Night flying was not considered good for the health in the days of the Big Fuss. That was before we had radio beams and robot pilots. All a man like Phineas Pinkham had were a stick, two Vickers guns, and a prayer.
And now the flyer from Iowa was cruising high over the heads of both armies, his eyes trying to spot the telltale fiery phlegm of a snooping Hun’s exhaust.
“They are very stingy with the moonlight, ce soir,” Phineas muttered. “If the Heinies hadn’t tried to kiss me twice with archie, I would swear it was Scotland I was flyin’ over. Huh,” he mused, “all that Kraut dough and me not gettin’ a smell. I could get even a better price for them marks, I bet, if they was mine. I could make enough to buy that pool room up over the Greek restaurant back home in Boonetown. I could even buy a flivver an’—oh yeah? Sneak over, will ya, ya square-headed Boche!” He kicked right rudder, described a semicircle in the murk, and booted his Spad toward a higher sky shelf. The drone of a Mercedes power plant had trickled through his leather helmet and had seeped into his big sound detectors than which there were none larger in all France.
Phineas had picked himself a tartar. He found that out after he banked, dropped down on the nocturnal Kraut, and missed with a couple of bursts. The Boche crate seemed capable of doing as many tricks as a wasp when it finally got down to business.
“It’s a lie,” the lone Yank gulped. “Nothin’ can fly like that. I am asleep in my hut, or somethin’. Bump, wake me up, you bum, before I get killed. Ow-w-w-w-w!” A tracer bullet streaked the length of the Spad’s top wing and the smell of burning dope stung Phineas Pinkham’s nostrils. Spandau slugs took bites out of the Spad’s shortribs, singed its scalp, and played havoc with it in general from prop boss to tail skid. Phineas managed to get down to five hundred feet, then the Hisso sat down and demanded shorter hours and more gas. There was no way out of the mess but straight down, so the quaking pilot let his Spad pick its own landing field while he closed his eyes and speculated as to whether his next C. O. would wear horns or big white wings.
BLOOEY! Phineas had his safety strap unhooked and was half out of the pit when the fifteen thousand dollar Yank investment went into the red amidst the green branches of a Frog tree. The Boonetown bat flyer woke up ten minutes later with his face in a bird’s nest. His prop boss had ruined the careers of four feathered creatures before they had even gotten a good start in life. The aroma-de-egg brought the Yank back to consciousness whereupon he got his legs and arms untangled carefully and started to lower his bruised fuselage down through the branches.
“Ugh!” he sniffled. “I am sure glad it was not an ostrich’s domicile that I broke up.”
Once on terra firma, Phineas looked around him. Not fifty yards away he made out the outlines of a big Frog chateau. A single light was burning in a window and toward that haven Lieutenant Pinkham limped, hoping that somebody had left a snack or two in the ice box. When he walked up the big stone steps he saw that part of the place had been bitten out by a hungry shell and he wondered what manner of Frog citizen dared hold his ground so near the palpitating lines.
In response to Phineas’ loud pounding accompanied by his loud yip—”Who is in chez maison? Annybodee dans ze chateau, oui?”—the door finally opened. A non-descript individual with a long white beard that brushed off his shoes as he walked, peered out at the Yankee pilot. Phineas thought that by comparison to this old Frog, Rip Van Winkle should have worn rompers.
“Bong sour,” he chirped to the hermit. “It is succor I want.” To himself he muttered, “I hope he is one, haw-w-w-w!”
“Entrez” squeaked the bewhiskered Frog. “Vous avez ze marks, hein?” He rubbed his bony hands together like a miser who has found a stray nickel.
“Marks?” Phineas gulped. “Why—er—oui oui! I have eet some. Brand new ones that—er— Heinie treasury just issued. Bet you never saw ‘em before. Uh—er—you read it ze Engleesh, mawn amy?”
“Mais non. I only speek a bit of Anglais, oui. But ze marks. I geeve ze francs for zem. Come, mon ami.”
Phineas followed the aged Frenchman into a big room that was half smothered with cobwebs. The windows had been boarded up and only a single candle burned on a large table. Where the light was none too good, Phineas dug down into his pockets for a small bunch of greenish certificates and tossed them out.
“Sacre!” exclaimed his host, “Mes yeux—my eyes, zey are not tres bon,” he went on, “mais thees eez ze argent, I know. By ze feel of ze papair—”
“Oui, sure,” Phineas hastened to say. “It took me a year of smokes to save—er—I mean I had to stop smokin’ so’s I could save the dough— argent—up, haw-w-w-w! For ten francs it’s votre sugar, mawn amy. Listen, monsoor, why ees you save ze Kraut money, non?”
“Pourquoi?” the ancient Frog wheezed. “Jacques le Bouillon, he do not make eet ze same mistake deux temps, non” He shook his head from side to side as he went on. “In 1870 I theenk ees ze French who win ze guerre an’ I buy zem all ze francs. But ze Germans zey win! NOW I theenk ze Germans win ze guerre aussi—so eet ees ze marks I buy.”
“Battier than a belfry,” Phineas muttered to himself. Then to Le Bouillon: “That’s smart, monsoor, haw-w-w-w! Vous avez ze beaucoup francs, huh?” 1
“Mais oui, I have ze barrel fill’ up, oui. I buy heem all marks I can. Hark, mon ami! Ze guns, ze Boche guns zey geet moch near all ze time, oui?
Sacre, I go’n be tres rich homme.”
“Ah—er well, I must be gettin’ home now,” Phineas stammered, his brain doing spirals. “I am ze Lieutenant Pinkham an’ have eet ze airdrome to find encore. Adoo for now, grampa. I weel geet eet more marks pour vous. Bong swore!”
“Vous breeng, I buy, merci” cackled the old Frog, showing Phineas to the door.