2
2
Thirty minutes later two chastened pilots took off from the level field, with a half dozen curious French peasants for an audience, and laid a straight course for Le Bourget. No more acrobatics and no more hedge hopping. To an observer below they would have resembled two homing pigeons flying rather close together and maintaining their positions with a singleness of mind and purpose.
When they reached Le Bourget they circled the ’drome once, noted the wind socks on the great hangars, and dropped as lightly to the field as two tardy, truant schoolboys seeking to gain entrance without attracting notice.
A newly arrived American squadron was stationed at the field, jubilant over the fact that they were trying their skill on the fast climbing, fast flying single-seater Spads. Five of these swift little hawks were now on the line, making ready for a formation flight.
56McGee and Larkin introduced themselves to the officer in command, presented their passes and authority for refueling, and McGee requested that his tail skid be repaired and his motor checked over.
“Let’s stick around and watch this formation flight,” McGee then said to Larkin. “I want to see what these lads can do with a real ship.”
“All right, but don’t get goggle-eyed. I came up here to see Paris, and I’m thirty minutes behind time now.”
The take-off of the five Spads was good, and in order. McGee noticed with considerable satisfaction that the flight commander knew his business, and the four planes under his direction followed his signaled orders with a precision that would have been creditable in any group of pilots.
“Nice work!” Red said to an American captain who seemed not at all impressed.
The captain was six feet tall, burdened by the weight of rank and the ripe old age of twenty-four or twenty-five years, and was somewhat skeptical of McGee’s judgement. He wondered, vaguely, what this youthful, freckle-faced, five-foot-six Royal Flying Corps lieutenant could know about nice work. Why, he couldn’t be a day over eighteen–in fact, he might be less than that. A cadet who had just won his wings, probably.
“Oh, fair,” the captain admitted.
57McGee, sensing what was running through the captain’s mind, and having no wish to set him right, winked at Larkin and said:
“Let’s go, Buzz. It isn’t often that two poor ferry pilots get a twenty-four hour leave.”
Later, as they were bounding cityward in a decrepit, ancient taxi driven by a bearded, grizzled Frenchman who without make-up could assume a role in a drama of pirates and freebooters, McGee said to Larkin:
“You know, Buzz, I think a lot of these American pilots are better prepared for action right now than we were when we got our wings. And we had hardly gotten ours sewed on when we were ordered to the front. These fellows will give a good account of themselves.”
“I think so, too. Do you remember how the Cadets of our class were sent up for solo in rickety old planes held together by wire, tape and chewing gum? Poor devils, they got washed out plenty fast! I’ve seen ’em go up when the expression on their faces told that they had forgotten everything they had learned. No wonder a lot of them took nose dives into the hangars and hung their planes on smokestacks and church steeples.”
McGee frowned, remembering some of the friends who had tried for their wings and drew crosses instead. Quickly he threw off the mood with a laugh.
58“Yes, and I was one of those ‘poor devils’ who forgot. I’ll never forgetthat! I had no more right being up in that old Avro than a hog has with skates. But England needed pilots and needed them badly. I guess it was a case of ‘what goes up must come down’ and the government gave wings to the ones who came down alive. The others got angels’ wings.”
“I suppose so. And before another month passes the need will be greater than ever. Look what the Germans did to the British Fifth Army just last month. I’ll never know what stopped ’em. But they’re not through. What do you make of that long range gun that is shelling this very city?
“Um-m. Dunno. Seems to me that well directed reconnaissance flights should be able to locate that gun.”
“Maybe; but locate it or not, its purpose is to drive war workers out of Paris, cripple the hub of supplies and make it more difficult for us to coordinate the service of supplies through here when they make their drive at Paris. It’ll come within a month. Then we’ll need every pilot and every ship that can get its wheels off the ground. I’m tellin’ you–a month!”
“Think so?”
“I know so! America is going to have her big chance–and may the Lord help us if she doesn’t deliver! I don’t know how many combat troops she has landed, but I do know that her eyes, the air59service, is in need of ships. The French and English are willing to give them all the old, worn out flying coffins that they can pick up out of junk heaps–old two-seater Spads, old A.R.’s, 1-1/2 strutter Sopwiths, and crates like that. If they can get new Spads, like those we saw ’em flying this morning, or Nieuport 28’s, or the Salmsons which their commander has been trying to get, then all will be jake. Otherwise–” he shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“Otherwise,” McGee took advantage of the pause, “Otherwise they’ll deliver just the same, even if they have to fly Avros, Caudrons or table tops. Buzz, these Americans over here have fight in their eyes. They’ve got spirit.”
“Yes, but spirit can’t do much without equipment.”
“Huh! Ever read any history?”
“What’s on your mind now, little teacher? I read enough to pass my exams in school.”
“Then you’ve forgotten some things about American history, especially about spirit and equipment. Where was the equipment at Valley Forge? What about the troops under Washington that took the breastworks at Yorktown without a single round of powder–just bayonets? What about the war of 1812, when we had no army and the English thought we had no navy? You don’t remember those–”
“That’s just what I do remember,” Buzz interrupted, “and that’s what I’m howling about. We60never have been prepared with anything except spirit. Right now we have a lot of good pilots over here and the air service is having to beg planes from the French and English. And here we are, sent down to this front to act as instructors to a shipless squadron, at the very time when the Germans are making ready for another big drive. It’s all wrong. Every minute is precious.”
McGee had been looking out of the window of the swaying, lurching cab that was now threading its way through hurrying traffic. “Forget it!” he said. “Give Old Man Worry a swift kick. Here we are in Gay Paree. The war’s over for twenty-four hours!”
3
3
To all allied soldiers on leave of absence from the front, Paris represented what McGee had voiced to Larkin–a place where the war was over for the time limits of their passes. Forgotten, for a few brief hours, were all the memories of military tedium, the roar of guns, the mud of trenches, the flaming airplane plunging earthward out of control–all these things were banished by the stimulating thought that here was the world famous city with all its amusements, its arts, its countless beauties, open to them for a few magic hours.
The fact that Paris was only a ghost of her former61self made no impression on war-weary troopers. What mattered it, to them, that the priceless art treasures of the Louvre had been removed to the safety of the southern interior? Was it their concern that the once mighty and fearless Napoleon now lay blanketed by tons of sand bags placed over his crypt to protect revered bones from enemy air raids or a chance hit by the long range gun now shelling the city? What mattered it that famous cafés and chefs were now reduced to the simplest of menus; what difference did it make if the streets were darkened at night; who that had never seen Paris in peace time could sense that she was a stricken city hiding her sorrow and travail behind a mask of dogged, grim determination?
Paris was Paris, to the medley of soldiers gathered there from the four points of the compass, and it was the more to her credit that she could still offer amusement to uniformed men and boys whose war-weary minds found here relief from the drive of duty.
Everywhere the streets were swarming with men in uniform–French, English, Australian, Canadian, New Zealanders, colored French Colonials, a few Russians who, following the sudden collapse of their government, were now soldiers lacking a flag, Scotch Highlanders in their gaudy kilts, Japanese officers in spick uniforms not yet baptized in the mud of the trenches–a varied, colorful parade of young men bent on one great common objective.
62At night, the common magnet was the theatre, and theFolies Bergeres, featuring a humorous extravaganza, Zig Zag, in which was starred a famous English comedian, drew its full quota of fun-seeking youths.
It was this show that McGee and Larkin had come to see, and at the end of the first act they were ready to add their praises to the chorus of approval. During the intermission they strolled out into the flag bedecked foyer to mingle with a crowd that was ninety per cent military and which was in a highly appreciative frame of mind. One particularly pleasing note had been added rather unexpectedly when one of the feminine stars, in singing “Scotland Forever,” had been interrupted by a group of Highlanders who boosted onto the stage a red-headed, bandy-legged, kilted Scotchman who had the voice of a nightingale. And when, somewhat abashed, he took up the refrain, he was joined by a thunderous chorus from the audience that made the listeners certain that Scotland would never die so long as such fervor remained in the hearts of her sons. The English soldiers, not to be outdone, had followed with “God Save the King” and then, down the aisle with a flag torn from the walls of the foyer stalked an American sergeant, holding aloft Old Glory and leading his countrymen in the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Trust a group of soldiers to take charge of a show63and run it to suit themselves. But they were pleased, beyond question, as was evidenced by the buzzing conversations during the intermission.
“Great show, eh?”
“I’ll tell the world!”
“Hey, Joe! You old son-of-a-gun! How’d you get down here? Thought you were wiped out up at Wipers.”
“Huh! Not me! They haven’t made the shell that can get me. Look who’s over there with a nice cushy wound to keep him out of trouble. Old Dog Face himself. Hey! Dog Face ... Come here!”
Such were the greetings of soldiers who hid their real feelings behind a mask of flippancy.
McGee drew Larkin into an eddy of the milling throng where they could the better watch what Red termed “the review of the nations.” A strapping big Anzac, with a cockily rosetted Rough Rider hat, strolled arm in arm with a French Blue Devil from the Alpine Chasseurs. A kilted Highlander, three years absent from his homeland and bearing four wound stripes on his sleeve, was trying vainly to teach the words of “Scotland Forever” to a Russian officer whose precise English did not encompass the confusing Scotch burr. Mixed tongues, mixed customs, variety of ideals; infantrymen, cavalrymen, artillerymen, war pilots; men with grey at the temples and beardless youths; here and there a man on crutches, here64and there an empty sleeve, and many breasts upon which hung medals awarded for intrepid courage; here grizzled old Frenchmen with backs bowed by three years of warfare, and there fresh, clean young Americans recently landed and a little amazed that they should be looked upon as the hope of the staggering allies. Color, color, color! Confused tongues, the buzz and babble of a thousand half-heard conversations, the fragments of marching songs! Here was a cross section of the Allied Armies, all of them with but one purpose. How could they fail!
The scene had a telling effect upon McGee and Larkin. Wordless, for a few minutes, they stood watching the throng. It was McGee who spoke first.
“Did you ever see anything like it, Buzz? Just look at the different uniforms. There–look over there! A bunch of American Blue Jackets. Wonder how they got here?”
“Humph! Wonder how all of us got here? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. This is just a moment snatched from the lives of all these fellows. What went before? What homes did they come from, and who is waiting for them? And what comes to them to-morrow? Gee!” He shook his head, slowly. “It doesn’t do to think about it. You want to find out about them ... and you get to wishing they could all go on back home to-morrow. Say, who started this talk, anyhow? Come on, let’s go back in.”
65“Wait a minute!” McGee seized his arm and turned him around. “There’s plenty of time before the curtain. Look, Buzz. See that black fellow over there in French Colonial O.D.? Came from Algiers, I guess, or Senegal, maybe. What brought him here, and what sort of stories will he tell ... when he gets back home? Will he tell about what he did, or will he talk about what he saw and what others did?”
“Dunno. Why?”
“Well, this has set me to thinking. We’re all here on exactly the same business. The uniform doesn’t count so much, nor does the branch of the service. It’s just a question of getting the job done–a sort of ‘Heave Ho! All together, now!’ Get me?”
“Yes–I guess so. What are you driving at?”
“This. See that American sergeant over there–the one who carried the flag down the aisle and jumped up on the stage?”
“Yes. Big fellow, isn’t he?”
“You said it! The biggest duck in this puddle, in more ways than one. And I want to get into the uniform he is wearing. Understand, Buzz? Oh, I’m proud enough of the one I’m wearing, but when he started the national anthem, and they all came in on that chorus, ‘Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,’–well, I felt cold shivers running up and down my backbone. None of the other songs did that to me. Do you get me, Buzz?”
66“Sure. I felt it, too.” He put both his hands on Red’s shoulders, holding him off at arm’s length. “You want back under the old Stars and Stripes, don’t you? ... you little shrimp!”
“Yes,” slowly, “and–yet–”
“I know how you feel. I’m with you, fellow, when you get ready to make the change.”
McGee’s eyes lighted with surprise and joy. “Really, Buzz?”
“Surest thing you know!”
“And you don’t think we’d feel like–like–”
“We’d feel like two Americans,going home. Shake, little feller! There, I feel better already. Come on, let’s go in; that’s the curtain bell.”
1
1
On the following Tuesday morning a group of two Spads and several Nieuports were delivered to Major Cowan’s pursuit squadron at Is Sur Tille. A Lieutenant Smoot, one of the ferry pilots who had flown up one of the Nieuports, sought to ease the pain caused by his own lowly calling by taunting Tex Yancey–an extremely dangerous pastime, for Tex had a ready tongue.
“When you buckoes have washed out these planes,” he said, “the Old Man will see the error of his way and send us up to do the real flying. What’s left of this gang will then be put to ferrying. Did any of you ever see a Spad or Nieuport before?”
Yancey, standing well over six feet, looked down on him pityingly. “Did you say your name was Smoot, or Snoot? Smoot, eh. Well, transportationto the rearis waitin’ for you at headquarters. Don’t let me keep you waitin’. I’m surprised you’re not pushin’ a wheelbarrow in a labor battalion, the way you set that Nieuport down a few minutes ago. Clear out,68soldier! This squadron is gettin’ ready to do some plain and fancy flyin’. I don’t want you to have heart trouble.”
“Humph! You’ll have heart trouble the first time you try to land one of those Spads. You’ll think you have been trained on a peanut roaster. Who’s the Britisher over there snooping around with Cowan?”
“Name’s McGee. But he’s not a Limey; he’s an American. I’m told he won a coupla medals in the R.F.C., and has sixteen Huns to his credit. He must be good–though he doesn’t wear the medals to prove it. Not a bit of swank.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s an instructor,” Yancey replied without hesitation.
“Oh Ho! So you still need instruction? I heard that Cowan knows it all.”
“Naw, he only knows half, and you know the other half. Too bad both sets of brains wasn’t put in one head. In that case somebody would have been almost half-witted. Better toddle along, soldier. The animals are goin’ on a rampage in a minute.”
“Yeah? Well, turn ’em loose. I’m something of a big game hunter myself. What sort of a flyer is this instructor?”
“Dunno. We’ll see in a minute, maybe. He’s crawling in that Spad. Yep, they’re turnin’ her69around. Don’t go now. You can learn a lot here.”
During the next ten minutes the entire squadron, and the ferry pilots, were given an excellent opportunity to form their own conclusions about McGee’s ability to fly. He took the Spad aloft, in test, and plunged through a series of acrobatics that served to convince all watchers that here was a man whose real element was the air. Ship and man were one.
The group on the ground watched, open-mouthed, despite the fact that they themselves were flyers of no mean ability. But they had never flown such ships as the Spads, and the prospect and possibilities made their hearts race with feverish eagerness to take off in one of these trim little hawks.
Yancey and Smoot had now joined the watching group around Major Cowan, and as McGee rolled at the top of a loop, Yancey turned to the doubting ferry pilot.
“Yes, I think he can fly. What do you think, brother? When you can do stick work like that, you’ll be sent up here to join us.”
Major Cowan was equally envious, but he was not one to betray it. “A very bad example,” he commented, testily. “An excellent pilot, doubtless, but reckless. His take-off, for instance. He zoomed too long. I want to warn you against such a mistake.”
The ferry pilot, Smoot, decided to take a chance. “The example seems good enough, and if that fellow’s70flying is a mistake, I’m sure Brigade would like to see a lot more mistakes like him.”
“The commander of this squadron will answer to Brigade for the conduct of this group, Lieutenant Smoot,” Major Cowan retorted with such acidity that the poor ferryman decided it was time to join his own group and head for the base. But before taking his departure he relieved his mind in the presence of Yancey, Siddons and Hampden, who had drawn away from Cowan through a desire to watch the flying rather than listen to his lectures on the art of flying.
“If you had a flyer like that one up there for a C.O.,” Smoot said to them, “you’d get somewhere in this little old war. But as it is, you have my sympathy. Well, toodle-oo,mes enfants. Be careful with those Spads. They were built for flyers.”
“You be careful that you don’t fall out of that motor cycle side car on the way back,” Yancey retorted. “They look like baby carriages, but they’re not.”
As Smoot walked away, stung by this last retort, Yancey turned to Hampden and Siddons. “How’d you like to have a flyer like that in this outfit?” he asked.
“He’s all right,” Hampden replied. “A lot of the ferry pilots are crack flyers–just a tough break in the game. It might have happened to you.”
“I wasn’t talkin’ abouthim” Yancey replied and71pointed to McGee’s plane, now banking in to a landing at the far end of the field. “I meant that bird down there.”
“Oh, McGee?”
“Yes.”
Hampden laughed, skeptically. “Fine chance to get a flyer like that!”
“Oh, I dunno. Some American outfit will draw him. He and that other fellow, Larkin, have asked to be repatriated.”
“How do you know?”
“I was with ’em in town last night and they told me all about it. They flew up to Paris day before yesterday, and on the way back they landed at Chaumont and made a call on G.H.Q. They put their case before the Chief of Staff and asked him to use his influence. They’ve made out formal application. Both of them are tickled pink over the prospect. McGee said he would like to get with this squadron.”
“Bully for him!” Hampden enthused. “Maybe we don’t look so bad, if fellows like that are willing to throw in with us, eh, Tex?”
Siddons was coldly skeptical. “You have the weirdest imagination. Why should he want to be with us?”
“Dunno. Ask him.”
“I shall,” Siddons answered as he moved over toward the point where he estimated McGee’s taxiing plane would come to a stop.
72“Big stiff!” Yancey said under his breath. “He’ll ask him, all right, and right out in meetin’. He never believes anything he hears until he has asked a thousand questions about it. What do you see in that fellow to like, Hamp?”
“He’s all right, Tex. He was pretty decent to me while I was acting as Supply during that time Cowan grounded me. Came around to help me with the paper work and put in a good word for me.”
“Yeah, he’s always chummy with Supply and Operations–but only because he thinks he can get some favors that way. I despise him.”
“Oh, come now! You mustn’t feel that way. We are all in the same boat, and we’d as well be chummy.”
“Huh! If you ever get in the same boat with that fellow he will do the steerin’ while you do the rowin’. He gives me a pain!”
2
2
Two weeks later orders came down concentrating several pursuit, observation and bombing groups in the neighborhoods of Commercy and Nancy. The members of the squadrons to which McGee and Larkin had been detailed were feverish with excitement. Operations and armament officers were busy with the duties incident to making all planes ready for73combat. This could mean but one thing–Action!
Three nights after the move McGee and Larkin sat at a late dinner in one of the little cafés on the main street of the small French town. They were discussing the progress of their work and each was heatedly contending that his own group was superior in every way.
“Just come over and watch my flight do formation work,” Larkin urged. “They’ll open your eyes.”
“Humph! You’d better open your own eyes! I have watched you. We were up in the sun this morning–five thousand feet above you–and watched you for half an hour. A fine bunch you have! We could have smothered you like a blanket. Have you ever shown them anything about looking in the sun for enemy planes?”
Larkin’s face evidenced his chagrin. “Are you kidding me?”
“Not much! We kept right along above you, but in the sun. I’ll admit they did good work, but oh, how blind! Boy, we’re not too far back to get jumped on. There have been fights farther back from the lines than this. You know Fritz dearly loves to raid ’dromes where new squadrons are in training. Believe me, their spy system is perfect. I’d be willing to wager my right eye that they know these groups are stationed in this area, how long they have been in France, and just what types of planes we are using.74They’ve the best spy system in the world. You know how many times they have raided green squadrons. They figure it puts the wind up a bunch of inexperienced men. So keep your eye peeled. And if you want to see something pretty, come over and watch my gang. They’re ready for combat work right now–except Siddons.”
Larkin looked up in surprise. “I thought you told me he knew more about the planes and about flying than any of the others.”
“He does. But he can’t–or won’t–keep in formation. He cuts out, and goes joy-riding.”
“Seems to me I remember someone else who used to do that same little stunt,” Larkin said, smiling reminiscently.
McGee flushed. “Yes, I suppose I did, but not in training. I never cut formation until–”
“Until you saw something that looked like meat. Don’t try to kid me, Red. You’ve dragged me into too many dog fights. Do you think I have forgotten the day we were out having a look-see, five of us, and spotted five Albatrosses below? Bingo! Down you went like a shot, and the rest of us had to follow to keep you from being made into mincemeat. Talk about being blind! All the time a bigger flock of Fokkers were in the sun above us and they came down like ‘wolves on the fold.’ Fellow, you had your little faults. Don’t be too hard on Siddons.”
75“Cutting formation to get in a fight and cutting to go joy-riding are two different things. If it were anyone else but Siddons I’d ask Cowan to ground him.”
“You like him?”
“Emphatically, NO! And he knows it. That’s why I hesitate to make an example of him. He would think that I was satisfying a grudge. Besides, he has some sort of a drag with someone. Cowan thinks he is a great flyer. He is, too. Knows more about both the technical and practical side of the game than any of the others. That’s what’s wrong with him. He is so self-satisfied, so arrogant, and so cocksure of every word he utters and every movement he makes. He is the coldest fish I ever met. He reminds me of someone–but I can’t remember who it is. Sometimes I think he is–Listen! What’s that?”
McGee’s question went unanswered as the shrill blasts of the air raid siren shattered the peace of the village with its frenzied warning. It moaned, deep-throated, then became panic-stricken and wailed tremulously in the higher registers. It was a warning to all to seek the comparative safety of theabriswhich the town had constructed against just such an emergency.
The café emptied quickly, but even the quickest followed on the heels of McGee and Larkin who, once outside, ran briskly down the street toward the house where they were billeted. They halted at the drive76entrance to gaze upward as great searchlights began playing upon the dark inverted bowl of the heavens. The long, shifting beams of light were accusing fingers seeking to point out the unwelcome, stealthy nocturnal sky prowlers.
“Listen!” McGee gripped Larkin’s arm.
Sure enough, from the east, and high above, came the sound of German motors, a sound unmistakable by anyone who had once heard their unsynchronized drone. It rose and fell, rose and fell, like the hurried snoring of a giant made restless by nightmare. The sound was drawing nearer. Doubtless it had been heard by the soldiers manning the searchlights for the beams now swept restlessly across the eastern sky. To the eastward, two or three kilometers, an anti-aircraft battery opened fire, and from aloft came the dullpouf!of the exploding shells. Vain, futile effort! It was only the angry thundering of admitted helplessness. One chance in a million! The motors droned on, coming nearer and nearer. Excited townspeople, in wooden sabots, clattered down the streets seeking shelter; fear-stricken mothers and fathers spoke sharply to their little broods as they hustled them along.
“Buzz,” Red said, “it’s dollars to doughnuts they’re coming here to lay some eggs on our ’drome–just to put the wind up these boys. Remember what I told you a few minutes ago.”
77Larkin was more hopeful. “I guess not,” he said. “Headed for some supply base or ammunition dump farther in, would be my guess. But if they are coming here, there’s little we can do about it. It’s up to the anti-aircraft boys.”
“Hum-m,” McGee mused. “I wonder.”
A motor cycle, with side car, running without lights, came popping down the street. Without hesitation McGee ran out into the middle of the street, waving his arms and shouting wildly. The motor cycle swerved sharply, missed the dancing, gesticulating figure and skidded to a stop.
“Say, what’s eatin’ you, soldier?” demanded the irate American motor cycle orderly.
For answer McGee sprang into the side car and barked a few crisp, sharp orders that brooked no hesitation. The responsive little motor roared its staccato eagerness as the machine lurched forward, leaving Larkin speechless and wondering.
“What do you know about that?” he mused. “Now what can that little shrimp be up–” he hesitated, struck by the same thought, he felt sure, that had plunged McGee into such sudden action. Then he began shouting for the driver of their motor car.
“Martins! Martins! Oh, Martins!” Blast the fellow, doubtless he was already in some place of security. “Martins! Oh, Martins!”
A door flew open, letting out a beam of light as78Martins came out, clad only in his underclothes and yawning prodigiously.
“Did you call, sir?” he asked, blinking foolishly as he studied the flashing rays of the sky-searching lights.
“Yes! Get the car! Snappy, now!”
“Yes, sir. Just as soon as I can get on some clothes.”
“Hang the clothes! Get the car–and set the road afire between here and the ’drome. Move! Don’t stand there blinking like a blooming owl.”
Martins sped around the house, a white-clad figure racing bare-footed for the car and muttering under his breath every time his flying feet struck bits of gravel and sharp stones. The sound of the airplane motors was now much nearer; the siren was still screaming its fright; anti-aircraft guns were futilely belching steel into the air, and the searchlights were getting jumpy in their haste to locate the intruders and hold them in a beam of light.
3
3
Martins, with Larkin seated at his side, hurled the car through the narrow streets and out to the airdrome with a daring recklessness known only to war-trained chauffeurs who could push a car faster without lights than most people would care to ride in79broad daylight. But their speed was slow compared to that made by the surprised motor cycle orderly who had thundered off with McGee, and when Larkin sprang from the car as it screeched to a stop at the edge of the ’drome his ear caught the sound of a Clerget motor pounding under an advanced throttle as it lifted a plane from the ground at the far end of the dark field. An excited, buzzing group of pilots and mechanics were huddled together on the tarmac near the circus tent that served as a hangar, and still more men were emerging hastily from the humpbacked, black steel elephants that served them as quarters.
Larkin ran toward the group near the hangar entrance,
“Where’s McGee?” he shouted, knowing the answer but hoping for some word that would give the lie to what his ears told him. He knew that the plane which had now swung back over the field and was roaring directly above as it battled for altitude was none other than McGee’s balky little Camel. But no one answered him; they merely stared, as men who have just witnessed a feat of daring too noble for words, or as girls who face an impending tragedy and are too horror-stricken for action.
“Where’s McGee?” Larkin shouted again. “Don’t stand there like a bunch of yaps! You’ll be getting a setting of high explosive eggs here in a minute.80Don’t you hear that siren? Those Boche planes? Where’s McGee, I asked you?”
Yancey stepped from the group and pointed up.
“I reckon that’s him up yonder,” he said in the slow drawl that was doubly maddening at such a moment. “He blew in here a few minutes ago like a Texas Panhandle twister, ordered the greaseballs to roll his plane on the line, and was off before she was good and warm. I reckon–”
Larkin did not wait to learn what Yancey reckoned. He dashed toward the hangar, shouting orders as he ran.
Major Cowan stepped from the hangar, barring the way. “Just a minute, Lieutenant! What is it you want?”
“What do I want? I want a plane on the line–quick!”
“No! Lieutenant McGee took off before we knew what it was all about. It is madness. You can’t have–”
He stopped speaking to listen. From high above, and a little to the east, came the throbbing sound of German motors that in a few more seconds would be over the airdrome. Indeed, they might be circling now, getting their bearing and making sure of location. At that moment one of the large motor mounted searchlights near the hangar began combing the sky.
“Go tell those saps to cut that light!” Larkin81shouted, hoping that the Major would be stampeded into action that would provide the slenderest chance for him to get the mechanics to roll a Spad to the line before Cowan could know what was happening. “Better cut it! If the others can’t find ’em, this one can’t. It will only serve as a path of light for one of those babies up there to slide down and leave you some presents you don’t want.”
Major Cowan was not one to go legging it about on errands. Besides, searchlights were provided for just such uses. Then too, he rather suspected Larkin’s motives, and Larkin realized this.
“Please let me have one of those Spads, Major,” he pleaded. “Can’t you understand–McGee and I are buddies. With two of us up there we might turn ’em back.”
“No! It is too hazardous. This squadron is still in training. We are not trained as night flyers, and certainly are not prepared to give combat to a flight of bombers.”
Larkin’s anger smashed through his long training. All rank faded from his mind.
“Not trained, eh? Major Cowan, that freckle-faced kid up there is a night flying fool–and I’m his twin brother. Get out of my way. Oh, greaseballs! Hey, you Ack Emmas! Roll out one of those Spads and–”
“Lieutenant!” Cowan barked. “You forget yourself.82If you want to do night fighting go over to your own group and use your own plane! You forget yourself. I am still in command here!”
From aloft came the momentary stutter of two machine guns. Ah! McGee testing and warming his guns as he climbed. Oh, the fool! The precious, daring fool!
Larkin sat down on the tarmac,ker plunk!Let ’em raid. What mattered it? He rather hoped one of them would be accurate enough to plant a bomb on the top of Cowan’s head.
“Yes, you are in command,” he said, rather limply, “but why didn’t you stop McGee? And since you are in command, in Heaven’s name tell that light crew to cut that light. It would be just their fool, blundering luck to spot McGee and hold him for the Archies.”
1
1
McGee, holding up the nose of his Camel at an angle that gave the motor every ounce it would stand, was thinking the same alarming thought that had just run through Larkin’s mind. It would be just his luck to be spotted by the searchlight crew and held in its beam. If so, would they recognize him? Would they see the ringed cockades on his wings, or would eager anti-aircraft gunners start blazing away? Even if they recognized the plane, his whole plan would be knocked into a cocked hat should that telltale streamer of light point him out to the enemy planes above who must now be looking sharp. Darkness was both his ally and his foe.
McGee was too experienced to have any mistaken notions about the hazard of his endeavor. He knew what he was up against. In the first place, any bombing plane was a formidable foe, and he could not know how many were coming on this mission. All bombers were heavily armed, and had the advantage of having at least one man free to repel attack84with twin machine guns. Many of the heavier German bombing planes carried crews of four or five men, though these were used in attack on highly important bases and would hardly be sent on a mission of this nature. Such machines were quite slow and not capable of being manoeuvered quickly, but their very size added to their invulnerability and their heavy armament made them a thing to be avoided by any single fighter mounted in a pursuit plane. Many pursuit pilots had learned the bitter lesson attached to a thoughtless, poorly planned attack upon a bomber or two-seater observation bus. They looked like an appetizing meal–but one must have a strong stomach if he finishes the feast.
McGee knew, also, that the oncoming raiders might be pursuit planes converted into bombers by the simple expedient of attaching bomb releases carrying lighter pellets of destruction which could be released by the pilot. This was not an unusual procedure, especially when the success of the venture might hinge upon speed. Such planes could strike swiftly, more easily avoid Archie fire, and having struck their blow could outdistance any antagonist with the nerve to storm through the night sky in pursuit.
So, as McGee climbed he realized that he was facing the unknown. The prospect of a raid had been his challenge; the size and strength of his enemy was unknown. So be it, he thought, and warmed his guns85with a short burst as he continued climbing. Their quick chatter served to reassure him and for the moment he quite forgot how useless they would be should he chance to go crashing into one of the bombers. He felt that all would be well if only those saps on the ground would cut that searchlight. Didn’t they know that it would simply serve as a guide to the plane whose mission it would be to dive at the field and release ground flares to mark the target for the bombers? Of course they wouldn’t think of that. Green! And with a lot to learn.
Two or three times the beam of light flashed perilously near him, and once his plane was near enough to the edge of the beam for the glass on his instrument board to reflect the rays. Then, a moment later, the glaring one-eyed monster dimmed, glowed red, and darkness leaped in from all sides. But only for a moment. Other lights, from more distant points, were still combing the sky. These concerned Red not so much as the one near the hangar. Strangely, as is the way with men at war, he cared not so much what wrath might be called down on other places if only his own nest remained unviolated. Indeed, he found himself entertaining the hope that the raiders might become confused and drop their trophies in somebody else’s back yard.
Then, as suddenly as a magician produces an object out of the thin air, one of the distant searchlights86fixed upon one of the enemy planes. It was a single seater, McGee noted, and though somewhat southeast of the position he had expected, it was already pointing its nose down on a long dive that would undoubtedly carry it to a good position over the ’drome for dropping flares.
McGee knew the tactics. This was the plane whose job it was to spot the target for the bombers and then zoom away. Then the vultures would come droning over the illuminated field and drop their eggs.
Red kicked his left rudder and came around on a sharp climbing bank. By skill, or by luck, the light crew still held their beam on the black-crossed plane and in a twinkling two other lights were centered on it.
McGee made a quick estimate of distance and of the other’s flying speed. Then he nosed over, slightly, on a full throttle, and drove along a line which he thought would intersect the dive of the enemy. He could hardly hope to get him in the ring sights; it was a matter of pointing the plane in what he thought was the correct line of fire and let drive with both guns.
The wind was beginning to scream and tear at the struts of the hard-pushed Camel. Speed was everything now. If that diving German plane once dropped its flares, the others, somewhere in the darkness above, would sow destruction on the field.
87The distance was yet too great for anything like effective fire, but McGee decided to take a chance. After all, the whole thing was chance. He had one chance in a thousand to thwart their plans, very slim chances for bagging one of them, and some excellent chances to get bagged!
“Very well,” he found himself saying in answer to these swift thoughts. “Carry on!”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Both his guns began their scolding chatter. Too far to the right–and below. He ruddered left and pulled her nose up a trifle. There! Again the guns spewed out their vengeful chorus.
At this second burst the German plane seemed to yaw off, then righted itself, leveled off and flew straight at McGee.
Red felt a momentary elation that the enemy had at least been made conscious of the attack and was, for the moment, forced to abandon his objective. Two beams of light still held him mercilessly. Doubtless they served to blind him and this advantaged McGee who, unseen in the darkness, kept his Vickers going. Some of the bullets must have gone home for the German swerved suddenly and began a series of acrobatics in an effort to escape the lights. But disturbed as he was, he evidently kept his mission in mind for he continued to lose altitude and thus draw nearer the field where he could drop his flares.
88McGee decided to nose over and then zoom up under his belly–by far the most vulnerable point of attack but one in which the moment of fire is brief indeed, for Camels will not long hang by their “props.”
Just as McGee dived the enemy swerved quickly and also began a dive. His diving angle was sharp; his speed tremendous. Doubtless he had determined to carry out his mission and get away from an exceedingly hot spot as quickly as possible. By the fortunes of war his diving angle cut directly across McGee’s path. Close–almost too close! A brief burst spat from McGee’s Vickers in that heart-chilling moment when collision seemed inevitable, but McGee pulled sharply back on his stick and zoomed. Whew! It was no cinch, this fighting a light-blinded enemy.
McGee glanced back. The lights had lost the plane as suddenly as they had found it. Night had swallowed it. Now there was an unseen enemy that might–
Ah! McGee sucked in his breath sharply. A tiny tongue of flame was shooting through the sky. For a second it was little more than the flame of a match, but in a few seconds it developed into greedy, licking flames that turned the German plane into a flaming rocket. The pilot, manfully seeking escape from such a death, began side slipping in a vain effort to create an upward draft that would keep the flames89from incinerating him in his seat. For the briefest moment he did a first class job of it, and McGee, who a minute before had been hungry for victory, felt first a wave of admiration for a skillful job of flying and next a surge of pity that it must be of no avail. Even now the plane was wobbling out of control ... then it nosed over and plunged earthward, a flaming meteor.
Fascinated, McGee watched the plunge, climbing a little as he circled. He was three times an ace with two for good measure, seventeen victories in the air, but this was his first night flamer. It was far more spectacular than he could have imagined ... and somehow a little more unnerving. A moment ago that doomed creature had been a man courageous enough to undertake any hazard his country demanded. Enemy or no, he was a man of courage and in his own country was a patriot.
McGee felt very weak, and not at all elated. After all, he knew there were no national boundaries to valor or patriotism, and however sweet the victory it must always carry the wormwood of regret that the vanquished will see no more red dawnings and go out on no more dawn patrols. That plunging, flaming plane was as a lighted match dropped into a deep well–the deep well of oblivion.
The plane struck the earth some three or four hundred yards to the west of the ’drome. The flames,90leaping afresh, lighted up the entire vicinity. McGee, looking down, could see the dim outline of the hangar tent and the running figures that were racing toward the burning plane. He smiled, rather grimly, and his eyes searched the heavens above him. The vultures had their target now!
At that moment one of the restless searchlights singled out one of the bombers, high above him, and two other streams of light leaped to the same spot. Another plane was caught in the beam. The anti-aircraft now had their target, and they lost no time. There came two or three of the sharp barks so characteristic of anti-aircraft guns, and coincident with the sound the bursting shells bloomed into great white roses perilously near the leading plane. It rocked, noticeably, and shifted its course. Then, seemingly, all the Archies in the countryside, within range and out of range, began filling that section of the sky with magically appearing roses that in their blooming sent steel balls and flying fragments searching the sky.
The upper air was quickly converted into an inferno of bursting shells and whining missiles of jagged steel. The enemy bombers, due to the delay caused by McGee’s unexpected attack upon the plane whose mission it had been to drop the ground flares, had now worked themselves into a rather awkward formation and were faced with the responsibility of making instant decision whether they should now91release their bombs in a somewhat hit or miss fashion or run for it and individually select some other spot for depositing their T.N.T. hate as they made their way homeward.
The embarrassment of their position was but little greater than that of McGee’s. The burning plane offered sufficient light for landing, but it was also lighting up the hangars and the field, and he momentarily expected the enemy to let go with their bombs. It would not be pleasant down there when those whistling messengers began to arrive. His present position was equally unhealthy, even though he had considerably reduced his altitude. Any minute–yes, any second–some searchlight crew might pick him up, and there is never any telling what an excited anti-aircraft battery crew might do.
McGee made the decision which is always reached by an airman who finds himself in unhealthy surroundings: he would simply high-tail it away from there until “the shouting and the tumult” subsided. He swung into the dark sky to the north and then dived down until he felt that any less altitude would be extremely likely to bring him afoul of some church steeple or factory smokestack.
One of the German pilots decided to take a chance and release his bombs. Their reverberating detonations were terrifying enough, but aside from the ugly holes they made in the open field, some five hundred92yards away from the ’drome, they accomplished nothing in the balance of warfare. The other planes, finding the welcome a bit too warm, took up a zig-zag course toward the Fatherland, but in a general course that would take them back over Nancy, where they could find a larger target for their bombs.
McGee, looking back, could see the searchlights sweeping eastward in their efforts to keep the fleeing planes spotted. But their luck had already been great indeed, and now they were again feverishly searching the black and seemingly empty sky.
“Good time to tool this baby home,” McGee thought as he swung around and headed for the ’drome, its location still well marked for him by the flickering flames of the fallen ship.
“Poor old Nancy!” he said aloud as he realized that the thwarted bombers would likely spew out their hate on that sorely tried city. “I’m sorry to wish this off on you, but you are used to it and these lads are not. Talk about luck! I wonder what good angel is perched on my shoulder.”
Back over the ’drome he signaled with his Very light pistol for landing lights, his take-off having been too sudden to permit of thinking of ground flares. He circled the field, waiting for the lights. No response. He signaled again. Still no response.
“Too much excitement, I guess,” he mused. Then he flew low over the remains of the burning plane,93around which had gathered a large group–large enough, McGee thought, to include every man of the squadron from the C.O. down to the lowliest greaseball.
“Humph! A fine target you’d make!” Red snorted, and felt like throwing his Very pistol into the group. “Well, here goes! I’ve made darker landings than this. And if I crack up–” he smiled as a grim Irish bull flashed through his mind–“it will be a good lesson to the ground crew. Nothing like Irish humor at a time like this.”