Aces Up Part 28

"He did take them information. But it was always so cleverly false--just near enough the truth that he could hardly be blamed for not having it more accurate--or else it was the real truth but too late to be of any value to them. You can be sure we gained by his work."

"One more question from me, Major," Larkin spoke up. "What makes you so sure that Count von Herzmann--"

The door was thrown open by a helmeted, muddy doughboy sergeant from the lines. Then into the room, followed by the mud-spattered doughboy and the M.P. detail, walked a smiling, confident, blond young man, attired in the uniform of a member of the British Air Forces.

The suddenness and surprise of the movement started the ends of Cowan's moustache to twitching.

"Sir," spoke up the muddy infantryman, "here's that bozo we all been lookin' for."

Major Cowan arose. "Count von Herzmann, I believe?" he said as calmly as though it were a social meeting.

The prisoner lifted his eyebrows in well feigned surprise. "There is some dreadful mistake here, Major," he said with a calm a.s.surance as he took from his pocket a small identification fold, bound in black leather. "I am--"

"Just a moment," the Major interrupted. "Permit me first to introduce one of these gentlemen. Count von Herzmann, this is Lieutenant Richard Larkin, whose uniform you are now wearing and whose identification card you hold in your hand. I am sure you are glad to meet him."

For the briefest moment von Herzmann's mouth dropped open. He knew the jig was up! Almost immediately, however, he regained the debonair, easy grace of a splendidly poised loser. He bowed to Larkin, who stood with mouth agape and eyes popping out.

"I am indebted to Lieutenant Larkin for the use of his uniform," von Herzmann said. "I regret that it will probably be returned to him with bullet holes in it. Oh, well--such is war, eh? Perhaps he can find some satisfaction in keeping it as a souvenir. He can point to the holes and say, 'Count von Herzmann, the German ace and spy, was just behind these holes.'"

Every man in the room felt awed and a trifle uneasy. Here was a man whose cool courage they could envy. Not every man can face death with so grim a jest.

"However," von Herzmann turned to Cowan, "it gives me pleasure to report that I foresaw the possibility of this very thing and so arranged matters that a certain Mr. Schwarz, whom you call Siddons, will be shot five days from now."

"What!" Cowan stormed. He wheeled to the sergeant. "Sergeant, where did this man--"

"The sergeant doesn't know," von Herzmann put in. "He is the third man in whose charge I have been placed. Perhaps you had better let me tell you, Major. Your planes are quite wretched and inferior, sir, and when the engine of the one I was making use of died suddenly, we were forced to land quickly and take what the Fates had in store. We struck an old sh.e.l.l hole, turned over, and my pilot was killed, poor fellow! Too bad it wasn't the other way round. He wore his own uniform, and could hardly have been shot as a spy."

Cowan sank into a chair, rather heavily. His poise was no match for von Herzmann's, who seemed to be getting a keen delight out of the Major's discomfiture.

"I was not at the controls," von Herzmann continued, "but the engine sputtered as though it were out of fuel."

Major Cowan nodded his head sadly. "It was. Poor Siddons was right," he mused, seemingly unconscious for the moment of the presence of the others.

"Only half right," von Herzmann corrected, smiling.

"No," Cowan replied with spirit, "_all_ right. He feared you might become suspicious and double-cross him, and with that in mind he put just enough gas in the tank to carry the plane there and part way back.

He made rather careful tests. But he installed another tank, with a feed line that he could cut in--_in case he were flying the plane_. If not--well, you see what happened."

Count von Herzmann merely shrugged his shoulders at this piece of news which must have been irritating in the extreme. "Ah, well," he said easily, "one cannot think of everything. In our haste to get away, neither I nor my pilot thought of that possibility. Very clever fellow, this man Schwarz. We both made good guesses, and we both lose. Kismet!

We both serve our country, and we both get shot. So be it. Wars are very old, Major; death quite as common as life; and the old Hebraic law still operative--'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!' In this case, an ace for an ace and a spy for a spy. Even up, and the war rolls on. I wonder, Major, just when it will close?"

Seemingly, as in answer to his question, from toward the front came the sudden roaring of thousands of guns. Doors rattled, the ground quivered, and through the window the sky was alight with a pulsating red-white glare.

For a few minutes every man in the room stood listening.

"What is--that?" Count von Herzmann asked at last.

"The beginning of the end," Cowan answered. "You wondered when it would come. Soon now. Nearly five thousand heavy calibre guns are blowing your trenches to bits, and will continue until we go over in the morning."

"So?" The German's face was a picture of pained surprise. "So the attack comes here? Gott! Had I known--had _we_ known." He paused, obviously pained, then again resumed his jesting poise. "You can be sure, Major, that I regret I am not on the receiving end of your artillery preparation and that I shall be unable to meet your squadron with my Circus to-morrow morning over the lines."

"I dare say," was Cowan's reply as he turned to the sergeant in charge of the Military Police detail. "Sergeant, take charge of the prisoner and deliver him to First Corps Headquarters. And make sure that he does not escape."

The sergeant saluted, grinning expansively.

"He's got a fat chance to get away from _me_, sir," he said. "I'm the spy bustin'est baby in this man's army."

"You will treat him with courtesy," Cowan ordered. "He is a brave man."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied. "So was Nathan Hale, sir--but he got shot just the same."

CHAPTER XIII

The Last of the Big Shows

1

The following morning had no dawning. A light rain had fallen during the night and a heavy, obliterating fog arose from the wet earth, blanketing hill and valley alike. So dense was it that troops in the front lines, peeping over the top in anxious nervousness as they awaited the zero hour, saw nothing but a wall of white that made the sh.e.l.l-tortured land before them more mysterious than any dream of battle ever fancied.

What did it hold? Where were the German lines? And just what had been the effect of this five hour tornado of screaming sh.e.l.ls?

Machine guns, under cover of the fog, were boldly mounted on the trench parapets. They danced and chattered on their tripods as they pounded forth streams of lead upon the unseen enemy positions.

Zero hour at last! Along the line officers blew shrill whistles, or some, calmer than the others, gave the signal with a confidently shouted, "Let's go!"

Over the trench tops poured thousands of khaki clad warriors, sallying forth in the most resolute endeavor ever attempted by American troops.

They had not advanced ten feet from the trenches before the fog swallowed them, magically, and many were never to retrace their steps.

The big show they had so long waited for was here with an ear-splitting, nerve-racking tempest of thundering guns. The Big Parade!

2

At any other time the air forces would have stayed safely at home, not daring to take wing on such a day when the ceiling was scarcely higher than a man's head. But now they must go out, at any cost, blindly flying and vainly seeking some view of the advancing troops. But they went out singly, for to attempt formation flight on such a morning would be to court disaster and death.

McGee and Larkin were the first of the squadron to take off for the front, the interval between their time of departure being sufficient to avoid any meeting as they climbed.

The fog bank was much thicker than McGee had antic.i.p.ated. At a hundred feet he could not see a thing above, below, or on either side. He headed his new s.h.i.+p, a swift Spad, in the direction of Vauquois Hill, intending to cross the line there and hoping that the crest of the hill might loom up out of the fog.

Vain hope. It was impossible to see a thing. Any minute he might go plowing into some hillside or foul his landing gear in the tops of trees. It was eerie business, this flying by instinct and facing the dreaded possibility of coming a cropper.

Several times he cut his motor, and at such times could hear the din of battle below--and it was not any too _far_ below, either.

Added to the fear of cras.h.i.+ng was the thought that any second he might cross the path of a high angle sh.e.l.l which had been directed at some enemy strong point. It was not a pleasant thought, but he could not shake it off. Certainly the air was full of them, and if he was to get any information as to the progress of the battle he must keep low and accept all hazards. Then too, there was the chance that he might meet up with some other plane drilling through the fog.