Books: Our Pilots in the Air
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Captain William B. Perry >> Our Pilots in the Air
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Dark it was, except for the lurid flashings of distant artillery, while
to the west the roar of infantry battle sounded much nearer than when
Lafe was high up in the air.
"Where am I?" he asked himself, reaching for his pocket flashlight.
"Surely this must be No-Man's-Land!"
Thus thinking, he stumbled against another plane; not his, but the
wreck of another one. Intuitively he felt that he must have landed
right. Feeling round him, he detected certain signs that made him
almost sure one of the raiding scout machines had fallen here.
"This must be one of those big shell holes," he thought. "Why -- what
if it is where those signals came from?"
Just as Blaine was about to climb up the incline of disrupted earth,
his flashlight sending gleams here and there, a voice he recognized
,sounded:
"Halt, you! I heard your motor, but you won't get me without a fight."
"Damn if it ain't Buck all righty," said Blaine, still climbing.
He turned his light to where the voice sounded, and bellowed,
regardless of consequences:
"Don't you know your squad leader?"
"Good gracious! You -- here?" The youth from Butte, Montana, was
peering down at advancing form, delighted amazement in face, but he
only said: "Shut off your light Sergeant! We're surrounded by - by -
them! That's better! Where'd you come from?"
"Oh, I just dropped down in answer to your signal. I thought if the
Boches were about to get you, they might have another chance at me,
see?"
A faint yet hilarious chuckle came forth. Then:
"Say, Lafe, when I first tumbled down here, I thought I was a goner.
But I wasn't hurt much. My machine is smashed, though."
"What brought you down? Why didn't you go a little further?"
"I would have, but Archie got me just as I thought I was about safe.
That ain't all. I guess our downing them sausages was a bit too for
Hans. Directly after that they started the hottest barrage fire you've
seen in a month of Sundays. Keepin' it up yet, only they've slacked a
bit along here. I kept thinkin' how I was going to get out of this
when I heard the tramp and scuffle of advancing infantry.
"All at once I knew. They're sour yet over busting up their big
underground at Appincourte Bluff; and now comes this raid of ours and
away goes that string of a dozen balloons. I guess it was too much."
"Infantry! What infantry? Oh, you mean Fritzy!"
"Who else? Well, Fritz came with such a rush he didn't look for me.
There was a lot of him passed. I scrunched down inside this crater the
best I knew how and directly I knew I must let our folks know. Then's
when I sent up my signals -- in code, of course."
\"That's so, Buck. I saw 'em and read 'em."
Buck was grinning to himself.
"You?" Bangs looked his astonishment. "Well, if we warned our folks in
time, and I guess I did by the sounds, and then caught hold of you, it
was a lucky venture."
"You caught me all right. But how are we going to get away? Say your
machine is busted?"
"How'd ye know?"
"Well, by the way it came down and struck. I have no tools with me,
and I had to crawl in here in a hurry."
"Come on," ordered the Sergeant in his official tone. "We've got no
time to lose. I've got tools or rather Milt had."
"What's the matter with Finzer?" Buck was keenly concerned for he and
Milt had been quite chummy.
Blaine told him briefly all that had happened.
"And you had to leave him back there? Well - well, it's war. Sure he
was dead? By thunder! I'll get even yet with Hans -- Gawd willin'.
The skunks!"
All this and more while Lafe, now alert and busy, was getting out
Finzer's tools. Presently the two were examining Buck's plane which
they found was practically all right except for a big rent in two of
the wings. With the appliances at land this did not take long, for
both worked frantically, knowing that hostile planes from the
neighboring front would soon be hovering near and also that the
infantry was due either to reform the battle line or, if not, that
reinforcements might pass at any time.
In a very short while the job was done. To Blaine's surprise Buck
began nimbly climbing back up the crater wall.
"Where ye going?" he gently called, but only heard in reply:
"In a minute -- in a minute!"
But while Blaine was fuming, still getting things in readiness, Bangs
slid back down the embankment, dragging a shabby gray army overcoat.
Lafe looked disgusted. He snatched it, held it up, flashed his light
over it, then cast it down, saying:
"That's a Boche infantry coat -- officer's, I reckon. What do we want
of that? Get into your place. I've turned your machine round."
Both climbed in, Bangs stowing in his own machine the coat he had
delayed both to secure, a said the while:
"When those charging battalions went by, of their officers threw away
his coat. They were on a double quick, to reinforce others that gone
on before I came down.
"Lucky they happened to have no planes. Otherwise I'd never pulled
through. As it was she was a close squeeze. I slipped down, bagged
the coat, and here she is. You needn't laugh, Sergeant. There's maps
and papers inside. Might be wuth something to our side yet."
"Bully for you, Bangs! I was wrong. Are you ready? Then follow me!
We're going to stick round the Boche flanks a bit and who knows what we
may run up against?"
Without a bit of trouble Blaine's triplane glided upward after a short
slide over the rough level of No-Man's-Land, and he was off. Buck
attempted to follow but the machine skidded sideways, struck a slope
and after a mute struggle with adverse conditions came to a standstill.
Cursing to himself, Buck jumped out, forced his plane to a more stable
level, then mounting to his seat again he put on all power to try to
overtake his companion. But in that short interval Blaine had vanished
in fog.
"If this isn't bad luck, I don't know what is!" soliloquized Buck, as
his Nieuport began to rise. "If I'd got off at first, I wouldn't 'a'
lost Lafe. Well, I must do a trifle of scouting on my own hook. "
Buck was climbing, not too fast, for he watched, still hoping that
something might happen that he would sight Blaine again. Flying thus
easily, climbing still higher, he was all at once startled by a burst
of machine gun fire from the ground ahead. There came a reply higher
up, and he felt that this must come from Lafe.
Mounting swiftly, he presently became conscious that a machine was
hovering above and behind, "getting on his tail" as the slang runs
among aviators at the front. The quickest way to avert the danger was
first to try the "side loop" which is a kind of "loop-the-loop"
sideways, a risky trick, yet a good thing if rightly done. Buck tried
it instantly. When upside down he darted ahead swiftly but in a
reversed course, bringing him fairly behind the other plane as he,
righted.
As he came up to a level again, now behind his opponent, he saw for an
instant that the shadow looming scarce fifty yards ahead looked
strangely like Blaine's machine. What to do next -- before firing?
Use his private signal, of course. No sooner thought than done. Two
peculiar flares shot forth, each glowing brightly for an instant, then
vanishing.
"But -- hey?" Bangs was ejaculating to himself excitedly. "Will he
answer?"
Up, up climbed Buck, his pulses throbbing for one long instant, the
nose of his machine settling rapidly on the tail of the other plane.
Then came an answering flash. After that another.
"Bully for you, Lafe! My, that was a close call! I mustn't lose track
of him again. We'll be there with the goods yet, if we stick
together." This to himself.
Presently both machines were moving side by side, hardly fifty yards
apart. To come closer at this rate of speed these small scouting
planes maintaining would have caused a mutual air suction that might
cause a collision. This is the real cause of many of the accidents
that befall inexperienced aviators, when out flying, perhaps by
themselves.
The night, of course, was far spent. The fog was lightening
imperceptibly. Their watches betokened that it was nearing three a.m.
Blaine got out his megaphone, for talking at high altitudes is much a
matter of expanded lung power. He began, as usual, with a joke.
"Like to 'a' got you back there!" he shouted. "Where you been?"
"Looking for you mainly. What you going do next?"
"See that line of fire off norwest! We that's where our front and
Johnny Bull's join. Appincourte Bluff seems either to have been turned
or to have turned Fritzy off. Ready for a scrimmage?"
"You ought to know, Lafe!" Bangs laughed easily into the megaphone.
"Ready for most anything."
"Well, our front there is rather weak. Follow me. Don't lose me.
We'll give that infantry a time trying to find out who we are that's
spitting on them from overhead. Catch me?"
"Yep-fire away! Suits me!"
In another few seconds the two machines were flying through the
thinning fog, gradually lowering their altitude and nearing at a rate
of a mile and a half a minute the advancing lines of the enemy,
revealed only to these fliers by the close barrage fire maintained by
their artillery in the rear.
Of course beyond this barrage must be certain observation planes. The
chance must be taken of meeting one of these. Meanwhile the first
thing was to begin upon the assaulting battalions with their machine
guns.
Almost in an instant they were over the front platoons, flying as close
as they dared in order to escape the barrage that was passing overhead,
falling now behind the front trench line of the Allies. This in order
to stop, or at least hinder the arrival of such reinforcements as could
be thrown forward to strengthen this suddenly assailed point.
These planes, being of a late design, had a device whereby the aim of
the Lewis gun could be instantly altered from a horizontal to a
perpendicular slant. Moreover both Blaine and Bangs had repeating
rifles, and revolvers. Great dexterity was shown by each as their
machines, slackening their speed to that most suitable for accurate
firing, their motors roaring right over the assaulting columns, poured
down a spray of bullets that inevitably found a human mark.
Fritzy usually charges in dense masses. He is "cannon fodder"; he knows
it, but apparently doesn't care. Now, however, he dodged, dived,
hunted shell holes, and otherwise evinced extreme terror. First one
plane, then the other, at nearest safe distance apart, rained down
showers of death. Was this another repetition that earlier trench
assault that resulted in the destruction of the sausages? It looked
so. might also be other swift moving machines behind, each pouring
leaden showers on infantry now defenseless. Yet a moment before they
were placidly plodding on towards the death in front, for which they
had been driven forth by their officers that night.
Occasional shots were fired upward by soldiers here and there. But
though close, so swift were the machines that they vanished almost at
once from the time of their first appearance at any given point.
Only two? No more. Fritzy began to take courage. Both planes were
now whirring on somewhere else. But were they truly gone?
Even while officers were taking heart and again driving forward their
men, back came the two planes upon their former path, but now going
south instead of north.
Again were the former scenes repeated, with even worse results.
But now arose another sound, a sound as of an advance from the Allied
trenches. What could be?
CHAPTER IX
THE FINAL FIGHT
The two aviators, their planes much shot with holes but otherwise
unhurt, rose suddenly, swooping in long circles to higher and yet
higher altitudes. The first flushes of dawn were breaking. In the air
two observation planes flying over the Allied front were signaling to
the German batteries in the rear, from which came the barrage
protecting their infantry from Allied advances. At once they knew what
to do.
Both drove on through the hostile fire and bore down upon these
observation biplanes. Observation planes are not good fighters. In
less than a minute after rising those two fighting planes had chased
the larger, slower machines off the ground.
But what was Blaine's surprise to see Bangs, not a hundred yards away,
making bold signals strange code to the Germans back in the rear. Lafe
himself could not read them. What did it mean? For an instant there
flashed to him a suspicion that Bangs from Montana might not be just
plain American.
"I won't think such a thing!" thought Lafe. "What is he up to?"
Then he saw that the enemy barrage was falling further back, just about
where the recovering infantry was resuming its advance, after the short
shock occasioned by the two raiding triplanes that had suddenly gone
aloft.
"Were the Allies in their turn assaulting the Boches? What could it
mean? In another brief interval Blaine found out, when sudden
demoralization set in at once. Without apparent cause the Boches, now
nearly upon the first Allied trenches, found that they were the center
of a bombardment from the rear. What did that mean? The fire was
withering.
Could the foe they were attacking be taking them in the flank? The
idea was almost unbelievable. And yet the fire was also insupportable.
With one accord the front lines recoiled, although their officers beat
the privates with their sword flats, cursing and reviling them as
cowards. Right on top of this, the queer noises in front materialized
into certainties.
The Allies were advancing. Were there not also reinforcements behind?
Reinforcements hitherto kept back by what? The barrage. Where was
that barrage now? Falling not only on their rear but also further
back. How did this happen? Where were their own planes?
Officers and men were dropping on every hand. A charging foe in front
was almost on them. After a minute or two of this, that whole section
of the advance appeared to melt like froth on the water.
Meantime up above, and from a higher altitude than before, Bangs
continued his mysterious signaling; not to Blaine or to the Allies, but
-- wonder of all wonders -- to the Boches themselves.
Blaine now understood this, for he had noticed that the barrage itself
had fallen back. Instead of covering and protecting the Germans, it
was slaughtering them even more than the two aviators had done with
their machine guns from a lower altitude.
Upon the sudden rout below, which was sensed rather than seen by the
two fliers as the dawn rapidly grew, came the new rush of the Allies.
By this time Blaine felt that he and Buck must do one of two things.
Those retreating observation planes would undoubtedly bring up air
reinforcements. The barrage had already stopped. This was good for
the charging Allies as well as the retreating Boches.
"Buck and I have either got to get back inside our lines or fight," he
thought, carefully balancing his triplane against a rising breeze. "Or
we might rise higher and take another chance. One thing we have done.
We've helped bust up that charge, no matter how their advance has fared
at Appincourte or elsewhere."
Forward went the Allied infantry, driving the now disrupted Huns before
them. The fog kept clearing. Presently both Blaine and Bangs saw
heavy masses of men advancing in platoon formation over the scraggy
battle-scarred plain. They were probably two miles distant from the
retreating Huns.
Blaine darted back and sent out his signal flares, announcing the fact.
Indicating the probable distance, he waited for the barrage he was
sure would come. Bangs, seeing that Lafe was signaling, doused his now
useless Boche flares and confirmed what Blaine had signaled. Presently
the barrage began, and now both saw that it was incumbent on them to
remain up there as long as possible to assist the new Allied assault by
rendering their barrage effective.
But Bangs once more perplexed Lafe by another manifestation of his way
of fooling the Germans. More and more Blaine was perplexed.
"Where in sin did Buck get read up in Boche code flares like he is now?
I know a thing or two, but he's got me beat to the woodpile this time!"
Bangs, spiraling upward and back towards the Hun front, was sending
forth flare after flare that was meaningless to Lafe, yet which was for
some purpose. Then suddenly Buck shot off on the side towards Blaine
the following words in the code familiar to all Allied spad-pilots.
"Get back! Tell our folks to double their fire, keeping ahead of our
advance. Savvy?"
Blaine mutely obeyed. The Allied fire was redoubled as per
instructions. Buck, by this time far to the east, could now be seen
making back towards the Allied front where Blaine was zigzagging to and
fro waiting for what might come. Suddenly, behind Bangs, he saw the
speck-like dots of Teuton planes emerging into the upper air and
rapidly approaching. At the same time other planes in the west
appeared, biplanes, scouts, and one or more heavy battle planes.
Evidently the cards were being laid for a squadron air battle unless
something else intervened. Instinctively Lafe thought of his
ammunition roll. He was well supplied at starting on this trip, and
had transferred his own remaining stock to Finzer's plane when
abandoning his own. But the most of it had already been used. It was
not likely that Buck was any better prepared in that line. At least
they might wait and join their own planes, now coming out of the west.
In the east the hostile squadron came on rapidly. Deploying as they
advanced, both Blaine and Bangs could see that there were battle
planes, scouts, and heavy bombing machines. These last were sweeping
lower, trying to get in range of the advancing Allies.
"Come on! Hurry up!" both aviators kept repeating to their own
advancing air fleet. "No time to waste! Let's get at 'em. They're
going to bomb our front lines."
Almost immediately a number of fast triplanes forged on ahead of the
rest at a speed which a year before would have been deemed impossible.
Joining the two weary airmen who had been up all night, yet were still
full of the battle hunger, they swept low down and straight at the
bombing planes, now beginning to drop their deadly explosives along the
lines of advancing infantry. But only for an instant, as it were, did
they go uninterrupted.
A hail of bullets from machine guns rained down upon them. In almost
no time two of these planes went staggering earthward. Blaine,
forgetting his almost empty sheaves of Lewis gun ammunition, hung upon
the tail of one, while Buck, with side loops and a nose dive, flung
himself almost literally on another.
"Holy Moses!" ejaculated Buck as his last full sheaf went into the
cartridge roll, and he realized that with this gone he would be
absolutely helpless. "I don't want to quit. But if this don't fetch
another one, I'll have to. I'll have to anyhow."
In the meantime, the Boche fighting planes had mixed in with the Allied
fighters, interrupting their assault upon the bombers. And such an
exhibition of diving, darting, nose dipping, looping, and what not had
seldom been seen along that extended front.
Realizing the damage to be done by bombs on the unprotected infantry
charging below, both Blaine and his comrade kept strictly after the
bombing planes. Let those fresh arrivals who had plenty of ammunition
attend to the fighting Fokkers and other battling planes that had
arrived so inopportunely.
By this time the anti-aircraft guns were getting in their work. With
the targets so close, though darting hither and yonder with bewildering
speed, two of the German fighting planes were soon zigzagging towards
the ground. One fell right in the path of a disorderly advance of the
infantry, which happened to be a well-known Canadian battalion. From
his perch, his own ammunition exhausted, Blaine saw those troops surge
around and over that unlucky plane, then pass on, leaving a flaming
wreck behind.
The bombs began to explode. Blaine saw the danger to other troops
behind. It so happened that these troops were Sammies and Blaine, with
a swoosh, swept down to within a dozen yards right over the heads of
these men and the column heard his megaphone bellowing:
"Watch out, bunkies! 'Ware that wrecked plane! She's full of Boche
bombs. Watch out -- spread out! Give it room! Oh, you doughboys!
Rah for Uncle Sam!"
Recognizing the meaning and divining that it must be an American, the
Sammies shouted back as they divided and gave the necessary room:
"Oh, you Spaddy! What you doin' down so low? Rah for you! Bully boy!
Rah, rah, rah! You're all right!"
And on they went, comforted themselves, and comforting the weary,
ammunitionless aviator who now recognized that his present job was
about over.
His plane was literally shot to pieces. The wings hung in tatters.
Only the vital mechanism that kept him moving, thereby supporting him
in the air, fortunately remained untouched. Even now he staggered and
with difficulty rose a trifle upward, while off to the right he saw
Bangs in even a worse fix.
The latter, with his wings honeycombed by bullet holes, had received
the full charge of a machine gun from some passing battle plane in an
around his propellers. His supply of ammunition too was now exhausted.
Could he make the ground in a safe place? With every ounce of power,
his propeller crank revolving like lightning, still he made alarmingly
slow progress. Good reason why. Two of his propeller blades were shot
off. The other two were revolving swifter than can be imagined. He
felt that he was drifting down, down, amid the riff-raff, smoke and
confusion of a battlefield over, which the thunders of conflict had
twice passed.
Above, the aerial battle was still going on, though making towards the
east; for the Germans, following their retiring columns, were being
slowly yet persistently pushed back to their trenches. Occasional
bullets spattered about him. Day was fully on, and a rising sun
disclosed a prospect of clearing skies.
There was a ruined house or cabin just ahead. Could he land there? It
lay deserted for the time being amid war wreck and ruin, its roof
battered in, its stone walls crumbling. Still it promised temporary
shelter. Blaine had vanished. Had his plane gone down? Was he
smitten by a stray bullet? Had his plane, unguided, crashed to the
earth? Would he, Bangs, live to?
Buck's hurried thoughts were suddenly checked by a sharp, stinging
sensation that began at his side, then seemed to fill him completely.
At the same time he realized that his hands no longer hold the steering
wheel. He strove to seize it again, but his muscles did not obey. A
stupor was on him. The sunlight faded, gave way to a bewildering maze
of twinkling stars. His last conscious sensation was that his machine
was crashing downward. Then came a long mental blank.
Meantime Blaine was having his own troubles.
The rest of the air fighting had gone eastward, while he was contending
with the increased crippling of his planes. Overhead he saw only the
now clearing sky. Ahead of him, beyond a rippling stream, lay certain
trenches held, he felt sure, by his own side. But could be reach them?
Far behind the noise of battle rumbled. Where was Buck? Somehow he
had lost sight of his comrade within the last few minutes.
"Buck is a good, bang-up fellow. We ought to go back together."
But his power was waning. Try as he might, the plane was sagging
groundward. Only Blaine's skillful efforts kept it from dropping with
a crash which he knew would probably be the end of him -- Lafe Blaine.
What was that just below him which some scraggy shell-torn timber had
kept him from seeing before?
"Looks like a piece of a house," he muttered.
Stoutly he tried to make the small open space around this half ruined
hovel. Almost he made, it. But just beyond a crumbling stone wall,
that once must have been the enclosure of a tidy yard, the tail of his
machine dipped all at once. It struck the wall, causing the heavier
bow, weighted with the propellers, the petrol tank and the machinery,
to crash downward with force.
The recoil sent Blaine, now at the last physical gasp, plunging forward
over the almost perpendicular machine. He struck the earth heavily,
and lay there almost insensible, while the vanquished plane fell
sideways, striking wall and ground, then, with a last respiration not
unlike that of its master, it lay still, a wreck for the time being.
From out the house two skirted figures ran, figures in nurse's attire,
with the omnipresent red cross blazoned conspicuously on their
white-capped headgear.
"Oh, Andra, Andra!" cried the first to the one following. The last
cast a swift glance back inside the cabin. Then she, too, hurried to
the prostrate form lying beside the wrecked machine.
CHAPTER X
A QUICK CONVALESCENCE
Two days later. The scene had changed. The Allied front, leaving the
rippling stream some two miles or more in the rear, was now showing a
convex bend towards the foe instead of a concave hollow, as was the
case before the :fighting.
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