With Haig on the Somme

by D. H. Parry

The officer at the head of the yelling horsemen was not thirty lengths away when the Aviatik began to move; and, roaring out an order to his men to draw their carbines, he emptied his own revolver at random.

Afterwards, when Dennis came to think calmly of that moment, he grew cold and shivered; but at the time itself his heart had given a mighty throb as the rubber-tyred wheels of the chassis left the ground, and they started on their long flight for home.

He knew perfectly well, as several bullets pierced the lifting planes and one starred on the stay he had tightened, that their troubles had by no means ceased when they left the Uhlans behind them. By that time keen eyes would be watching, not only the earth, but the sky, and he had only his wits to guide him.

There was the sun just rising to show him which was the east, and already far down below he saw the ribbon of the Rhine which they must cross; but sluing round to look back, he saw the thing he feared—an escadrille of German aircraft rising from the plain over which the smoke from the Zeppelin hangar still hung.

Already the enemy airmen were in pursuit!

Claude Laval had turned towards him at the same moment, and their eyes met. He had seen it too, but the blanched face of the wounded man shone with hope and confidence. His mouth opened, though the words were lost, but he made a gesture with his sound arm, and Dennis understood.

They were heavy clouds to which Laval had pointed, and Dennis steered straight for them, devouring the chart with his eyes.

Far down below and ahead of them in the extreme distance was the blue line of the Vosges, and he thought he could distinguish the Ballon d'Alsace, but of that he was not sure. His pursuers would naturally imagine that he would make for the nearest point of the French frontier, but that was not in his mind. If he had to deal with the fast-rising Fokkers, his only chance he knew was to gain the cloud-bank and keep within its protecting folds.

To fight with a wounded observer was out of the question, and already he had decided to steer north-west rather than due west, which would bring him, roughly, somewhere between Epinal and Nancy—always provided that he was not overtaken.

There were a thousand risks to run, not only from the enemy fleet, but from the French guns when he should come in sight of them; but as they soared into the chill blanket of vapour his spirits rose, and for a moment he shut off the engines to listen.