CHAPTER XVIII—THE RED SQUADRON
When Don Hale saw the red planes of Captain Baron Von Richtofen behind him he certainly received the shock of his life. The oncoming storm, the sense of solitude and the great expanse above the clouds had all lulled him into a sense of security.
A moment’s indecision nearly finished his career as a combat pilot. Streams of bullets were flashing past, and one of them, crashing through the little curved wind shield in front of his head, brought him to a realization that only the quickest possible action could save his life.
He did then what many a flying fighter had done before him. A quick movement of the control lever dipped the rear ailerons, sending the plane almost vertically downward toward the earth. With the engine stopped, he tipped to one side, and the machine entered the vrille, or spinning nose dive.
With frightful velocity, turning on its axis, the Nieuport dove through the agitated storm-clouds. The wind roared past him as it had never roared before, singing and moaning, like the strains of some wild, weird symphony as it beat against the plane’s wires and supports. Gasping for breath, almost dazed by the fearful whirling motion, the boy, nevertheless, felt the joy of triumph surging within him. He had cheated the birds of ill-omen of their prey. He could laugh at their efforts. They would never catch him now that he knew of their presence in the sky.
Down, down shot the little biplane through an obscurity so dense that nothing could be seen in any direction. And soon, while still surrounded by the heavy vapors, it straightened out parallel to the earth, and, shaken and rocked by the wind, sailed swiftly ahead.
But at that instant, just as all danger seemed to be passed, Don Hale made another most alarming discovery—something had happened to his motor, and though he strove with the utmost desperation to get it started it persistently refused to work.
“Tough luck!” he burst out, aloud. “This is the worst ever! Here I am miles over German territory.”
Filled with apprehension, with all sorts of dreadful fancies running through his mind, and the dread and uncertainty of it all making his nerves tremble and twitch, the young combat pilot volplaned through the clouds.
Presently he skimmed through the thinner mists, and saw the darkened and sombre-looking earth beneath him. His head was still aching from the effects of the headlong plunge. His breath, too, came in short and painful gasps. But all these physical manifestations were almost unnoticed in the pilot’s excited state of mind.
Was there nothing that he could do to avert the fate for which he seemed destined?
There must be. Surely his career as a combat pilot was not going to come to such an inglorious end!
Feverishly—energetically, Don Hale continued to manipulate the levers that controlled his motor. But there was no sign of it awakening into life. And all the while he was gliding nearer and nearer the earth.
Now the vague, indefinite blurs of color were becoming definite forms and shapes, and the meaningless patches of light and dark houses and trees.
Sick at heart, feeling that everything was lost, with the direst fear of an impending tragedy uppermost in his mind, the boy at length sat back in his seat, and, for the first time, paid close attention to the ground that seemed to be rapidly rising to meet him.
He had concluded that in the all-pervading gloom the Germans had not discovered his presence, but almost immediately the anti-aircraft batteries got into action and the surrounding air became suddenly filled with exploding shrapnel shells.
Now he could hear their viciously-sounding detonations, and the steady crackling of the guns which had sent them aloft.
Though faint and weak, the instinct of self-preservation asserted itself, enabling him to turn the machine this way and that, in an effort to dodge the hail of missiles. The Nieuport was wildly careening from side to side or dropping short distances at lightning speed; and, to add to his dismay, streams of “flaming onions,” like rockets of a greenish hue, darted toward the helpless airplane, sparkling brightly in the darkened atmosphere.
Yet, despite the terrible reality of the situation, it seemed to Don that he was going through some strange, weird dream. Dumbly, he wondered how soon the end would come. Only a miracle, it seemed, had saved him thus far. He could not expect such good-fortune to continue. He seemed to stand on the dividing line between life and eternity.
And when a strange, inexplicable calmness had taken possession of him and he felt resigned to the impending fate, the resounding din of the batteries below and the ear-splitting, appalling detonations of the shells suddenly ceased, and he was gliding through the smoke-filled air as unmolested as though on his own side of the line.
What did it mean?
The explanation was simple. The Germans below had at last realized the truth. They were merely waiting for the machine to drop into their midst. It was a galling thought. Not three hundred feet below he could see them. And that picture of men gathering together in groups, of men running and gesticulating, made a curious impression upon his overwrought brain.
Many a time he had heard the boys jocosely referring to the words “Kamerad, kamerad,” and for the first time he was in a position to realize fully what that cry must have meant to some of those who uttered it. And after the glorious, boundless freedom of the air—of the vast spaces—how could he stand the horrors of a detention camp, where men, penned in like sheep, were guarded and fed almost as if they were so many captured animals!
Now he was one hundred feet nearer the earth—one hundred feet nearer the clutch of his enemies—and, with the smoothness of a toboggan, the machine was still gliding downward. Yes, the journey would soon be over! He began to think of what the boys of the escadrille would say. In his mind he pictured them sitting around the supper table, speculating as to his unhappy fate.
How strange—how remarkable it seemed to be right there among the enemy! Still held in the grip of an unnatural calmness, he gazed indifferently at those gray-clad figures whose upturned eyes were fastened upon the descending machine.
Now only seventy-five feet separated him from the ground. He would be glad when all was over.
“There won’t even be any chance to set fire to the machine,” he groaned, aloud. “The Germans will capture it intact. And who knows to what use the crafty Boches may put it! But they’ll hear no ‘Kamerad, kamerad!’ from me.”
Suddenly a revulsion of feeling swept over the boy. The sight of the Germans crowding around seemed to fill him with an anger he could not repress. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in impotent wrath. And with this fierce rebellion against the cruel fate that awaited him his thoughts flashed back to Captain Baron Von Richtofen and his scarlet planes. How little he had thought when hearing about them in the Café Rochambeau that that selfsame Squadron of Death was destined to play a part in his own career!
For hardly a moment had Don ceased his efforts to get the engine running, and though it seemed useless—a futile task—he renewed them once again. And just as he was about concluding that nothing remained to be done but make a landing on a field toward which he had been heading, his ears caught a sound which fairly electrified him.
“At last!” he gasped.
With a preliminary cough, one of the cylinders of the motor started to work. Could it actually be possible?
A fierce, wild hope, painful in its intensity, seized upon Don Hale. It was an agonizing moment—a moment in which he suffered all the torture of a mind agitated by the most violent conflict between hope and fear.
And while the combat pilot was vaguely wondering if he had received just another cruel stab the old familiar, deafening roar, with startling abruptness, began to resound.
Uttering a shrill whoop of joy, Don Hale sent the Nieuport upward.
No music composed by the world’s greatest masters could have sounded more sweet to him than the steady reverberations of the engine. It still seemed unbelievable—something that could not be. All the joys of a man who, having given up hope, is unexpectedly granted a reprieve were his, as the airplane buffeted its way against the teeth of the ever-freshening wind.
The disappointed Germans immediately sprang to the attack, and the little Nieuport was running the gauntlet of rifle and revolver fire. Fast as it flew, the bullets sped faster, and though the combat pilot could not hear their wicked hum and zip he knew that leaden missiles were flashing all about him, for several holes again appeared in the upper plane.
“Can I make it! Can I make it!” he kept repeating.
Sometimes that wild race against such heavy odds seemed hopeless. He dared not rise too high, for that would give the antiaircraft gunners a chance of bringing him crashing down to the earth. True it was, that many of the infantrymen seemed so paralyzed with astonishment at the sight of a wildly-speeding Nieuport right over their heads as to forget to fire.
As moment succeeded moment, and Don Hale remained unscathed, he peered cautiously over the side of the cockpit. Now he was flying above a little village fairly swarming with the troops of the Kaiser. He could see the heavy camions rumbling through the streets and all the sights typical of military operations which he had observed on the opposite side of the trenches.
The thumping of his heart having in a measure subsided, and the chilling tremors almost disappeared, he found this flying over the enemy’s country, in spite of the bullets that continually sped toward him, a strangely fascinating game.
The little village was presently left far to the rear, and the speeding plane was again over the open country, with its whitish roads and green fields dotted here and there with farms and houses.
All at once he saw something in the distance which caused him to turn his plane in a northwesterly direction. It was a faintish, elongated yellowish spot suggestive of a giant caterpillar, lying close to the ground.
“A balloon—an observation balloon which has just been pulled down!” cried Don Hale to himself. “I’ll get a closer look at it. Great Scott!”
From some totally unexpected quarter he was once again being fired at, and a sharp metallic ring told him that some portion of his engine had been struck by one of the marksmen below.
Once more he passed through an instant of overwhelming anxiety.
But the steady droning roar of the powerful engine brought cheer to his heart.
“No—no; not yet!” he muttered. “I still have a chance to cheat the Boches.”
The thrilling adventures and narrow escapes through which Don Hale had passed instead of lessening his courage and determination had increased them, though he fully realized how strangely the elements of chance had favored him. That sharp ping of the bullet striking the engine acted on his nature like a spark applied to gunpowder, arousing all his combativeness.
As the plane neared the giant observation balloon a sudden and daring idea flashed into the young combat pilot’s mind, and then, almost for the first time, he thought of the part he had played in preventing the destruction of the photographic machine. Why couldn’t he add another feat to his credit?
“By George, I’ll make a good try!” he cried, his pulse beginning to tingle anew.
The Nieuport was now almost upon the huge, unwieldy monster, and Don could plainly see the details on its smooth and shining surface.
The balloon, anchored to a heavy motor tractor, swayed gently from side to side as the cable to which it was attached was drawn down by a windlass. Dozens of men, too, were aiding in its descent by pulling on smaller ropes.
A touch on the control stick sent the Nieuport climbing upward. Then, precisely at the proper moment, Don Hale put an end to the ascending flight, and turning the nose of the machine downward, he shut off the engine and dove straight for the great gas bag.
He had a vision of soldiers scattering in every direction—and they ran like men who were seized with all the mad and unreasoning panic of animals fleeing before a forest fire. There was something ludicrous—almost absurd—in the picture they made which, even in that intensely dramatic moment, involuntarily brought a half smile to the face of the stern, grim-visaged boy in the pilot’s seat.
Don Hale knew that he was running a most appalling risk—indeed tempting fate in a way he had never done before, and staking his life upon his ability to make a success of his daring venture.
The instant for action had come. His machine was pointed directly toward the slick, rounded surface of the balloon.
It made a most alluring target.
Don pushed a button, and by this action fired the eight rockets fastened to the sides of the fuselage.
Instantly there came a resounding, awesome roar, and eight fiery trails, each headed by a brilliant greenish light, were flashing toward the balloon.
Before the pilot could come out of his dive several of the rockets pierced the silken envelope, and from as many points there came vivid bursts of flame—the days of usefulness of that particular “sausage” were certainly over.
Elation was in Don Hale’s heart. And then, just as he redressed[[9]] the machine, he caught a quick glimpse of a mighty burst of flame, which, enveloping the balloon from end to end, rose in ruddy viciously-curling and leaping tongues high in the air. In a moment the Nieuport had passed far beyond.
Casting a look over his shoulder Don saw an extraordinary spectacle—masses of flaming gas swept off by the breeze and illuminating the surrounding gloom.
Triumphant—proud indeed, the boy decided to take no more risks, but make straight for the aviation ground, and, if good fortune still held sway, perhaps reach it before the rapidly gathering storm had burst in all its fury.
Notwithstanding the whirl of excitement, the young pilot had vaguely impressed upon his mind the disturbing truth that the lightning was steadily growing brighter—the reverberations of thunder heavier. To handle the Nieuport successfully in the wind and rain he knew would be a most difficult task.
The boy began to feel, now, the inevitable reaction.
He was seized with a consuming anxiety to be away from the midst of danger. But the rushing currents of air being dead against the Nieuport it seemed to be just crawling along.
For the first time the pilot dared to rise higher. He was passing over one of those desolate stretches which told most eloquently of the terrible conflicts which had taken place. Everywhere great shell-holes, in places overlapping one another, pitted the earth, and the bottoms of many were partly filled with muddy water left by recent rains. Of all the desolate, depressing sights which the eyes of man could look upon this seemed one of the worst. It was as though a blight had descended upon the earth, to wither and destroy everything which lay in its sinister path. Not a village—not a house remained; all were in crumbling ruins. Even the streets themselves could not be traced; and of the trees and patches of woods there remained but grotesque, gaunt trunks, entirely stripped of branches and leaves.
Of course this was not a new sight to the boy, and, under the circumstances, he paid but little attention to it. Thoughts of the trenches over which he must pass, and of the flying “Archies” the plane would be sure to encounter were in his mind. He must ascend still higher.
“This has been a trip, sure enough!” muttered Don. “But if I get through safely I’ll never regret it. To-day, I feel that I have done my bit for the Allied cause.”
Continually, he glanced in all directions. Vigilance was the price of life. Many an airman had been stealthily approached from behind and brought down without ever knowing what had struck him, and in the gloomy shadows cast by the heavy storm-clouds it was doubly necessary to search the heavens for every sign of the foe.
But, in spite of all the pilot’s extreme care, he was destined to make presently another discovery—a discovery which once more set the blood throbbing in his temples. It was the sudden appearance, at about his own altitude, of another of Captain Baron Von Richtofen’s planes. It had approached dangerously near, too, before he was aware of its presence.
It took Don Hale an instant to recover his wits. One moment he had seemed to be alone in the vast expanse, and in the next he was confronted by one of the scarlet enemy.
With lightning velocity the Boche bore down upon the Nieuport, and before Don Hale could make a move to alter his course luminous bullets were cutting a fiery trail through the gloom about him.
| [9] | Redressed—Straightened out. |