siren song. They worked
hard to dispel this over-confidence that had laid hold of the group, but
their words of warning fell on deaf ears.

This spirit of eager confidence was not peculiar to the air groups near
the front; it was a part of the entire American Expeditionary Force.
Where was this bloomin' war that seemed so difficult to win? asked the
American doughboy. Bring it on! Trot it out! Let's get it over and get
out of this _Parlez vous_ land. Just give them a crack at Fritz!
Say! In no time at all they'd have Old Bill himself trussed up in chains
and carried back to the little old U.S.A., and exhibited around the
country at two-bits a peek. Guess that wouldn't be a nifty way to help
pay for the war! And as for the Crown Prince--well, over a hundred
thousand American doughboys had promised to bring his ears back to a
hundred thousand sweet-hearts--just a little souvenir to show what an
American could do when he got going.

2

This same boastful confidence was present among the pilots with whom
McGee and Larkin were daily associated, but fortunately it was somewhat
counterbalanced by the long-delayed orders sending the squadron to the
front. April slipped away and May came. Still no orders. It was
maddening! Yancey, Fouche, Hampden, Hank Porter, Rodd--in fact all
members of the command, save Siddons, fretted and fumed and voiced their
opinions of a stupid G.H.Q., that failed to appreciate just what a whale
of a squadron this was.

Siddons accepted the delay in the same cool, indifferent manner with
which he met all the vexations of the army. It was as water on a duck's
back; he seemed not to care a hoot whether he ever engaged an enemy.
Then in May, with alarming suddenness and force, the German Crown Prince
began his great drive at Paris. His ears, it seemed, were yet intact,
and those Americans who had so earnestly hoped to get them were soon to
discover that the possessor thereof was all too safely ensconced behind
an advancing horde of German infantrymen who were driving forward in a
relentless, unhalting advance that struck terror to the very heart of
war-weary France. In three days the enemy forces swept from the Aisne
southward across the Vesle and the Ourcq. Their most advanced position
came to rest on the Marne.

For the second time the German army was on the banks of the Marne.
"Papa" Joffre had hurled them back from this river in the first year of
the war; now Marshal Foch must do as well--or F