"A"richt! A"richt! What"s frichtenin" ye?" he demanded indignantly, as they streaked behind his tail. "A"m no" anxious to put ma nose where it"s no" wanted!"
He shook off his pursuers and turned on a wide circle, crossed the enemy"s line on the Vimy Ridge and came back across the black coal-fields near Billy-Montigny. But his attempt to run the gauntlet and to cross Lille from the eastward met with no better success, and he escaped via Menin and the Ypres salient.
"Ma luck"s oot," he reported glumly. "There"s no road into Lille or ower Lille--ye"d better send a submarine up the Liza."
Tam had never thoroughly learned the difference between the Yser and the Lys and gave both rivers a generic t.i.tle.
"Did you see any concentrations east of the town?" asked Blackie.
"Beyond an epidemic of mad Gairman airplanes an" a violent eruption of Archies, the hatefu" enemy shows no sign o" life or movement," said Tam.
"Man, A"ve never wanted so badly to look into Lille till now."
Undoubtedly there was something to hide. Young Turpin, venturing where Tam had nearly trod, was shot down by gun-fire and taken prisoner.
Missel, a good flyer, was outfought by three opponents and slid home with a dead observer, limp and smiling in the fuselage.
"To-morrow at daybreak, look for Tam amongst the stars," said that worthy young man as he backed out of Blackie"s office, "the disgustin"
incivility o" the Hoon has aroosed the fichtin" spirit o" the dead-an"-gone MacTavishes. Every fiber in ma body, includin" ma suspenders, is tense wi" rage an" horror."
"A cigar, Tam?"
"No, thank ye, sir-r," said Tam, waving aside the proffered case and extracting two cigars in one motion. "Well, perhaps A"d better. A"ve run oot o" seegairs, an" the thoosand A" ordered frae ma Glasgae factor hae been sunk by enemy action--this is no" a bad seegair, Captain Blackie, sir-r. It"s a verra pa.s.sable smoke an" no" dear at four-pence."
"That cigar costs eight pounds a hundred," said Blackie, nettled.
"Ye"ll end yeer days in the puirhouse," said Tam.
True to his promise he swept over Lille the next morning and to his amazement no particular resistance was offered. He was challenged half-heartedly by a solitary machine, he was banged at by A-A guns, but encountered nothing of that intensity of fire which met him on his earlier visit.
And Lille was the Lille he knew: the three crooked boulevards, the jumble of small streets, and open s.p.a.ce before the railway station.
There was no evidence of any unusual happening--no extraordinary collection of rolling stock in the tangled sidings, or gatherings of troops in the outskirts of the town.
Tam was puzzled and pushed eastward. He pursued his investigations as far as Roubaix, then swept southward to Douai. Here he came against exactly the same kind of resistance which he had found on his first visit to Lille. There were the three circles of fighting machines, the strengthened Archie batteries, the same furious eagerness to attack.
Tam went home followed by three swift fighters. He led them to within gliding distance of the Allied lines; then he turned, and this time his guns served him, for he crashed one and forced one down. The third went home and told Fritz all about it.
"It"s verra curious," said Tam, and Blackie agreed.
Tam went out again the following morning--but this time not alone. Six fighting machines, with Blackie leading, headed for Douai in battle formation. At Douai they met no resistance--the aerial concentration had vanished and, save for the conventional defenses, there was nothing to prevent their appearance over the town. That same afternoon Captain Sutton, R. F. C., looking for an interest in life over Menin, found it.
He came back with his fuselage shot to chips and wet through from a smashed radiator.
"So far as I can discover," he said, "all the circuses are hovering about Menin. Von Bissing"s is there and von Rheinhoff"s, and I could almost swear I saw von Wentzl"s red scouts."
"Did you get over the town?"
Sutton laughed. "I was a happy man when I reached our lines," he said.
"Maybe they"re trying out some new stunt," said Blackie. "Probably it is a plan of defense--a sort of divisional training--I"ll send a report to G. H. Q. I don"t like this concentration of circuses in our neighborhood."
Now a "circus" is a strong squadron of German airplanes attached to no particular army, but employed on those sectors where its activities will be of most value at a critical time; and its appearance is invariably a cause for rejoicing among all red-blooded adventurers.
Two days after Blackie had made his report, von Bissing"s World-Renowned Circus was giving a performance, and on this occasion was under royal and imperial patronage.
For, drawn up by the side of the snowy road, some miles in the rear of the line were six big motor-cars, and on a high bank near to the road was a small group of staff officers m.u.f.fled from chin to heels in long gray overcoats, clumsily belted at the waist.
Aloof from the group was a man of medium height, stoutly built and worn of face, whose expression was one of eager impatience. The face, caricatured a hundred thousand times, was hawklike, the eyes bright and searching, the chin out-thrust. He had a nervous trick of jerking his head sideways as though he were everlastingly suffering from a crick in the neck.
Now and again he raised his gla.s.ses to watch the leader as he controlled the evolutions of the twenty-five airplanes which const.i.tuted the "circus."
It was a sight well worth watching.
First in a great V, like a flock of wild geese, the squadron swept across the sky, every machine in its station. Then, at a signal from the leader, the V broke into three diamond-shaped formations, with the leader at the apex of the triangle which the three flights formed.
Another signal and the circus broke into momentary confusion, to reform with much banking and wheeling into a straight line--again with the leader ahead. Backward and forward swept the line; changed direction and wheeled until the machines formed a perfect circle in the sky.
"Splendid!" barked the man with the jerking head.
An officer, who stood a few paces to his rear, stepped up smartly, saluted, and came rigidly to attention.
"Splendid!" said the other again. "You will tell Captain Baron von Bissing that I am pleased and that I intend bestowing upon him the Order _Pour la Merite_. His arrangements for my protection at Lille and Douai and Menin were perfect."
"Majesty," said the officer, "your message shall be delivered."
The sightseer swept the heavens again. "I presume that the other machine is posted as a sentinel," he said. "That is a most excellent idea--it is flying at an enormous height. Who is the pilot?"
The officer turned and beckoned one of the group behind him. "His Majesty wishes to know who is the pilot of the sentinel machine?" he asked.
The officer addressed raised his face to the heavens with a little frown.
"The other machine, general?" he repeated. "There is no other machine."
He focused his gla.s.ses on the tiniest black spot in the skies. Long and seriously he viewed the lonely watcher, then:
"General," he said hastily, "it is advisable that his Majesty should go."
"Huh?"
"I can not distinguish the machine, but it looks suspicious."
_"Whoom! Whoom!"_
A field away, two great brown geysers of earth leaped up into the air and two deafening explosions set the bare branches of the trees swaying.
Down the bank scrambled the distinguished party and in a few seconds the cars were streaking homeward.
The circus was now climbing desperately, but the watcher on high had a big margin of safety.
_"Whoom!"_
Just to the rear of the last staff car fell the bomb, blowing a great hole in the paved road and scattering stones and debris over a wide area.