Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic.
by Charles Amory Beach.
CHAPTER I
OUT FOR BUSINESS
"Look! What does that mean, Tom?"
"It means that fellow wants to ruin the Yankee plane, and perhaps finish the flier who went down with it to the ground."
"Not if we can prevent it, I say. Take a nosedive, Tom, and leave it to me to manage the gun!"
"He isn"t alone, Jack, for I saw a second skulker in the brush, I"m sure."
"We"ve got to drive those jackals away, no matter at what risk. Go to it, Tom, old scout!"
The big battle-plane, soaring fully two thousand feet above the earth, suddenly turned almost upside-down, so that its nose pointed at an angle close to forty-five degrees. Like a hawk plunging after its prey it sped through s.p.a.ce, the two occupants held in their places by safety belts.
As they thus rushed downward the earth seemed as if rising to meet them.
Just at the right second Tom Raymond, by a skillful flirt of his hand, brought the Yankee fighting aircraft back to an even keel, with a beautiful gliding movement.
Immediately the steady throb of the reliable motor took up its refrain, while the buzz of the spinning propellers announced that the plane was once more being shot through s.p.a.ce by artificial means.
The two occupants were Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly, firm friends and chums who had been like David and Jonathan in their long a.s.sociation. It was Tom who acted as pilot on the present occasion, while Jack took the equally important position of observer and gunner.
Both were young Americans with a natural gift in the line of aviation.
They had won their spurs while serving under French leadership as members of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. The adventures they encountered at that time are related in the first book of this series, ent.i.tled: "Air Service Boys Flying For France."
After America entered the war, like all other adventurous young Yankee fliers, the two Air Service Boys offered their services to their own country and joined one of the new squadrons then being formed.
Here the two youths won fresh laurels, and both were well on the way to be recognized "aces" by the time Pershing"s army succeeded in fighting its way through the nests of machine-gun traps that infested the great Argonne Forest.
It was in the autumn of the victory year, 1918, and the German armies were being pushed back all along the line from Switzerland to the sea.
Under the skillful direction of Marshal Foch, the Allies had been dealing telling and rapid blows, now here, now there.
To-day it was the British that struck; the day afterward the French advanced their front; and next came the turn of the Americans under Pershing. Everywhere the discouraged and almost desperate Huns were being forced in retreat, continually drawing closer to the border.
Already the sanguine young soldiers from overseas were talking of spending the winter on the Rhine. Some even went so far as to predict that their next Christmas dinner would be eaten in Berlin. It was no idle boast, for they believed it might be so, because victory was in the very air.
So great was the distress of the Hun forces that it was believed Marshal Foch had laid a vast trap and was using the fresh and enthusiastic Yankees to drive a dividing wedge between Ludendorff"s two armies, when a colossal surrender must inevitably follow.
The whole world now knows that this complete break-up of the Teutons was avoided solely by their demand for an armistice, with an agreement on terms that were virtually a surrender--absolute in connection with their navy.
Tom and Jack had displayed considerable ability in carrying out their work, and could no longer be regarded as novices. Each of them had for some time been antic.i.p.ating promotion, and hoped to return home with the rank of lieutenant at least.
They had been entrusted with a number of especially dangerous missions, and had met with considerable success in putting these through. Like most other ambitious young fliers, they hoped soon to merit the t.i.tle of "ace," when they could point to at least six proven victories over rival pilots, with that number of planes sent down in combat.
On the present occasion they had sallied out "looking for trouble," as Jack put it; which, in so many words, meant daring any Hun flier to meet them and engage in a duel among the clouds.
Other planes they could see cruising toward the northwest, and also flying in an easterly direction; but as a rule these bore signs of being Allies" machines, and in all probability had Yankee pilots manning them.
Apparently the Hun airmen were otherwise employed. They seemed to prefer venturing out after nightfall, gathering in force, and often taking a strange satisfaction in bombing some Red Cross hospital, where frequently their own wounded were being treated alongside the American doughboys.
During the weeks that the Americans were battling in the great Argonne Forest the two Air Service Boys had contributed to the best of their ability to each daily drive. Again and again had they taken part in such dangerous work as fell to the portion of the aviators. Their activities at that time are set down in the fifth volume of this series, ent.i.tled: "Air Service Boys Flying For Victory."
Frequently they had found themselves in serious trouble, and their escapes were both numerous and thrilling. Through it all they had been highly favored, since neither of them had thus far met with a serious accident. Numbers of their comrades had been registered as "missing," or were known to have been shot down and lost.
It was no unusual thing a few days after a flier had gone out and failed to return at evening, for a Hun pilot to sail over and drop a note telling that he had fallen in combat, and was buried at a certain place with his grave so marked that it could be easily found.
There seemed to be a vein of old-time chivalry among the German airmen even up to the very last, such as had not marked any other branch of their fighting forces, certainly not the navy. And the Americans made it a point to return this courtesy whenever an opportunity arose.
Tom was proud of his ability to execute that difficult feat known as a "nose-dive." More than once it had extricated him from a "pocket" into which he found himself placed by circ.u.mstances, with three or more enemy planes circling around and bombarding him from their active guns.
At such times the only hope of the attacked pilot lay in his ability to drop down as if his machine had received a fatal blow and when once far below the danger point again to recover an even keel.
Jack never doubted what the result would be, having the utmost confidence in his comrade. The wind rushed past his ears as they pitched downward; and just when objects on the ground loomed up suggestively there was the expected sudden shift of the lever, a consequent change in the pointing of the plane"s nose, and then they found themselves on the new level, with the motor again humming merrily.
Jack was on the alert and quickly discovered the object that just then enlisted their whole attention. As he had suspected when using the gla.s.ses from the higher level, it was a Yankee bomber that lay partly hidden among the bushes where it had fallen. He could easily see the Indian head marking the broken wing.
The pilot was sitting near by as though unable to make a run for it, although Jack imagined he must suspect the approach of danger, for he gripped something that glinted in the sunlight in his right hand. It was, of course, an automatic pistol.
Looking hastily around Jack glimpsed the creeping figures of the two Germans who, having seen the fall of the Yankee plane, must have come out from some place of concealment and were bent on finishing the pilot, or at least taking him prisoner. They had almost reached a point where it would have been possible for them to open fire on the wounded American.
Jack looked in vain for any second figure near the fallen plane. If the pilot had had an observer with him, which was most likely, considering the fact that he had been using a bombing machine, the latter must have been dispatched for relief some time before.
"There they are, Tom!" burst from the one who crouched close to the machine gun, and pointing as he spoke. "Swoop down and let me give them a volley!"
The Huns evidently realized what was coming, and feared that their intended victim might after all escape their hands. Even as Jack spoke there came a shot from below, and a bullet went screaming past close to the ears of the Air Service Boys. It was followed by a second and a third in quick succession.
What the marksmen hoped to do was either to kill the pilot or else to strike some vulnerable part of the engine, thus disabling it and wrecking the plane. Those were chances which had to be taken continually; but as a rule the rapidity of flight rendered them almost negligible.
Jack waited no longer. The two men were about to fling themselves behind friendly trees, and but a small chance remained that he might catch them before they were able to shield themselves by these close-by trunks.
Jack, in his most energetic fashion, commenced to spray the vicinity with a shower of leaden missiles. The chatter of the machine gun drowned any cries from the two men below. The Yankee plane swooped past the spot where the injured pilot still sat at bay, ready to sell his life dearly if the worst came.
CHAPTER II
THE RESCUE
The rat-tat-tat of gunfire suddenly ceased. Jack could no longer cover the spot where the two Huns were hiding behind the tree-trunks, and consequently it would be a sheer waste of ammunition to continue firing.
But already Tom had commenced to circle, and soon they would be swooping down upon the scene from another direction. Jack kept on the alert, so as to note quickly any possible movement of the enemy.