Air Men o' War

by Boyd Cable

So both waited, Dixie with his hand on the ripping-cord, both with their heads over the side, their eyes fixed on the passing ground. There was a strong wind blowing, and, as they came closer to the ground, they began to discover the surprising speed at which they were travelling, to feel a good deal uneasy about the crash with which they must hit solid earth. The balloon was falling now at dangerous speed, and, worse, was coming down in a series of wild swings and swayings.

"The wood!" shouted Dixie, pointing out and down. "Better crash her in it, eh?"

"Go on," answered the Boy briefly.

The next minute was rather a nightmare—a wild impression of a sickening plunge, of tearing crackling noises, of breaking branches, of a basket jerking, tossing, leaping, falling, bouncing and falling again, and finally coming to rest amongst the crashing tree-tops, hanging there a moment, tearing free and, falling and bringing up completely with a bump amongst the lower branches, while the envelope settled and sagged and flopped in another crescendo of cracklings and rippings and tearings on top of the trees. The two clung for dear life to their basket; were jerked and wrenched almost from their grip a dozen times; hung on expecting every moment to be their last; felt the basket at last settle and steady, and cease to do its best to hurl them overboard.

They climbed over, caught stray cords, and slid thankfully to firm ground. "Did it ever strike you, Boy," said Dixie, "what a pleasant thing a lump of plain solid dirt under your feet can be?"

That ended their adventure so far as the air was concerned. But it cost them an hour's tramp to find a main road and discover where they were; and another hour to tramp along it to a fair-sized town where there might be an inn or hotel. A mile-stone on the roadside gave them their whereabouts and surprised them by the distance they had drifted back.

They set their faces east and began a steady tramp. The road was rather crowded with a stream of French civilians all moving west, and, as they walked, the crowd grew closer and more solid and showed plainer signs of haste and anxiety. There were no troops on the road; it was wholly filled with civilians—women and children and very old men for the best part, all laden with bundles or pulling or pushing or driving vehicles of every sort and description. There was a cow dragged behind an old woman and a child, a huge bed-mattress bundled and roped on its back; a perambulator piled high with clothing and blankets, and with a baby nested down in the middle of the pile; an old man leading a young child and carrying a bird-cage with two full-sized chickens crammed into it; a decrepit cart and still more decrepit pony, with a load of furniture that might have filled a pantechnicon; a family, apparently of mother and five children of descending ages and sizes, but each with a bundle hugged close; an old bent woman tottering a step at a time on two sticks. All trailed along wearily in a slow drifting mass; and all, except the very young children, were casting uneasy glances over their shoulders, were evidently struggling to put as many paces as possible between them and their starting-point.

Dixie and the Boy knew well what it all meant—merely the evacuation of another village that had come within shell-range of the Hun, or was near enough to the shifting battle-line to make it wise to escape before all in it were engulfed, made prisoner, and set to slavery in the fields on starvation rations for Hun task-masters, or, worse, deported, torn apart, child from mother, weak from strong, helpless from helpers, and deported to far-off factories or the terrors of an unknown fate. The French and Belgians have learned their lesson—learned it slow and hard and bitterly—that it is bad to be driven to leave all they own on earth, but infinitely worse to stay and still lose all, and more in the "all" than mere earthly possessions.

Dixie and the Boy tramped slowly against the tide of refugees and drew at last to near the town from which the stream was pouring. It was all very pitiful, very cruel. But worse was to come. The road was one of those long main national route highways common in France, running straight as a ruler for miles on end, up hill and down dale. The roofs of the village were half a mile away, and suddenly, over these roofs, an aeroplane came skimming. It flew low, and it flew in a bee-line along above the wide straight road; and as it flew there sounded louder and plainer the unmistakable ac-ac-ac-ac of a machine-gun; there was plainly to be seen a stream of spitting fire flashing from the flying shape. It swept nearer, and the clatter of its guns sounded now through a rising wail, a chorus of shrieks and calls and sharp screams, and the cries of frightened or hurt children. The gun shut off abruptly as the machine swooped up; burst out again in a long savage tattoo as it curved over and came roaring down in a steep dive. In the road there was a pandemonium of screams and cries: a wild turmoil of figures rushing hither and thither, flinging down into the ditches, scrambling over them and fleeing in terror out over the open fields. As the machine dived the two observers could see the streaking lines of the tracer bullets, hear the sharp cracks and smacks of explosives hitting the ground—and other things. They could only stand and curse in impotent rage, and the Hun machine, with a rush and a roar, spat a last handful of bullets over and past them and was gone on down the road. The two stood and watched its graceful soaring and plunging, listened to the steady rattle of its guns, swore savagely again, then turned to help some of the shrieking women and crying children about them. But next moment another distant tat-tat-tat made them look up to see another black-crossed machine, and then a third, leap into sight over the village and come tearing down above the road. Dixie and the Boy both filled the few intervening seconds trying to hustle the fear-stricken villagers off the road down into the cover of the ditches, behind carts—anywhere that might be out of reach of the bullets. But the newcomers had gone one better than bullets for fiendish destruction. As the first one approached a black blob fell away from it, and next second there was a rending crash, a leaping cloud of smoke and dust whirling and eddying up from the road. The machine roared over and past, with her machine-gun hailing bullets down the road, and far down the road came another billowing cloud of smoke and the crash of another bomb. The third machine followed close, also machine-gunning hard and also splashing bombs down at intervals, one falling with horrible effect fairly in a little crowd of women and children clustered under and behind a country cart. The cart was wrecked, and the horse and half of the women and children....