones—–­the fight to ensure freedom and liberty for all the people of the earth.

A dark, lithe, serious young French lad, Louis Deschamps, whose mother had brought him from France to America in 1914, and whose father was a colonel of French Zouaves in the fighting line on the Western Front, was a student at the Academy.  Interest in him ran high and with it ran as deep an interest in the ebbing and flowing fortunes of France.  The few letters Mrs. Deschamps received from Louis’ soldier father had been retailed by the proud boy to his fellows in the school until they knew them by heart.

Bob Haines’ father, too, had helped fan the war-fire in the hearts of the boys.  Bob was a real favorite with every one.  He captained the baseball team, and could pitch an incurve and a swift drop ball that made him a demi-god to those who had vainly tried to hit his twisters.  Bob’s father was a United States Senator, who, after the sinking of the Liusitania, was all for war with Germany.  America, in his eyes, was mad to let time run on until she should be dragged into the world-conflict without spending every effort in a national getting-ready for the inevitable day.  Senator Haines’ speeches were matter-of-fact——­just plain hammering of plain truths in plain English.  Many of his utterances in the Senate were quoted in the local papers, and Bob’s schoolmates read them with enthusiasm when they were not too long.

Then, too, a number of the Brighton boys had already entered the service of Uncle Sam.  Several were already at the front and had written thrilling letters of their experiences in the trenches, at close grip with the Boches.  Still more thrilling accounts had come from some of their former classmates who were in the American submarine service.  Other Brighton boys who had gone out from their alma mater to fight the good fight for democracy had helped to fan the flame of patriotism.

So the school gradually became filled with thoughts of war, and almost every boy from fourteen years of age upward planned in his heart of hearts to one day get into the fray in some manner if some longed-for opportunity ever presented itself.