Our Pilots in the Air Part 25

"I settled him, " panted Buck, almost breathless despite himself. "He may have lived in the U. S., but he lacked much of American love for fair play. I wouldn't have run into him if he had acted at all white."

So ran Buck's thought as he sat breathing heavily, watching the plummet flight of the dead German and his flame-shriveling plane to the earth.

Rising again to a higher alt.i.tude, he surveyed the surroundings as well as the night's dim light would permit. Nothing to be seen anywhere.

All at once Bangs thought of Blaine. Faintly he had heard the sound of explosions down near the earth; but whether the same were bombs, or guns, or if any other cause were responsible the lad did not know.

"Ought I to look him up or not?" he more than once asked himself. "No better chap anywhere than Blaine, or for that matter Stanley either."

Circling round a wide aerial expanse while cogitating along these lines, he thought he heard the sound of far-off explosions somewhere below. His timepiece showed that the hour was near three A.M.

Daylight would soon be showing. In the far west and southwest the thunderous roll of artillery was incessant, mingled with sharper minor concussion of small arms, machine guns and musketry.

"That drive must now be in full swing," he thought. "Ought I to circle round there and see if I can do any good? Might take a squint at the Boche front and let our artillery know."

He was about to follow out this when another rattle from below came up.

Somehow he felt that it might be connected with Blaine and Stanley, nor would the notion rest until he began to descend.

The course followed took him somewhat to the north of where the great battle was raging in the southwest, and presently he saw quite an expanse of war-torn forest underneath, or so it seemed from the height at which be flew.

Then a third explosion shattered the air, seeming to rise from directly below. Bangs hesitated no longer. Ascertaining that his petrol was still plentiful, he began gliding downward, over a hamlet or two, mostly in ruins, then over a few small fields, and at last over the scraggy trees. Suddenly he saw to the right a broad oval with what looked like a battered wall around it. It might have been three to four hundred yards in length, by half that in width.

The dim view perplexed him greatly as he flew, not more than from one to two hundred yards above this singular ruin, completely surrounded, as it seemed by forest, or the remains of forest.

All at once, gliding from out some deep shadows, something came rus.h.i.+ng along inside this oval, and stopped. A moment later it appeared to rush again over the same course but in the opposite direction. All this dimly came to Buck, swinging easily along overhead. Then it was all clear to him at once.

"I'm certainly gettin' nutty," he owned to himself. "That's a plane.

Looks like a biplane and it's trying to rise. Why in Hades don't it rise? Probably because it can't."

He knew that the Boche in his Taube had gone down considerably to the northeastward. And the Taube was on fire. No doubt about that. This was not a hostile machine, was it? Bangs did not feel that it was. He had heard along that front tales of a big concrete oval, once erected in the small Duchy of Luxemburg, close to the town of Arion, which town was near a large area of forest. It had been constructed about the era when a revival of old-time Olympic games had roused more or less interest in a modern worldwide partic.i.p.ation in the same, as a sort of antique revival of ancient times. Several celebrations had come off, notably at Athens, at Paris, and elsewhere. Then the interest died out but this concrete oval had remained.

After certain minor uses it had fallen into neglect. When war came that region became more or less ravaged, though somewhat off the track of the main struggles. And here was Buck hovering over this modern relic of an old-time futility, while below him was a mysterious plane trying to rise but apparently not succeeding.

With this train of thought, Bangs got out his remaining signal flares and flashed one of the code signals most in use among the Allied aviators along this front. His pulses leaped when it was answered.

Before Buck could do anything more, there came the sounds of a much nearer explosion somewhat off to the south, fairly jarring the earth with its impact.

The plane below was now motionless. All at once a series of flashes came upward that Buck instantly understood as saying:

"You must be of our side. If not, I'll have to take a chance. We are out of petrol: tank 'prang a leak. Can you help us out?"

"You bet!" flashed back Bangs. "Got enough so that we can both get home again. Who are you?"

This last query was instantly replied to from below by the private sign denoting that the parties below were of such and such squad or escadrille quartered at Aerodrome No. -.

Buck drew a long breath, then he flashed forth his own number and began to descend. Nothing more happened until Buck brought his nimble Nieuport to a smooth standstill a few yards distant from a big biplane that Bangs at once recognized as Blaine's.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed, dismounting and hurrying across the intervening s.p.a.ce. "Isn't this luck - why - why what's the matter, Lafe? Sick?"

But Blaine was only sick at heart. Already be had taken Stanley out of the observer's manhole, had laid the lad down, pillowing his head on a blanket, and was bending low, ma.s.saging Stanley's immobile limbs.

Stanley's face looked deathlike under the flare of Blaine's flashlight.

In an instant Buck understood. Stanley had been wounded, perhaps mortally, during the course of the night raid. Blaine, being unable to keep on his course longer owing to the gradual draining of petrol from the tank as the engines consumed the heat, had managed to descend to this retired place.

With not more than a word or two of explanation, Buck also set to, and both lads did their best to revive Stanley, who had fallen again into unconsciousness. The deadly swoon had been strengthened by Stanley's effort to put the last rack of bombs fully in place during the train bombardment, as we have already seen.

They tried cold water, brandy, and also some medicine Buck produced from his own kitbag, but all to no apparent avail. Meantime the explosions to the southward were increasing and, worse still, were drawing nearer, though slowly.

"We got to get out of this," said Lafe at last. "While I put Stanley back in the biplane yon draw as much of your petrol from your tank as you can spare and put it in to mine."

"All righty oh! We got to get a move on, too. Look yonder!"

A bluish-green roll of flame was moving along the plain beyond the forest, showing dimly above it certain flying specks that were undoubtedly airplanes, but whether hostile or friendly was not apparent.

"Course it's Fritzy, Lafe," was Bangs' comment who, after aiding Blaine to stow the wounded man as comfortably as possible in his own manhole, was already at work replenis.h.i.+ng the biplane's tank from his own. "To be square, I'll divide up, giving you a leetle the most. We gotter to get back -- eh?"

"If possible, yes. I don't hanker after a German prison camp. It would sure kill Stanley, if he isn't dead already."

By the time they had their brief preparations completed, the fire, steadily approaching, struck the edge of an opening through the woods and suddenly burst into tremendous flame, with an accompanying report.

"Wait, Lafe," cautioned Buck, for both were in their seats. "Let, me rise first. I'll mosey towards that fire. As for you and Stan -- you make your get-away. Sooner you get back to the home plate, the more you'll be apt to do for Stan. Stan's a bully chap -- durn 'im."

Up into the air rose the Nieuport, while Buck was thus delivering himself. Over towards the line of fires and the shadowy circling of planes he went while Blaine himself made an attempt to rise. What was the latter's consternation to find that his plane would not rise sufficient to clear the concrete oval by which the open s.p.a.ce was surrounded!

"What will I do now?" Blaine almost gasped. "Must be something wrong with the machinery that I failed to notice."

Another explosion, much nearer, that seemed to tear up trees within the forest. At the same time he distinctly saw Buck's machine circling round and round, high up in the air, and directly over where the last explosion had occurred. It looked puzzling. But Lafe had no time just then to observe Buck's doings except that, during the last flash, the concrete oval had given way.

Meantime the biplane was trying to lift itself a trifle higher, and happened to be beaded towards where the explosions were occurring.

"d.a.m.n if he ain't droppin' bombs, too," Blaine gasped, then quickly solved the riddle of Buck's maneuvers.

Without waiting further, but applying all his power, Blaine drove the biplane forward at full speed, at the same time using both forward and rear steering blades to a.s.sist further elevation of the prow.

"Will we make it?" he asked himself. "If we do, what will we do then?"

Too late to consider pros and cons now. The die was cast, either for good or ill. Then, all at once, he saw Buck's small triplane rise at a marvelous speed, while from the south came several other planes, almost skimming the ground in their onward rush. Also, still further on, was a confused ma.s.s that was struggling rearward, though what it could be was puzzling. It was still too dark to distinguish things clearly when unaided by the fires.

A whistling, whirring swish swept startlingly near his own plane, now at last rising high over the ruins of the oval, forty yards of which were scattered over the earth. From this sounded a well-known voice through a megaphone:

"Follow me -- you -- Lafe! Boches ahead. Follow me -- dodge 'em."

That was all, but it was enough.

CHAPTER XVIII

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