Burned Bridges

"Have you seen Wes Thompson lately?" Carr inquired at last.

"I saw him this afternoon," Sophie replied.

"Did he tell you he was going overseas?"

"No." Sophie's interest seemed languid, judged by her tone.

"You saw him this afternoon, eh?" Carr drawled. "That's queer."

"What's queer?" Sophie demanded.

"That he would see you and not tell you where he was off to," Carr went

on. "I saw him away on the Limited at six-o'clock. He told me to tell

you good-by. He's gone to the front."

Sophie sat upright.

"How could he do that?" she said impatiently. "A man can't get into

uniform and leave for France on two hours' notice. He called here about

four. Don't be absurd."

"I don't see anything absurd except your incredulous way of taking it,"

Carr defended stoutly. "I tell you he's gone. I saw him take the train.

Who said anything about two hours' notice? I should imagine he has been

getting ready for some time. You know Wes Thompson well enough to know

that he doesn't chatter about what he's going to do. He sold out his

business two weeks ago, and has been waiting to be passed in his tests.

He has finally been accepted and ordered to report East for training in

aviation. He joined the Royal Flying Corps."

Carr did not know that in the circle of war workers where Sophie moved

so much the R.F.C. was spoken of as the "Legion of Death." No one knew

the percentage of casualties in that gallant service. Such figures were

never published. All that these women knew was that their sons and

brothers and lovers, clean-limbed children of the well-to-do, joined the

Flying Corps, and that their lives, if glorious, were all too brief

once they reached the Western front. Only the supermen, the favored of

God, survived a dozen aërial combats. To have a son or a brother flying

in France meant mourning soon or late. So they spoke sometimes, in

bitter pride, of their birdmen as the "Legion of Death", a gruesome

phrase and apt.

Carr knew the heavy casualties of aërial fighting. But he had never seen

a proud woman break down before the ominous cablegram, he had never seen

a girl sit dry-eyed and ashy-white, staring dumbly at a slip of yellow

paper. And Sophie had--many a time. To her, a commission in the Royal

Flying Corps had come to mean little short of a death warrant.

She sat now staring blankly at her father.

"He closed up his business and joined the Flying Corps two weeks ago."

She repeated this stupidly, as if she found it almost impossible to

comprehend.

"That's what I said," Carr replied testily. "What the devil did you do

to him that he didn't tell you, if he was here only two hours before he

left? Why, he must have come to say good-by."