ching
Ludezeel, Tam sighted an enemy squadron engaged in a practise flight,
they opened out and made way for him, offering no molestation.

Tam began to plane down. He spotted the big white-speckled cemetery and
saw a little procession making its way to the grounds. He came down to a
thousand feet and dropped his parachute. He saw it open and sail
earthward and then some one on the ground waved a white handkerchief.

"Guid," said Tam, and began to climb homeward.

* * * * *

The next day something put out of action the engine of that redoubtable
fighter, Baron von Hansen-Bassermann, and he planed down to the British
aerodrome with his machine flaming.

A dozen mechanics dashed into the blaze and hauled the German to safety,
and, beyond a burnt hand and a singed mustache, he was unharmed.

Lieutenant Baron von Hansen-Bassermann was a good-looking youth. He was,
moreover, an undergraduate of Oxford University and his English was
perfect.

"Hard luck, sir," said Blackie, and the baron smiled.

"Fortunes of war. Where's Tam?" he asked.

"Tam's up-stairs somewhere," said Blackie. He looked up at the unflecked
blue of the sky, shading his eyes. "He's been gone two hours."

The baron nodded and smiled again.

"Then it was Tam!" he said. "I thought I knew his touch--does he 'loop'
to express his satisfaction?"

"That's Tam!" said a chorus of voices.

"He was sitting in a damp cloud waiting for me," said the baron
ruefully. "But who was the Frenchman with him?"

Blackie looked puzzled.

"Frenchman? There isn't a French machine within fifty miles; did he
attack you, too?"

"No--he just sat around watching and approving. I had the curious sense
that I was being butchered to make a Frenchman's holiday. It is curious
how one gets those quaint impressions in the air--it is a sort of ninth
sense. I had a feeling that Tam was 'showing off'--in fact, I knew it
was Tam, for that reason."

"Come and have some breakfast before you're herded into captivity with
the brutal soldiery," said Blackie, and they all went into the mess-room
together, and for an hour the room rang with laughter, for both the
baron and Captain Blackie were excellent raconteurs.

Tam, when he returned, had little to say about his mysterious companion
in the air. He thought it was a "French laddie." Nor had he any story to
tell about the driving down of the baron's machine. He could only say
that he "kent" the baron