Lefty pulled off the road and onto a new track made by U.S. vehicles after the war had passed this stretch of Canada. The fighting scouts, having shorter range than the observation aeroplanes, were based closer to the front. The strip on which they took off and landed had so much fresh dirt on it, it had pretty obviously been shelled not long before, the land then releveled by trac tors or more likely by lots of men working hard.

Alongside the strip sat the Martin single-deckers. Next to the bulky Wilburs he'd been flying, they looked little and low and fast. Next to the Cur tiss Super Hudsons, pushers with more wires and struts than you could shake a stick at, they looked like something out of the 1930s, maybe the 1940s, not merely next year's model.

"You got to hand it to Kaiser Bill's boys," Lefty said, stamping on the none too effective brake to bring the Ford to a halt (when you needed to stop in a hurry, stamping on the reverse was a better idea). Puffy summer clouds drifted lazily across the sky. "They know how to make aeroplanes, no two ways about it."

"Yeah," Moss said with a small sigh. The Wright brothers might have flown the first aeroplane in 1904, but the machines had evolved faster in Europe than in the USA. The single-decker was a straight knockoff of the Fokker monoplanes now flying above France and Belgium . Also a knockoff was the machine gun mounted above the engine, almost the only bulge marring the smooth lines of the aeroplane. "Good to know somebody finally figured out how to build a decent interrupter gear. Even if it wasn't us, we get to borrow it."

"That's right, Lieutenant," Lefty said. "Chew the hell out of the Canucks and the limeys for me, you hear?" He stuck out his hand. Moss shook it, then grabbed his duffel bag and jumped down from the Ford. Lefty took his foot off the brake, gave the motorcar more throttle with the hand control, and putt-putted away.

Shouldering the bag, Moss made for the canvas tents that housed his new squadron. Such arrangements were all very well now, with the weather warm, but could you live in a tent in the middle of winter? Maybe the war would be over and he wouldn't have to find out. He clicked tongue between teeth. He'd believed nonsense like that the year before. He was a tougher sell now.

Somebody came out of the closest tent and spotted him. "Moss, isn't it?" the man called with a friendly wave. "Welcome to the monkey house."

"Thank you, Captain Pruitt," Moss said, letting the bag fall so he could salute. Shelby Pruitt lazily returned the gesture. Moss had already gathered he'd have to get used to a new style here; Captain Franklin, his CO since the start of the war, had been the sort who dotted every i and crossed every t. Pruitt didn't seem the sort to make much fuss over little things, as long as the big ones were all right.

Now he said, "Come along with me. We'll give you someplace or other where you can lay your weary head." He didn't particularly look like a flier – he was short and dark and on the dumpy side-and his south-western accent made him sound almost like a Reb. When you watched him move, though, you got the idea he always knew exactly where every part of him was at every moment, and that was something a pilot certainly needed.

He led Moss along the row of green-gray canvas shelters till he flipped up one flap. "Ah, thought so," he said. "We've got room at the inn here."

Peering in, Moss saw the tent held four cots, the space around one of them conspicuously bare and empty. One airman sat on the edge of his bed, writing a letter. He looked up at Moss and said, "You're the new fish, are you? I'm Daniel Dudley-they mostly call me Dud." He shrugged resignedly. He had a pale, bony face and a grin that was engaging even if a little cadaverous.

"Jonathan Moss," Moss said, and shook hands. He set his gear down on the empty cot. Pruitt nodded to him, then went off on whatever other business he had. Moss understood his offhandedness: he wouldn't really be part of the squadron till he'd flown his first mission.

Dudley made a small production out of sticking the cap back onto his fountain pen. That let him effectively do nothing till Captain Pruitt was out of earshot. Then he asked, "What do you think of Hardshell so far?"

Moss needed a moment to grasp the nickname. "The captain, you mean?" he asked, to make sure he had it right. When Dudley didn't say no, he went on, "He seems all right to me. Friendlier than the fellow I'm leaving, that's clear. What do you think of him?"

"He'll do, no doubt about it." Dudley took a panatela out of a teakwood cigar case. He offered the case to Moss, who shook his head. The pilot bit off the end of his cigar, lighted it, and sighed with pleasure.

"Who else sleeps here?" Moss asked, pointing to the other two cots.

"Tom Innis and Luther Carlsen," the other pilot answered. "Good eggs, both of 'em. Luther's a big blond handsome guy, and thinks he's a wolf. If the girls thought so, too, he'd do pretty well for himself."

"That's true about a lot of guys who think they're wolves," Moss said, to which Dudley nodded. Moss turned serious in a hurry, though. "What can you tell me about the Martin that I won't have picked up from training on it?"

"Good question," Dudley said. A wide smile only made him look more skull-like than ever, but he couldn't help that. "We've just been flying Martins a month or so ourselves. They don't have a lot of vices that we've found: good speed, good view, good acrobatics." He paused. "Oh. There is one thing."

"What's that?" Moss leaned forward.

"Every once in a while, the interrupter gear will get a little bit out of alignment."

"How do you find out about that?"

"You shoot your own prop off and you shoot yourself down," Daniel Dudley answered. His face clouded. "That's what happened to Smitty, the guy who used to have that cot. If it does happen to you, the beast is nose-heavy. You have to watch it in your glide."

"Thanks. I'll remember." Moss started unpacking his bag. "When do you suppose they'll let me up in one?"

"Tomorrow, unless I'm all wet," Dudley answered. "Hardshell doesn't be lieve in letting people sit around and get rusty."

He was right. Captain Pruitt sent Moss up as tail-end Charlie on a flight of four Martins-himself and his tentmates-the very next morning. His scout aeroplane was factory-new, still stinking of the dope that made the fabric of wings and fuselage impenetrable to air. But the mechanics here had modified it as they had the other three Martins of the flight: by mounting on the left side of the wooden cockpit frame a rear-view mirror like those on some of the newest model motorcars. Moss found that a very clever idea, one that would keep his neck from developing a swivel mount.

The rotary engine kicked over at once when a mechanic spun the prop. Castor-oil fumes from the exhaust blew in his face. The in-line engine in the Wright he had flown had been petroleum-lubricated, which had made his bowels happier than they were liable to be now.

One after another, the four single-deckers took off. Moss tried to get a handle on Innis and Carlsen by the way they flew their aeroplanes; he hadn't had much chance to talk with them the day before. Carlsen was always exactly where he was supposed to be in the flight, which Dud Dudley led. Cap tain Franklin would have approved of that precise, finicky approach. Innis, on the other hand, was all over the place. Whether that bespoke imagination or carelessness remained to be seen.

Up to the front they flew. Dudley swung the nose of his Martin so that he flew parallel to the front, on the American side of the line. The rest of the flight followed, Innis frisking a little, up and down, from side to side. They were under orders as strict as Captain Pruitt could make them not to cross over to enemy-held territory no matter what. Neither the Canadians nor the British yet had a working interrupter gear, and nobody in the USA wanted to hand them one on a platter.