Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill EXIT FLAGADA I. CHIGNOLE TO THE RESCUE GILDED insects danced in the sunbeams that filtered through the pine needles. A bee heavy with pollen plunged deep into a flower-cup, setting the blossom a-nod on its delicate stem. Papa Charles and Flagada were asleep on the damp hot sand, with their caps over their faces to keep out the light. Frangipane, bare-headed, was doing his hundred paces "as at Deau- ville." Chignole, lying on his stomach, propped on one elbow, drew cabalistic signs with the end of his hazel switch. The high notes of a distant clarion woke the sleepers. "That's not for us. It's the assembly for the machine-gun rookies. You can go on napping, Papa Charles." "You think " yawned Flagada. "This place gets my goat! I feel as if I were at the movies! Who would have supposed that in one day we should be blown from the front to the extreme rear—from Nancy to the School of Aerial Gunnery, at Cazau, in the Gironde!" "The surprises of a military life." "Oh, what a place! What a change from out yonder! It turns this month's practice into a sort of holiday, a shooting leave." The wind, very soft, stirred the spicy fragrance of fresh pine gum and dried heather, mingled with the sharp, salty smell of the neighbouring sea. The aviators, accustomed to the harsh climate of the Vosges, revelled in the happy languor of their deliciously sleepy senses. "Sunday, if we're free, I'll take you to Cap-Ferret," said Frangipane. "I know a place there where the oysters are a marvel. We'll hire a little boat, and if there's time, we'll go down to the ocean." "At last I shall see the sea!" Chignole heaved a sigh of satisfaction. "And at Cannes, at Nice, when you were in hospital, I suppose it was the Seine that you saw from the beach?" "You think you're ...