| [9] | Redressed—Straightened out. |
CHAPTER XIX—THE PERILOUS GAME
At times, when the gravest dangers threaten, the human faculties, in some mysterious way, gain a strength and mastery which completely banish terror. Such was the case with Don Hale. As quickly as it was humanly possible to do so, he turned his plane so that the engine was between him and the showers of bullets. Then, obeying the injunction that self-preservation is the first law of nature, he set the Vickers machine gun into action.
And thus began a terrible duel in the air just beneath the tossing edges of heavy and turbulent masses of vapor. It seemed almost certain that one of the machines must be quickly sent crashing and hurtling downward.
The German pilot was evidently a master of his machine, and his evolutions were performed with the greatest brilliancy. Don Hale had a confused vision of a scarlet object flashing around, above and below him with inconceivable rapidity. And he himself, in order to avoid the enemy, was obliged to execute the most thrilling and daring maneuvers.
And at every favorable opportunity the wicked crackling of the machine guns rang out. Each pilot was fighting with that desperation which characterizes a hunted animal, brought to bay. To Don Hale it seemed more like some thrilling, wonderful sport than an actual combat in which defeat might mean the end of all things earthly. Scores of tracer-bullets, leaving for an instant their long, thin trails of smoke, sped by him whichever way he turned, some passing close to his seat between the planes.
The fight was so fast and furiously contested that Don felt sure it must come to a speedy termination. Every instant he expected to see the bullets from his Vickers put an end to the battling career of that lone member of Captain Baron Von Richtofen’s Red Squadron of Death. Yet, extraordinary as it seemed, the enemy plane continued to flash and circle about him with dazzling speed,—so fast indeed that only a confused and blurred vision of its movements was registered on Don Hale’s brain. Waves of dizziness swept over him; his face was smarting and stinging from the terrific rush of air, while a touch of air-sickness, a malady which sometimes affects even seasoned flyers, was beginning to threaten him.
But, notwithstanding, he managed to keep a firm grip upon all his faculties. One instant of panic—one instant of relaxation he knew would be enough to bring this strange air duel to a dramatic and tragic conclusion. His main effort was to keep zigzagging behind the enemy’s tail, and thus make him waste his bullets on the empty air.
In this he was not always successful. Often he found himself facing the sinister-looking scarlet Albatross, to get instantaneous glimpses of its hooded pilot glaring toward him.