1
1
When McGee next opened his eyes, it was upon a world in which white seemed to be the shockingly outstanding scheme of things. White walls, a white painted fence, which he at last concluded must be the end of an iron bed, and just beyond this, near at hand yet seemingly miles and miles away, a woman in spotless white. He couldn’t quite make out her face, in fact all detail was lost in a dim haze that refused to be cleared up by a blinking of the eyes. And there was such a roaring sound, as of a mighty waterfall thundering down into an echoing canyon.
Oh, yes! His head. He tried to lift his left hand to feel of his head, but the muscles failed to respond. Indeed, the arm seemed not only lifeless, but to be clamped firmly across his chest by tight bonds. He tried the right arm. It responded, and the hand came up to touch and wonder at the large bundle of cloth that should be his head.
The woman in white moved toward him, quickly, and he was about to form a question when she faded202before his very eyes, and the thundering waterfall left off its roaring as he floated out of the world of white into a black, obliterating nothingness.
Hours later he again opened his eyes. Again he saw a woman in white at the foot of what he now knew to be a bed. She smiled, a sort of cheery, wordless greeting. He could see distinctly now, and the thunder of the rushing torrent had subsided until it was little more than a wind whispering among the tree tops. But the left arm was still lifeless and numb, and his head felt as large as a tub.
“Where am I?” he asked, and was startled by the feebleness of the voice which seemed in no way related to him.
The woman in white bent over him, smoothing the pillow and pressing him back upon it.
“You must be quiet,” she said, “and not talk, or try to move.”
Funny thing to say. Why shouldn’t he talk–especially when he had so much to learn about this strange place?
“But where am–”
The figure in white began fading away again, a most distressing habit, and darkness again rushed at him from the white walls.
Hours later he again opened his eyes, realizing at once that it was night, though objects could be dimly seen by the glow of the one light at the far end of the203room. He could hear voices, and with a slight turn of the head saw a man in uniform talking with the white-clad woman who could so suddenly and miraculously disappear. At the movement the man turned quickly.
It was Larkin, and the worried lines in his face were swept away by a quick, cheery smile as he bent over the bed and pressed McGee’s right hand in a manner that spoke more than words.
“What happened, Buzz?” McGee asked, and was again surprised at the thin quality of his voice.
“You’re all right, old hoss,” Larkin evaded, “but you mustn’t talk yet. Be quiet now. To-morrow night I’ll be back and tell you all about it.”
“But–”
“Quiet now! See you to-morrow,” and with another squeeze of the hand he was gone.
Well, McGee thought, it was rather tiring to try to think. Sleep was so easy–and so soft.
2
2
The following evening Larkin came back again, just as the nurse had finished giving McGee a light, liquid meal.
“Hello, you little shrimp!” he sang out cheerily. “Eyes bright and everything! Old Saw Bones just told me I could see you for five minutes–but to do204all the talking. You can have three questions only.”
A thin, tired smile came to McGee’s freckled face, a face almost hidden under the bandages that completely covered his head.
“All right,” he said. “First question–will I fly again?”
“Of course! In four or five weeks you’ll be good as new.”
“Four or five weeks! What–”
“Careful now, or you’ll use up all your questions. When you set that Camel down in a shell hole she flipped over and your head was slightly softer than a big rock that happened to be handy. I would have bet on the rock being softest, but it seems I’d lost. You went blotto. A bunch of soldiers dragged you out from under what was left of that Camel–which wasn’t much. Then an ambulance brought you back here. This hospital is about five kilos from squadron headquarters, and I’ve been back here twice a day for the past five days, worrying my head off for fear you’d never come to.”
“Five days?” Red responded, his voice indicating his disbelief.
“Yep, five days. Three days passed before you even opened your eyes. Try and land on your feet, next time.”
“The nurse tells me my left arm is broken,” McGee said. “Wonder how I got that?”
205“You’ve used up all your questions,” Larkin told him, laughing, “and I’ve used up all my time. I want to be good so that Old Saw Bones will let me see you to-morrow night.”
“Wait,” McGee began, but the nurse interposed herself.
“No more to-night,” she said. “In a day or two you can talk as much as you like.”
The next two or three days passed slowly for McGee. Each night Larkin came back from squadron headquarters in a motor cycle side car, but his stays were so brief that Red had no chance to get any but the most fragmentary news.
As for news from the front, he could drag nothing from the nurses or from Larkin, and when he inquired after members of the squadron Buzz would reply with an evasive, “Oh, they’re all right,” and shift the conversation into the most commonplace channels.
Ten days of this, and the surgeon gave his O.K. to the use of a wheel chair, which was pushed around the grounds by one of the hospital orderlies. The grounds were extremely beautiful, the hospital having been a famous resort hotel before the exigencies of warfare required its conversion into one of the thousands of hospitals scattered throughout France.
Great beech and chestnut trees covered the lawn, and to one side was a miniature lake, centered by a206sparkling fountain, on whose wind-dimpled surface graceful, proud swans moved with a stately ease that scorned haste or show of effort.
On the second day of exploration in the wheel chair, Larkin came in the afternoon and, relieving the orderly, pushed Red’s chair down to a deep shaded spot by the side of the pond.
“I can’t see why they won’t let me walk around,” McGee complained. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs.”
“No, but they’re not so sure about that head, yet. Another few days and you’ll be running foot races,” Larkin assured him.
“How long does it take a broken arm to heal, Buzz?”
“Two or three weeks–maybe four. You had a bad break. Maybe a little longer. You’re lucky, after all–maybe.”
“What do you mean, lucky?” Red looked at him quizzically.
“Well, some of the boys haven’t gotten off so easy.”
“See here, Buzz, I’m tired of snatches of news. Tell me all you know about–about everything. Back here the war seems so far away–and unreal. Except for all these wounded men, and the uniforms, I’d never think of it. No guns, no action, no–no dawn patrols. I feel like a fish out of water. But there207must be some little old war going on up there. I’ve heard about Chateau-Thierry, by piecemeal. Boy! It was the big show starting the very morning I got it, and we didn’t even know it. Just my luck to get forced down at a time like that!”
“Maybe not so tough,” Buzz answered. “A Blighty, if it doesn’t cripple, is not so bad. Our casualties have been nearly forty per cent, from one cause or another.”
“No!” Red exclaimed in surprise.
Larkin nodded, dourly. “They sure have! We’ve been up against von Herzmann’s Circus most of the time, and that fellow hasn’t any slouches on his roster. That was one of his outfit that cracked your engine.”
“Really? Did you get him?” Red asked, his face alight with interest.
Larkin shook his head. “No luck. I ducked to follow you. But Fouche got him–his first that morning.”
“That morning? You mean he–”
“Got another one, a flamer, just back of Chateau-Thierry. That boy is some flyer! He’s an ace already.”
McGee’s delight was genuine. “That’s great! Never can tell, can you? I didn’t think much of his work.” He hesitated, wanting to inquire about the others but held back by that statement of Larkin’s208to the effect that casualties were above forty per cent. He feared he would ask about someone whose name was now enrolled in that sickening total.
“What about–Yancey?” he tried.
Larkin laughed. “Oh, that Texas cyclone is as wild as a range horse and is due to get potted any minute. In fact, he’s overdue. He’s a balloon busting fool, and no one can stop him. He has nine of them to his credit and every time he goes out he comes back with his plane in shreds and just barely holding together. You’d think it would cure him, but he eats shrapnel. Has two planes to his credit, but he doesn’t go in for planes. He cuts formation exactly like you used to, Shrimp, and goes off high, wide and lonesome, looking for sausages. He got one just this morning, and I give you my word his ship looked like a sieve when he came in. The Major threatens to ground him if he doesn’t quit cutting formation, but he’s only bluffing. He’s as proud as the rest of us.”
“So Cowan is all right?” Red asked.
“He sure isall right,” Larkin enthused. “He’s an intolerable old fuss budget and hard to get along with when on the ground or out of action, but he’s square, he’s developed into a real commander, and he’s got sand a-plenty. He’s coming down to see you to-morrow–and that’s going some for Cowan. He likes you a lot.”
209Red colored, and to change the subject, asked, “What about Hampden? Didn’t I see him go down just before I caught it?”
“Yes. Flamer. Poor devil!”
To Red’s mind came the picture of Siddons, fleeing from the field of action a few minutes before the tragic death of the only man in the squadron who really called him friend. Friend, indeed!
“I suppose Siddons is still on top,” McGee said, somewhat bitterly. “His kind never get it.”
A troubled look spread over Larkin’s face. “You know,” he began slowly, “none of us can figure out that fellow. He didn’t get back to the squadron that day until just at dark. The news of Hampden’s death seemed to daze him, but he didn’t say a word. Two days later he left the squadron, and we thought he was gone for good–grounded for keeps or sent home. But yesterday he turned up again, big as life. If Cowan is displeased, he doesn’t show it. We can’t figure it out.”
“I can!” McGee flared, then suddenly remembered that Cowan had charged him with absolute secrecy concerning the discoveries he had made.
“Well then, what’s the dope?” Larkin asked.
“Oh, he’s got a heavy drag somewhere,” Red replied, remembering that he had passed his word to Major Cowan. “What about Hank Porter?” he asked, to shift the subject.
210Larkin shook his head, dismally. “Another one of Herzmann’s Circus filled him full of lead, but he tooled his ship back home before he fainted from loss of blood. He’s in a hospital for the rest of the war. May never walk again.”
McGee decided to do no more roll calling for the day. It was altogether too depressing. For a while they talked of lighter, commonplace things and then fell into that understanding silence that is possible only with those whose friendship is so firmly fixed that words add little to their communion.
Watching the swans that moved around the central fountain in stately procession, McGee fell to thinking how little those lovely creatures knew of tragedy and sorrow. Theirs was a world secure in beauty, unmarred by the things which man brings upon himself, and this was true because they knew nothing of avarice or grasping greed. Could it be that man, in all his pride, was one of the least sensible of God’s creatures?
3
3
The day following, Major Cowan called, and in his elation over the success of American arms at the recent battle of Chateau-Thierry, told McGee more in a short half hour than Red had been able to worm from all others with whom he talked.
211The Germans, Cowan told him, had been stopped at Chateau-Thierry in an epic stand made by the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, A.E.F., and a few days later the Marines had crowned themselves with a new glory when, in liaison with the French, they had stormed the edges of Belleau Wood, gained a foothold, and then tenaciously pushed slowly forward in the bloodiest and bitterest battle yet waged by the untried American forces. Counter-attack after counter-attack had been met and repulsed, with the net result that the Germans had been definitely stopped in the Marne salient. Their hope of breaking through to Paris was shattered, and though they were still pounding hard, their sacrifices were vain.
It was, Cowan declared, the real turning point of the war, and even now men were joyously declaring that the war would be won by Christmas.
As for the air forces, they had delivered beyond the fondest hopes of the high command. The casualties had been high, Cowan admitted, but not higher than might be expected and not without giving even heavier losses to the enemy. The squadron losses could have been held down had the members been less keen about scoring a personal victory over von Herzmann. Every pursuit pilot along the entire front was willing to take the most desperate chances in the hope of plucking the crest feathers of this German war eagle.
“I guess there’s one member not particularly anxious212to pluck any of the eagle’s feathers,” McGee put in at this point.
“No?” Cowan’s voice was quizzical. “Who’s that?”
“Siddons,” McGee replied tersely.
A look of aggravation, or of pained tolerance, crossed Cowan’s face.
“We won’t discuss that,” he said, deserting for the moment his air of good-fellowship and returning to the quick, testy manner of speaking which was so characteristic of him in matters of decision. “I take it you have said nothing to Larkin, or anyone else, concerning your–ah, our suspicions?”
“Nothing, sir. But I can’t–”
“Good. Let Intelligence work it out, Lieutenant. One little rumor might upset all their plans. I can assure you, however, that G 2 knows all that you know. They are waiting the right minute–and perhaps have some plan in mind. Silence and secrecy are their watchwords. Let them be yours.” He arose and extended his hand. “I must be moving along. I’m glad to see you doing so nicely. You’ll be more than welcome when you get back to the squadron. Don’t worry. There’s plenty of war left yet.”
4
4
Perhaps there was plenty of war left, but McGee213soon discovered that a badly broken arm and a cracked, cut head can be painfully slow in healing. Days dragged slowly by, with Larkin’s visits as the only bright spot in the enforced inactivity. Then, to McGee’s further distress, the squadron was moved to another front. Larkin had been unable to tell him just where they were going, but believed it was to the eastward, where it was rumored the Americans were to be given a purely American sector.
This was unpleasant news to McGee. It meant that he would be left behind, and he could not drag from the hospital medicoes any guess as to when he would be permitted to leave the hospital.
Hospital life, with its endless waiting, sapped his enthusiasm. At night, in the wards, the men recovering from all manner of wounds would try to speed the lagging hours by telling stories, singing songs, and inventing the wildest of rumors. Occasionally, when the lights were out, some wag would begin an imitation of a machine gun, with its rat-tat-tat-tat, and another, catching the spirit of the mimic warfare, would make the whistling sound of a high angle shell. In a few moments the ward would be a clamorous inferno of mimic battle sounds–machine guns popping, shells screaming toward explosion, cries of gas, and the simulated agonized wails of the wounded and dying.
“Hit the dirt! Here comes a G.I. can.”
214“Look out for that flying pig!”
“Over the top, my buckoes, and give ’em the bayonet.”
Thus did men, wrecks in the path of war, keep alive their spirit and courage by jesting over the grimest tragedy that had ever entered their lives. And then they would take up rollicking marching songs, or sing dolefully, “I wanta go home, I wanta go home.”
Invariably, when some chap began a narrative of the prowess of his own company or regiment, the others would begin singing, tauntingly:
“The old grey mare she ain’twhat she used to be,She ain’t what she used to be,Ain’t what she used to be.The old grey mare she ain’twhat she used to beMany years ago....”
“The old grey mare she ain’twhat she used to be,She ain’t what she used to be,Ain’t what she used to be.The old grey mare she ain’twhat she used to beMany years ago....”
It wasn’t really fun, it was only the pitifully weak effort to meet suffering, loneliness, homesickness and fear with bravado.
There is no one in all the world more lonely than a soldier in a hospital. Time becomes what it really is, endless, and without hope of a change on the morrow.
And the pay for it all was a gold wound chevron to wear on the sleeve, or a dangling, glittering medal testifying to courage and sacrifice!
1
1
So slow was McGee’s recovery that it was the middle of September before he received his final discharge from the hospital and was given orders to rejoin his old squadron, now operating in the St. Mihiel salient. Three days prior to his release the American Army, operating on a purely American front, had attacked the Germans in the St. Mihiel salient with such determined vigor, and the entire preparation conducted with such successful secrecy, as to take the Germans by complete surprise, overrun all opposition and recover for France many miles of territory long held by the invaders. Thousands of prisoners, and arms of all calibre, were captured in the swift stroke, and all France was ringing with praise of the endeavor.
News of the progress of the battle reached McGee just before his final discharge. He entertained high hopes of rejoining the squadron in time to participate in the feast of victory, but by the 15th, three days after the battle was begun, the salient had been pinched out and the battle won.
216On the 16th, when McGee reached Ligny-en-Barrois, which had served as General Pershing’s field headquarters at the beginning of the operation, he found that his squadron had been withdrawn from the sector and sent somewhere else.
Where? No one seemed to know. Furthermore, no one seemed to care a great deal. A pilot lost from his squadron, or a soldier lost from his regiment, was no new thing in France. It happened daily. Men were discharged from hospitals, ordered to a certain point to rejoin their commands, only to discover on reaching there that the outfit had seemingly vanished in thin air.
McGee spent a full day trying to find someone with the correct information as to the location of the squadron.
At last an officer on the General Staff looked over McGee’s papers and gave him a transportation order to a little town west and south of Verdun.
“Is my squadron there, sir?” McGee asked.
“They should be,” the officer replied. “At least near there,” and he closed the conversation as though that were quite enough for any pilot to know.
But when McGee reached the town, part of the journey being by rail and part by motor lorries, he found himself as completely lost as possible. Again no one seemed to know anything about the squadron. His search was made doubly difficult by the fact that217there was an unusual air of activity; all the troops seemed to be on the move, and officers were far too busy with their own cares to listen to the troubles of a lost aviator.
That night McGee watched two or three regiments pass through the town, fully equipped for battle. It came to him, suddenly, that all this activity and night marching could mean only one thing–a new attack along some new front. Encouraged by the success of St. Mihiel, the Americans were going in again. But where? McGee put the question to a dozen officers, and not one of them had the foggiest notion of where he was going.
This served all the more to convince McGee that a new operation was being secretly planned by Great Headquarters, and from the many different divisional insignias which he had noticed, he felt convinced that it would be a major offensive. Regiment after regiment of soldiers marched through the little village; then came lumbering guns and caissons clattering over the resounding cobblestones of the street. Battery after battery passed by. They were followed by a long train of motor transports; then came some hospital units with their motor ambulances; then more infantrymen, singing and joking as they swung along in the darkness.
Watching them, McGee was suddenly seized with an idea which no amount of logical thinking could exclude218from his mind. Where these troops were going, there he would find action. Somewhere, between this point and their final stopping place, the trenches, he would find some unit of the air force. The army must have its eyes, and any member of any air unit could tell him more than he could learn here.
The spirit of this new type of adventure moved him to action. He had often wondered about the life of the doughboy. Now, for the night, he would fall in and march along with them. It would be fun just to be going along, answerable to no one and making his way forward on foot, by hooked rides, or by whatever means that presented itself and seemed attractive.
Slinging his musette bag over his shoulder, and buttoning up his flying coat, he stepped into the street, followed along the dark buildings for a few yards and then fell in alongside a long line of infantrymen.
A mile beyond the edge of the town he regretted his action. Rain began to fall in torrents. Ponchos were quickly donned by the men and they again took up the splashing, sloshing line of march, grumbling a little, joking about “Sunny France,” and complaining over the harsh order that forbade smoking.
From that one thing McGee knew for a certainty that they were being sent forward under orders of the utmost secrecy. Men on the line of march under cover of darkness were never allowed to smoke. An219enemy airman, should he pass over, would see a long line of twinkling fireflies. From that he would know there was some sort of movement, and this information would be speedily carried to the German High Command. So, without displaying any lights whatsoever, the men and motors moved ever forward along the muddy road.
The rain ceased as suddenly as it had come. The night was warm, for September, and grey fog wraiths began rising from the ground. The sweating horses, straining at the big heavy guns at the side of the road, were blanketed in steam.
The traffic on the pitch black road was becoming increasingly heavy, and now and again halts were made until someone, far ahead, succeeded in working out the snarl. Then the troops would move forward again.
McGee no longer had any doubts concerning what was in store for these thousands upon thousands of men, but he was beginning to question the wisdom of his own move. He made no attempt to engage anyone in conversation, fearing that it would result in some officious commander ordering him to the rear.
Far ahead, against the black night sky, flashes of gunfire showed now and then, the following thunder establishing the fact that the front was within three or four hours’ marching time. The gunfire, however, was not heavy, being merely the spasmodic firing incident220to such nights as communiques spoke of as “calm.”
After another hour of marching, McGee noticed that they were on the edge of a shattered village. Not one single wall stood intact. As he reached the center of this stark skeleton of a once happy village he saw that here the enemy had concentrated their fire. Here was a wall, standing gaunt and grim against the night sky; and over there, facing a little square, a shattered church still retained the strength to hold aloft its cross-capped steeple. The Cross ... in a broken, blood-red world!
McGee slowed his pace, gradually, and dropped from the line of march. He had considered himself fully recovered, but the last hour had sapped his small reserve of strength. He seated himself on a pile of stone in the dark corner of a protecting wall and wiped his brow. What with the long, hot march, and the steam arising from the soaked earth, he was wringing wet. The experience had served to increase his respect for these plodding doughboys who considered this as only one more night like dozens of others they had experienced.
Sitting there on the damp, cold stone, McGee considered his position. This town, battered by shell fire, would be forward of any position taken up by a pursuit group. To push on would be but to retrace his steps. It would also be folly, for he had no gas221mask. Shells had reached this town before, and they might do so again. He was willing to take a chance with flying shrapnel, but deadly gas was something else again.
He decided, therefore, to make his way to the edge of the town, find shelter if possible, and await the coming of dawn. Daylight, he reasoned, would be certain to bring him in sight of planes from some group, operating on this front, and if he could locate a ’drome his problem would be near solution.
He made his way back along the lines of infantrymen, artillery, ambulances and wagon trains until he reached an old stone stable that had miraculously escaped destruction.
Having no light, he groped around in the black interior, seeking a place where he might spread his coat for a bed. He stumbled against a ladder, which mounted upward into the cavernous mow of a loft. He climbed the creaking rungs, found footing on the dry floor, and stopped to sniff at the odor of the few wisps of dry, musty hay scattered thinly over the rough boards. He took a step forward, stumbled over a pair of legs and landed headfirst on the stomach of another sleeper.
“Whoosh!” went the escaping breath of that truant soldier, followed by an angry outpouring of abuse.
“Say, soldier! Get your foot out of my face! What do you think this is–a football game?”
222“Pipe down!” came a gruff voice from another corner. “Do you want some smart Looie to come up here and chase us out?”
McGee smiled, wondering what would be their reaction should he announce that “a Looie” was even now in their presence. Perhaps it was his duty, as an officer, to rout them out and order them to rejoin their commands, but he felt no responsibility for these men of the line, and if they were as weary and sleepy as he–and doubtless they had more reason to be–then he could hardly blame them for falling out. With the morning, he knew, these army-wise soldiers would go down the road until they found their outfits and there pour forth a plausible lie about becoming lost in the tangle and how they had searched all night for their company.
McGee knew little enough about the American infantrymen, but he did know that “for tricks that are vain” Bret Harte’s famous heathen Chinee had nothing on the average soldier of the line, be he American, English, French or a black man from Senegal.
Cautiously he felt out a clear space, spread his coat over the rough timbers and was soon sound asleep.
2
2
While McGee slept soundly, blissfully removed223from all scenes of conflict and completely ignorant of his exact location, a midnight conference of gravest nature was taking place in the little settlement of Landres-et-St. Georges, far behind the German lines of defense.
Four thick-necked, grey-haired German officers were seated at a long table in the front room of a chateau that had been in German hands for more than three years. Candles flickered uncertainly on the table, lighting the center of the large room but leaving the corners in dim shadows.
The four officers sat stiffly erect, without comment, their eyes on the double door as though they were awaiting someone. Outside, on the stone flagging of a courtyard, sounded the heavy tread of a Prussian Guardsman walking guard before the sanctum of these “Most High” ones who sat so stolidly waiting.
The resounding footfalls of the guardsman came to a clicking halt, followed by a guttural challenge which was replied to in a softer voice. The guardsman again took up his beat.
A moment later the door to the council room opened. A smooth-faced, blond young man stood at stiff salute in the doorway–dressed in the uniform of an English officer!
For a long minute he stood at salute while the four at the table eyed him studiously. Then the hand came down, and a quick smile spread over his face224as he stepped forward into the brighter light of the room. He carried in his hand one of the swagger sticks so commonly used by English officers.
“Well,Herr Hauptmann,” he addressed the officer at the head of the table, “do you find my disguise, and my English, sufficiently correct?”
“Correct, yes,” the heavy-jowled officer replied in German, “but not pleasing, Count von Herzmann.Himmel!How I hate the sight of the Englander’s uniform and the sound of his thin, squeaky tongue. And I say to you again that this wild plan of yours is a fool’s errand. I would forbid it, had you not gained the consent of the General Staff. I do not understand it. You are too valuable to the cause for the General Staff to permit you to take such a chance. I say again, it is a fool’s errand.”
Count von Herzmann smiled reassuringly. “Fool’s errand,Herr Hauptmann?” he responded in German. “Is there anything more precious to our cause than to learn just now where this next blow is to be struck? For the past ten days all of our secret operatives have sent us conflicting reports. The English and the French are too quiet on their fronts. It presages a storm. As for the Americans, we need not worry. They are still boasting of their victory at St. Mihiel. They will not be ready to strike again before late Fall–perhaps not until Spring. We must–”
“Speak in English,” interrupted one of the other225officers. “Much as we hate it, we must see to it that it is perfect.”
“Right you are!” von Herzmann replied with the perfect accent of a well-bred Englishman. “My three years’ schooling in England was not for nothing, sir. Accent top hole, eh, what! Rawther.” He smiled at his own mimicry. “I was saying,” he went on, “that we must discover where the English will strike next. Victory depends upon it.”
“Ja,das ist richtig” spoke up the stolidOberst-leutnant, who had been listening without comment as his grey eyes, deep set under stiff, bristling eyebrows, appraised the confident von Herzmann. “Ja, we must learn where the swine strike next. But must it be you to take the chance? You know the cost–should you fail?”
“Quite well, sir,” von Herzmann replied, smiling. “A little party in front of a firing wall with myself as the center of attraction. Ah, well! What matter. I have about played out my string of luck in the air. Sooner or later, there must be an ending. I have a great fear that it will be the luck of some cub, fresh at the front, to bring me down. Ha! How he would swank around, boasting how he brought down the great von Herzmann. Bah! Death,Herr Hauptmann, I do not fear in the least, but I hate the thought of a cub boasting over my bones. Besides, there are no new adventures left for me in the air.226I am a little weary of it all. But this–this is new adventure and–”
“And deadly dangerous,” reminded the cadaverous, thin-faced officer at the far end of the table.
“If not dangerous, it is not adventure, sir,” von Herzmann replied. “Do we not all enjoy the thing that presents some hazard? Youth lives it; age thrills to the reports of it. If I fail, I fail. If I succeed, the Fatherland is well served and I’ve another adventure in my kit. Perhaps even another bit of iron to dangle on my coat, eh? Rawther jolly prospect, what?” He again smiled at his own mimicry, as well he might, for the accent was perfect. “But I won’t fail,Herr Hauptmann.” He became serious as he drew some papers from the breast pocket of his well tailored, though well worn, English uniform coat which bore the marks of campaigning. “See,” he said, tossing down a little black fold which the English issued to officers for identification, “I am Lieutenant Richard Larkin, R.F.C., known to his familiars as ‘Buzz.’ The picture, you will notice, is my own, placed there after we had carefully removed the one of the gentleman whose uniform and identification card I am to make use of.
“This,” he tossed another paper on the table, “is a pass to Paris, properly indorsed, and giving authority for refueling and repairing, if needed. Neat enough, eh? The date, unfortunately, was originally227in April, but our Intelligence section has some very clever penmen and you will note that the date now appearing there is as of September the twenty-sixth, and the period of the pass is for five days.”
“The twenty-sixth!” exclaimed theOberst-leutnant. “So soon! That is the day after to-morrow.”
“Yes. Our operative will cross the lines to-morrow evening, just before sundown, in a two-seater Nieuport. He will land just back of Montfaucon, and I will then re-cross the lines, will be set down back of Neuvilly and will then begin the great adventure. I am to be back within five days, or–” he shrugged his shoulder expressively.
One of the officers banged his fist on the table. “It is a fool’s errand, I repeat, a fool’s errand! If this operative, with the Americans, is back of Neuvilly, what is he doing there? Perhaps the Americans are there in force, preparing to strike here.”
“Impossible!” the senior officer snorted. “Attack the Hindenburg Line? The Americans are stupid, but not so stupid as that. We know that a few Americans are in the sector south of Vauquois Hill. They are relieving the French there. And for what reason? So that the French may be moved up in the Champagne, east of the Meuse. That is where the blow will be struck. But, even so, I have not the faith in this Operative Number Eighty-one which the High Command seems to place in him.”
228“He has brought us much information,” one of the others reminded.
“Yes, erroneous and tardy information. Not one thing have we learned from him but what was too late to be of value. And much of it inaccurate.”
“Not always,” von Herzmann replied. “He brought correct and timely information concerning the movement of that new American pursuit squadron, you will recall. And but for the accursed luck that brought those French Spads upon us at the wrong time, my Circus would have potted half of them.”
“Luck!” the senior officer retorted, heatedly. “You call it luck! It was luck that we did not lose you and that you got your crippled plane back across the line. But can you be sure that those Spads came upon the scene, at the right moment, by chance?”
Count von Herzmann shook his head. “No,Herr Hauptmann, in this war we can be sure of only one thing–death, if the war continues. It must be brought to a speedy close. Daily, now, we lose ground. It is because of this that I made the urgent request to be permitted to undertake this mission. But,” he smiled expansively, “be not too fearful or alarmed. If I fail, if there be trickery in it, you shall have the privilege of avenging me.”
“How do you mean, avenge you?”
“Herr Hauptmann, war is a world-old game, with modern applications. You have read, doubtless,229how in the olden times hostages were held?”
“Yes, but–”
“It is not always effective, but it furnishes the crumb of revenge and retaliation. I am not without some fear for my safety, and because of that I will provide a hostage.”
“You talk in riddles.”
“Perhaps, but I give you the answer. Operative Number Eighty-one will come for me in a two-seater just at dark. But he will not be the one to take me back.”
“Ach! Himmel!”
“Das ist ziemlich gescheit!”
Count von Herzmann shrugged his shoulders at the exclamatory surprise and compliment. “Clever? No. Merely an old custom borrowed from old wars. Operative Number Eighty-one will be held at the headquarters at Montfaucon–pending my return. If I do not return in five days, then he too will hold the stage a brief minute before a firing wall. Then, perhaps we will meet beyond the Great Line–where there are no wars or rumors of wars. Is there anything else you have to take up with me now,Herr Hauptmann?”
“Ach, yes! If you are successful, and return within your scheduled time, how will this operative, held at Montfaucon, make a satisfactory explanation to the Americans regarding his long absence?”
230Count von Herzmann snapped his fingers. “Poof! That is secondary, and a problem which I leave to the superior mind ofHerr Hauptmann–and the High Command.”
1
1
Near noon, the following day, a motor cycle with side car snorted to a sudden stop at the newly erected hangar tents of an American Pursuit Group, and McGee crawled stiffly from the bone-racking, muscle-twisting “bath tub.” He thanked the mud-splashed, goggled driver, adding, by way of left-handed compliment, that he had been given more thrills in the last five kilometers than he had received in all his months in the Allied Air Service.
He turned toward the hangar. There was but one ship on the field, a two-seater. By its side stood Siddons and his air mechanic. They seemed to be in close-headed conference.
McGee clicked his teeth in a little sound of suppressed emotion, slipped through the hangar door and stood face to face with his own old Ack Emma.
“For the luva Pete!” exclaimed the startled air mechanic. “When did you get here, Lieutenant?”
McGee extended his hand in greeting. Williams grasped it, eagerly.
232“Well, for the luva Pete?” he repeated, lacking words in his surprise and pleasure. “Lieutenant Larkin! Oh, Lieutenant Larkin!” he began roaring. “Oh, Bill! Where’s Larkin?”
“Just left a minute ago,” came a voice from under the hood of a new Spad. “Went over to his quarters to wash up. Grease from head to foot.”
“I’ll go show you his quarters,” Williams said, eagerly.
“Never mind, I’ll find him,” McGee said. “Have to check in at headquarters first. I hear Cowan is still C.O.”
“Yes, sir. He sure is. And he’s a darb, Lieutenant.”
“So I hear. Piling up quite a record. How many of the old gang still here, Williams?”
“Not many. If the Hun doesn’t get ’em, nerves and the smell of castor-oil does. Half a dozen of ’em gone flooey in the stomach. Couldn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive and couldn’t keep that down. It’s a tough game, Lieutenant. Next war that comes yours truly is going to join the infantry.”
“Don’t do it,” McGee warned, as he turned away. “I’ve just had a little experience with the infantry and it’s not such a bed of roses. See you later, Williams.”
“Well for the luva Pete!” Williams commented to himself, standing arms akimbo as he watched McGee233cross over toward headquarters. “And they said that bird’s head was busted wide open and his brains scattered all over France. Now there he is, big as life. I’ll bet ten bucks to a lousy centime he lives to fall off a merry-go-round and break his neck. For the luva Pete!”
2
2
McGee’s return to the squadron would have been fittingly celebrated but for the fact that five o’clock the following morning had been designated as “zero hour” for the greatest drive ever undertaken by Americans on foreign soil. He had arrived just in time to hurl himself into the feverish preparations for the support which all air units must give the massed ground forces that would hurl themselves upon the supposedly impregnable Hindenburg Line. With the coming of dawn the combat squadrons must gain and hold air supremacy. Nothing less than complete and absolute supremacy would satisfy Great Headquarters, who in planning the drive were high in the hope that the fresh divisions of American soldiers could break through the Hindenburg Line and by hammering, hammering, hammering at the enemy force him into peace terms before the coming of winter.
McGee was tickled pink by his timely arrival, but it was not all a matter of rejoicing. For one thing, it234seemed that almost the entire group was made up of new faces. Of those flight pilots whom he had first met when he came to the squadron as an instructor, only three remained–Yancey, Nathan Rodd and Siddons. Of course Larkin was still on top, and Cowan not only held his command, but had established quite a reputation. Yancey had earned the right to a nickname more appropriately fitting than “the flying fool,” for he was anything but a fool and his mounting victories proved that he had something more than luck.
Nathan Rodd, his nerve unshattered by his first unfortunate encounter with the enemy, was still as taciturn as ever, preferring to let his deeds speak for him.
As for Siddons, McGee could get no information out of Larkin save that everyone thought that Siddons had some pull. A good flyer, yes, Larkin admitted, but forever cutting formation, flying off where he pleased, absenting himself for two or three days, and returning with the thinnest of excuses. But he got by, somehow, and Cowan was the only one who appeared friendly toward him. For the past twenty-four hours, Larkin told McGee, Siddons had been working on a two-seater and had made two test flights. No one seemed to know what was back of it, but rather believed Siddons was to be transferred to Observation, at least during the coming battle.
235To this information McGee made no reply, but secretly hoped that Siddons was in fact being transferred to Observation, where his activities would be more easily accounted for due to the fact that he would be carrying an observer.