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Show Flying - 177 the sky. Not a brute, but the noblest of all savages. Part of the great cycle of life. One with the grass and the buffalo. Torn into a million bleeding pieces by the bullets of five hundred conscience-stricken but duty-bound boys in blue. We hated it, but it had to be done, they'll say, cutting off locks of my hair to send back to the folks at home. On the other hand I could pretend to cooperate gracefully, bide my time with patience and silent cunning, and in eight hundred and forty-three days be discharged honorably into civilian life once more. What would the moral curve of the universe say to that? There is a noise as of many trucks climbing a steep hill together. They look around, but the highway is too far for the noise to be this loud. It grows more and more intense. "Airplane," says O'Connell. But the sky is clear and there is no plane to be seen. While they are looking, the noise grows louder and more threatening. It seems to come from all around them, or from under the ground. "Earthquake," says John Henry, who has never trusted California. "I hear they have them all the time out here." But the noise is getting louder and louder, and the ground is not shaking. Curious heads are poking out of tent entrances everywhere as the Fifty-third Signal Battalion |