CHAPTER VIII
BLAINE'S FURTHER ADVENTURES
Once more sharp reports from the Archies came from below. Whether these were by the battery he had seen Lafe could not now tell. So thick was the fog, the gun flashings did not reach up to where he was now spiraling still upward, in order to get beyond the chance effect of some stray shot.
All along the now distant battle line the dull red glow of bursting shells lined the front as the rumble of sound jarred more clearly upon his ears. Undoubtedly some kind of battle must be going on. Was it one result of the night raid? Was Fritz, now that his observation points were at least temporarily out of active service, taking his revenge by another drive? And where the Allies would least suspect? That is, right over the Appincourte Bluff?
"What ought I do?" reflected Blaine, still gently climbing higher. "It's a still night, foggy, good for most anything up here, except to see or be seen and that's what I don't want. Wonder if poor Finzer had his night signals along? Ah, here they are!"
He was overhauling with one hand a small locker that was part of the fuselage Moreover, there were still two unused sheafs of ammunition for the Lewis gun and a few grenades and bombs. Finzer had not expended all his allotment in the balloon attack.
"Guess I'd better edge in towards where that drive seems to be centering. That is the reason, probably, that this battery broke in where I was on the point of going up again. Fritz is up to some new thing, I'll bet."
Taking his bearings as best he could, Blaine headed more westward, keeping at an elevation of six or seven thousand feet.
"Wonder what they'll think back at the station when they don't find me among the ones that get back? Poor Milt! I lost my machine; he lost his life. And there were others, too. That Montana chap Bangs. Last I saw of him he was right under one of them sausages, letting Fritz have it with the Lewis. Looked like something would get him — heigho! What is that?"
Down below, slightly to his rear, there flashed through the fog a short series of vari-colored lights, which to Blaine's active mind spelled forth:
"Boches 'bout to get me. Big drive on hand. Yonder they go — watch out!"
That was all, but it was enough. Blaine knew that it must come from another of the raiding scouts who had somehow gone down in No-Man's-Land. It might come from a shell hole. Anyway, it was being sent up by some one risking almost certain death in order to let the Allies know that big things were already under way.
"Where are the Boche planes?" Blaine had more than once asked himself. The balloons were gone. The few enemy planes left to guard the gasbags had been put to flight by the daring raiders. Blaine himself had sent one down in flames. Others had followed the retreating raiders. Now that a night drive was on, other planes would be converging towards the salient thus suddenly selected for a night assault. In another instant Blaine's mind was made up.
"Here's at you, my friend," he said to himself. "I'll try to find out who and what you are. Damn the risk!"
With the thought he turned the nose of the triplane downward, so that it was almost at a perpendicular angle. Before this he had noted that around the point whence had risen that telltale signal there seemed to be a foggy void. This meant to Lafe that, for the present at least, there was nothing doing at this particular spot. Of course those signal lights might draw dangerous attention, but Blaine had resolved to risk the chances of that. Perhaps one of his comrades in distress had deliberately courted death or imprisonment m order to let their side know what was taking place. "Bully boy, whoever he is!" he thought.
Briskly yet carefully working his machine, Lafe descended until, when he flatted out, he could see through the fog the darker background of war-torn earth.
"I'll flash our private signal," he resolved. "He may see it. So may
Fritz. But — here goes!"
Lafe pressed with his foot upon a certain button that was connected with an electric flashlight fastened in a special groove at a downward angle of the fuselage or body of the car. At each pressure certain flashes emitted the message of inquiry in private code.
"Where are you, pal? I'm coming. Let me know if you can."
Circling round at an even slightly lower level, he continued to signal but without avail. Just as he was about to quit and rise higher again, he detected a faint red and blue gleam that apparently ceased without rime or reason. One faint glimmer succeeded, but died out as if suddenly broken off.
Without waiting for more Blaine gave a searching look around but, seeing nothing through the mist, gently, cautiously felt his way downward, easing up in speed as best he could. The wheels jolted over rough but level ground, until the nose of the plane shoved itself against an abrupt angle of rough earth that brought him to a halt all at once. Quickly he adjusted the controls and, revolver in hand, boldly leaped out.
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?