Lefty tore open the envelope and his eyes fell upon a sheet of official paper upon which was typed flying orders for the Tenth Squadron. Hurriedly he read through the difficult routine wording until he reached the last paragraph where he rested his eyes, reading over the closing lines again and again. “You are assigned to Sergeant Williams,” it explained, “as his mechanic as per his request.” As he carefully folded up the paper and placed it in his pocket, his eyes became moist and he felt a lump rising in his throat. He looked off to his right and saw Panama crossing the field in the direction of the barracks. A broad smile of grateful appreciation lighted Lefty’s troubled face, realizing now what Panama had done for him. Suddenly he became aware of the terrible breach that might arise between him and this man because of a woman whom they both loved. He remembered Panama’s explanation about the snapshots and how he had to take them when Elinor wasn’t there. “She must mean everything to him,” he thought. “She’s all he’s got while I—” Then he suddenly thought of something else as his hand mechanically reached for his leather wallet. Opening it, he brought out a snapshot of a girl, a lovely girl with a profusion of dark hair and beautiful wide eyes that laughed up into his. The picture was Elinor’s and an exact duplicate of the one Panama had shown him only a few moments before. He studied the picture and the face of the girl upon it, reading over several times the inscription across the bottom written in her own handwriting: “To Lefty, the Best Patient I Ever Had, Elinor.” He gazed upon these words that had given him so much to hope for when he first read them only an hour previous, then he looked pensively upon the features of the writer, considering the happiness of all concerned. He lifted his head and looked after Panama, his eyes clear now with determination as he slowly tore the picture into small bits, letting the pieces fall from his hand, one by one. CHAPTER VIII As the grim shadows of night disappeared to make way for a cold, gray dawn, the silhouettes of nine pursuit planes and the silent figures of many ground men working busily about the ships could be seen on the field at Pensacola. Save for the whirr of airplane motors, some going while others were just being started, a grim, foreboding silence prevailed as the mechanics and ground men worked swiftly to service the ships about to start on a long journey within the next half hour. Officers and men, attired in regulation flying togs, stood together in small groups, some smoking, others chewing gum, all of them silently waiting for the moment to enter their cockpits and take off, perhaps on the last air voyage any of them would ever make.