Bob hovered, reloaded his guns and, picking up his binoculars, looked around for Larry and the antagonist he had pursued. How had Jourdin ever managed, he wondered, to send down the forty-eight enemy planes the famous ace had to his credit. It seemed to Bob sometimes as though the winged fighters were almost invincible. His best efforts, when he flew alone, were usually rewarded by seeing his enemy elude him uninjured.
A cloud lay right beneath him, but as he peered down, searching for the other planes, it floated by, leaving a clear view of the distant earth below. To Bob’s astonishment he discovered that he was over Château-Plessis. There, off to his right, were the wide meadows so familiar to his eyes. Directly beneath was the town itself, looking half-ruined on the side nearest the meadows, but growing less damaged toward the centre. His surprise once over at the distance he had covered from Montdidier, his feeling was one of keen regret. His father and Lucy would see the fight above their heads and suffer all the pain of suspense and uncertainty. Their conquerors would give them no news of the battle unless they could announce a German victory. For as these thoughts flashed through Bob’s mind he saw that this minor fight was growing into a battle.
From the cloud beneath him darted up two German planes, after one of which Larry Eaton’s Nieuport, with its red, white and blue emblems, closely followed. The other German was engaged in a duel with a second American plane, which now appeared behind it, and their loops and spirals left Bob at a loss for the moment to see which had the advantage. His hand was on his control to fly to Larry’s aid, for the foe at that instant had turned upon his pursuer. But some good fortune prompting him to glance upward, Bob saw his old enemy descending on him from the shelter of the cloud-bank. The German opened fire, and Bob made a climbing turn to elude him before attempting any offensive. From his height of some fifty feet above his antagonist he saw the German copying his tactics and rising swiftly to get into range. Bob planned a little stratagem. He wanted above all things to get rid of this pursuer, for with the tail of his eye he saw that the fighters below were engaged in deadly struggle.
As the German rose above him, Bob hovered uncertainly, firing at his enemy from an ineffectual distance, while the latter, contemptuous of these scattering bullets, flew nearer on a higher level, and prepared to pounce. Bob left off firing, gave a swift touch to his responsive motor, and rose like lightning to the other side of his adversary. The German snatched at his port machine gun, but in that second Bob’s deadly broadside had riddled his left wing and torn the fabric to rags. The wire supports cut loose left the wing sagging and powerless. Bob was so close he saw the pilot’s look of furious despair. He saw, too, that even at this moment when his machine wavered to fall, the German’s hand was on his trigger. Bob dropped in a tail-spin as the gun crashed out. A hundred feet down he paused, hovering, and glanced over the cockpit. His enemy’s descent had been quicker than his. He saw the helpless German machine fall to earth among the streets of Château-Plessis.
The next moment he had darted to the aid of the three Allied planes who were now engaged by six Germans. Three of these last had risen from the trenches in front of Château-Plessis. Bob saw with joy that Jourdin was fighting near Larry Eaton’s side. The second American was a veteran of the Lafayette squadron. “We have a good chance,” Bob thought with rising confidence. At the same time he saw the face of the German pilot, who was gracefully maneuvering his monoplane for a shot on Jourdin’s flank. Von Arnheim! Bob sent his plane speeding forward, his determination roused as never before, his eyes on the German’s every movement as Von Arnheim sought with incredible nimbleness to throw Jourdin off his guard.
Meanwhile, in Château-Plessis, the friends of the Allies were watching the fight with desperate interest. The planes were too high to be clearly seen without glasses, and every pair of French or American binoculars had been confiscated. Colonel Gordon’s eagerness had led him out into the garden, his longest walk since his illness, and Lucy glanced anxiously at his pale face from time to time, as side by side they watched the distant planes dart back and forth against the bright blue sky. It was torment to see the fighters’ swift movements without being able to distinguish friend from enemy or even to guess at the progress of the battle. When Bob’s antagonist fell Lucy hid her eyes in horror and dismay. She clung to her father’s arm in panting silence, for words were useless. He knew no more than she whether it was Ally or German, or even Bob himself, who had fallen. The little group gathered around them shifted back and forth in hopeless efforts to get a better sight of the combatants. Only the German officers at Headquarters knew who was winning, and they were not likely to send any news of a reassuring sort to the American hospital.
At Lucy’s entreaty, Elizabeth had gone on a vain search for information. Vain at least so far as getting any accurate news was concerned, for Elizabeth dared not question any one higher in rank than a non-commissioned officer, and these were not supplied with glasses and knew scarcely more than she. The little crowd in the square, among which she paused, was alive with excited speculation, animated or cast down each moment by alternate hopes and fears. Pro-German hopes and fears this time, for most of the crowd, at least the noisiest part of it, was made up of German soldiers. All those off duty or convalescent at the hospitals were there, and Elizabeth soon found an acquaintance.
“Good-day, Sergeant Vogel,” she said politely to a burly, broad-shouldered German who stood staring upward at her side. “We are winning, likely enough, I suppose. I can’t tell though, from here.”
The Sergeant looked down from the sky with a short laugh. “To be sure you can’t, Frau. No more can I. All I know is that one of the birds fell just now. I hope with all my heart it brought a Yankee down.”
“Where did it fall?” asked Elizabeth, cold with apprehension. Bob’s smiling young face flashed before her eyes, and it was hard for her to listen calmly to the Sergeant’s reply.