Lefty was still lying on the cot in the same dull, prostrated manner as Panama came over to him and vigorously shook him by the shoulder, finally propping him up in a sitting position in an effort to bring him back to consciousness. “Lefty! Listen! Wake up, you son of a sea cook! It’s Panama, I’m talkin’ to you, you old pickle barrel! She kissed me, do you hear that? Elinor kissed me! Will you wake up, you mug? This is your pal, can’t you understand? She just kissed me!” Panama continued to try and bring Lefty around to consciousness but the only thing his efforts resulted in was to awake the boy once more in a drunken fit of song. At the top of his lungs, Lefty began singing off key, the music of the Spanish fandango he and Rosa had danced to. Disgusted with his efforts, Williams let the boy drop back on the cot. He lighted another cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bunk beside Phelps who had now fallen back to his silent state of unconsciousness. “It’s all right with me, soldier,” he addressed the boy. “Don’t listen! It ain’t none of your business anyhow!” Just then, an orderly entered and handed Williams a paper. “What do you want, stupid?” the sergeant snapped at the dog robber. “Major Harding requests that you take off at once on a night flight to locate some enemy camp fires,” the orderly explained. Panama jumped up and slapped the astonished messenger on the back. “You tell the Old Man that it’s Okay with me, kid! I’ll make ten flights if he wants me to!” As the sergeant started to get into his flying togs, the orderly exited. Once more alone, Panama turned to Lefty again, “You wouldn’t listen, eh? Well, you old stew, you don’t have to! I’ll tell the propeller. I can always talk to that old prop; in fact, I might tell the whole, darn, cockeyed world!” By this time, he was in his togs, searching about to make certain that he hadn’t forgotten anything. After picking up his cigarettes, he ran to the front of the tent, stopping to look back at Lefty’s motionless form still sprawled in the same position on the cot. A happy smile crossed the sergeant’s face and he crossed to where the boy lay asleep. Bending over him, he jabbed his elbow into Lefty’s ribs and whispered again, “Elinor kissed me, you mug!” CHAPTER XV A short time after Reveille the following morning, Panama’s plane taxied along the ground and was met by a group of curious ground men. When the ship came to a stop, the flying sergeant crawled out of the cockpit with much difficulty, stiff and sore from his all-night flight, the purpose of which had since proved to be a futile escapade. “Didn’t see a camp fire all night,” he announced to the group of men gathered about the plane. “Gee, that must have been tough,” one of the Marines sympathized, “hopin’ around this trick country all night and then not seein’ what you went after.”