CHAPTER XX
Every time Frank Sanderson soared upward in an aeroplane he fully realized that danger rode with him. That was why he was so successful as a pilot. The "ace" is not the man who refuses to recognize the imminent peril of his calling. Sanderson merely did not allow this knowledge, this realization of danger, to influence him in the performance of his duty.
Besides, the young American possessed a quick mind. In connection with his work as an aviator his brain was always alert. He was ready for anything at any time.
This accident, however, was entirely outside the realm of the usual perils of his calling. The unreleased bomb, entangled in the wires of the airplane's chassis, offered a problem that even Sanderson's brain could not instantly solve.
The machine was but a few hundred feet above the ground. Below was the French aviation camp. In a few moments, if Lefevre proceeded, they would make their landing—and then——
Sanderson tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "Wait!" he shouted. "Take a sweep around before you land. There's something we must do first."
"What's that?" demanded Lefevre.
The aeroplane was shooting along on a level again before Sanderson ventured to tell him. The pilot was quite as cool an airman as Sanderson himself, but he, too, was startled.
"Good-night!" he ejaculated. "A bomb caught? Who ever heard the like of that? Why—Sandy!—we're up in the air for good!"
"Looks so," agreed Sanderson, jerking it out, "unless we can make our landing on a nice, soft cloud."
"Humph! And they'll have hard work serving us breakfast up here."
"Quite so, old scout," declared Sanderson. He felt easier now that Lefevre was taking it calmly.
"Well," the latter added, "my will's in father's safe. Willy may have my skates and my red mittens. By Jove, Sandy, it'll be some finish!"
"Notourfinish," declared Sanderson vigorously. He thought of Belinda. If she had fallen a victim to the Prussians he would not have cared much what became of him; but he was optimistic enough to believe that both Belinda and he would finally escape from their perils.
"What shall we do?" staccatoed Lefevre.
"Be Flying Dutchmen, and roam about the air forever more," suggested Frank.
"Like Noah's first dove—not finding any rest for the soles of our feet. But our gas is going to give out some time, if nothing else."
"Our patience is going to give out first," declared Frank.
These opinions had been shouted, of course, for the roaring of the motor and the wind whining through the stays of the aeroplane made an ordinary tone of conversation impossible.
"See here!" exclaimed Lefevre at last. "Isn't there anything you can reach it with and unhook the bomb?"
"Of course. Mother's clothes pole. Wait till I get it," scoffed Sanderson. "And if it could be unhooked, what then? It wouldn't do a bit of good down yonder," and he gestured toward the aviation camp in plain view. "Dropping bombs on one's own camp isn't done, you know, Lefevre—it really isn't done!"
"No. Quite true," and the pilot nodded. "But what——"
"Just one thing to do. Hold steady and don't rock the boat. I'm going over the side, Captain," and Sanderson unhooked his belt.
"Great heavens, Sandy! You can never do that!" yelled the pilot.
"Don't—tell—me—what—I—can't—do," was the reply as the young American clambered out on the wing.
Lefevre almost held his breath. He dared not look around again. To climb down and unhook the bomb was like mounting to the main truck of a ship in the teeth of a hurricane.
From the wing Sanderson swung himself down upon the running-gear. He held on with one hand and carefully loosed the bomb. To drop it might cause disaster below. He had, therefore, to climb back to his seat with the explosive projectile, which was a greater task than getting down into the chassis, for he had to hang on literally with one hand and his teeth.
But he did it! He came in safely to his seat in the rocking aeroplane and again Lefevre spiraled earthward. As they drifted over a hollow in the hillside beyond the camp, Sanderson dropped the bomb where it would do no harm as it exploded.
"Some boy!" was Lefevre's only comment when they landed. Nor did either of the young men talk much about the adventure. There are too many hair's-breadth escapes in flying for one peril to be marked much above another.
From Captain Dexter, Sanderson heard that the army corps headquarters had again sent out feelers to learn, if possible, Belinda Melnotte's fate. On his own part the shipmaster had communicated with the American embassy in Paris, and efforts would be made through friendly sources at Berlin to trace the lost Red Cross nurse.
Diplomatic relations had been recently broken between the United States and the German Government and the two countries, it was believed, were verging toward war. The threat of unrestricted U-boat warfare had roused a fever of indignation in America. Germany might intern any and all Americans found within her lines—Red Cross workers not excepted. Her friends, however, desired to be assured of Belinda's safety, if nothing more.
"I'm havin' the devil's own time, and that's a fact, stavin' off Mam'selle Roberta's inquiries," Captain Dexter declared. "I write such poor French and she such poor English that it gives me a chance to dodge a lot of her questions. But, by Hannah! she isn't goin' to be fended off for long, boy. You can bet your last dollar on that."
Sanderson went back to piloting his repaired Nieuport within a day or two after the successful bombarding of the railroad, and almost his first assignment was to transport a man for reconnaissance to a certain point behind the enemy's lines. He had done such work before, and with success, recovering his man at the place and time appointed.
He was returning from dropping the spy, without rising very high, for he was above the wedge in the battlefront, and the danger point was several miles ahead—or so he thought.
His intention was to pass over the locality of the hospital station where Belinda had served before the retreat of the French.
Not that he could hope to see her or learn anything about her while crossing this territory. That was too great a miracle to expect. He knew the Germans held all this land now. Indeed, he could glance down and see the supply trains and marching columns on their way to the front. He was so much interested in what went on below, in fact, that he forgot to keep a sharp outlook for what might be in the air.
It was an unpardonable error. He had swooped to a level little more than five hundred feet above the earth. He knew the country thoroughly and saw that the grove of open timber ahead was the small wood which stood to the northeast of the hospital station.
He meant to ride over it, swoop low over the abandoned station to see what was going on there, and then rise a couple of thousand feet before risking the passing of the battleline.
On his mission to leave the spy he had been relieved of his mitrailleuse, for the Nieuport was not supposed to carry more than two hundred and twenty pounds, and his passenger, Renaud, was a heavy man. Therefore his only weapon at the moment was the automatic pistol strapped at his side.
Suddenly the pop of a machine gun warned him of danger. It was not an anti-aircraft gun shooting from the earth, but a weapon being used above him! The bullets hailed all around his airplane.
Sanderson speeded up his motor before even looking to see whence the bullets came. He hated to run away as much as would any man; but he was not armed for a pitched battle with a German aviator.
The pursuer was swooping with determination. As Sanderson shot toward the grove of timber he realized that the enemy was coming down upon him so swiftly and with such recklessness that collision was almost inevitable, unless he mounted higher and at once.
The German was evidently willing to accept death himself if he could but bring the American to earth.
The rain of bullets soon ceased, but Sanderson realized that his propeller was riddled as though by a hailstorm. He felt a smart along one cheek, where a bullet had plowed, and there were innumerable shot holes in the wings of his biplane.
He started to mount. The shadow of the enemy aeroplane fell across his own. It was near sunset, and the shadow was huge. It was as though he were being smothered by a giant blanket dropping from the skies.
Sanderson was inured to peril, but he suddenly felt that he was in a very serious situation. A minute more and his course on earth, as well as in the air, might be run. His brain worked alertly. He used a trick he had learned and practised often while over the aviation field on Long Island.
Raising the nose of the Nieuport, he began to climb sharply, intending to loop the loop and so, if possible, pass over his enemy.
The German was right at hand. The two aeroplanes passed each other like veritable coursers of the air—the one soaring upward, the other swooping downward. Sanderson and his enemy opened fire simultaneously with their pistols.
What damage, if any, he did the German aviator the American did not know, but before he had accomplished the upward curve of his loop he saw that a bullet had punctured his gasoline tank.
Flames burst forth, fanned by the swift passage of the air. Sanderson righted his machine quickly. He knew he would begrille, as the French flying men call it, before he could arrive at any safe anchorage.
Shifting the nose of his airplane swiftly, Sanderson plunged directly upon the German, who, likewise, had changed his course. The two machines rushed together at frightful speed—a speed of nearly two hundred miles an hour.
No wonder the spectators in the hospital enclosure, of whom Belinda Melnotte was one, cried out in their horror as they beheld this duel to the death.
Sanderson whispered the name of the girl who was, by chance, watching him. Perhaps a woman's name was on the German aviator's lips. But neither man faltered.
The two machines interlocked and fell through the treetops. Sanderson kept his head, although expecting an instant and awful death. He unhooked his belt and was flung from his seat into the top of a low, well-branched evergreen. It was his salvation.
The wreck of the two aeroplanes reached the ground, his brave antagonist in the midst of the ruin. Flames sprang up and threatened to destroy the wreckage at once.
Wounded and bruised as he was, Sanderson hurried to reach the ground. He hoped to save the German aviator; but when he drew the man out of reach of the flames he was dead.
Night had fallen. No searchers came to the spot. Sanderson, far from friends and in the enemy's country, realized that he was in serious danger. In spite of a shoulder that pained him frightfully and his many bruises, he managed to disrobe, strip the dead man, and garb himself in the German's uniform. Then, with horror at the necessity for the act, he thrust the dead body and his own garments into the burning wreck of the two aeroplanes.
He could not travel. Indeed, it would aid him not at all to leave the vicinity of the fallen machines, for he could not pass the enemy's lines even in the borrowed uniform.
He sank, in the darkness, upon a bed of leaves. He had but a dim remembrance of that night, or of being found in the morning by the searchers and his transportation in the ambulance to the hospital station.
When he really awoke it was to a belief that he was again in the hospital back in New York. He opened his eyes to see the Herr Doktor Franz Herschall standing beside him and Belinda Melnotte leaning solicitously over his cot, saying in German:
"Doctor, here is one who has just been brought in. A very brave man, they say. He fell last night in a duel in which he destroyed his antagonist, a French flying-man."