Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 24

"He did!" cried Bob. "Well, the nerve of that shrimp! After he took our wood!"

"What did he want?" asked Ned.

"Oh, nothing in particular, as far as I could make out. Just seemed to want to be friendly. Asked me a lot of questions about how I was treated in the hospital and whether I got enough to eat."

"You did, didn't you?" asked Bob.

"Sure. But I don't quite see what Noddy was aiming at. However, I didn't trouble my head much about it until yesterday."

"Why yesterday?" Bob demanded.

"Well, the surgeon who patched me up came and inquired if Noddy was a particular friend of mine."

"Of course you told him he was!" laughed Ned.

"Like fun I did! No, I said I hadn't any use for him, but I didn't go into particulars. After all, Noddy is fighting on our side."

"You mean he's making a bluff at it!" growled Bob. "But go on. Where does the queer part come in?"

"Here," answered Jerry. "The surgeon told me Noddy took him to one side and asked very particularly whether a wound in the hand or one in the foot hurt the most. That's what he wanted to know."

"He did!" cried Ned. "Well, what's queer about that?"

"Don't you see," resumed Jerry, "it looks as though----"

But Jerry never finished that sentence, for as he was speaking came cries of alarm from outside the hospital and the firing of several guns, while some one shouted:

"An air raid! An air raid! The Huns are coming!"

CHAPTER XXI

A VISITOR

Jerry Hopkins, with his two chums and some of the hospital patients who were able to move about, rushed toward the sound of the shouting and firing. Jerry's leg wound was healed, and save for a slight limp he was all right again.

The boys saw a group of soldiers gathered about a battery of guns erected a short time before to repel air raids. And that this was now a time to use the weapons was evident after a glance aloft.

For, hovering just below the clouds, were three big Hun planes, and that they had come over the lines to bomb the American positions was only too evident.

There was no time to stop and inquire how the hostile aircraft had managed to elude the vigilance of the Allied airmen at the front. It was time to act and act promptly, and at once the anti-aircraft batteries opened, while word was quickly telephoned to the nearest aerodrome, so that American, French, or British fliers might ascend to attack the Germans. It was the shooting at the Hun planes with the guns nearest the hospital that had broken in on Jerry's remarks.

"They won't bomb the hospital, will they?" asked Ned, in wonder.

"They're very likely to," declared Jerry. "Then later on they'll claim they couldn't see the red crosses on the roof, or else they'll say they meant to drop bombs on an ammunition dump or a railroad center and they miscalculated the distance--the beasts!"

If the Huns intended to bomb the hospital now it would not be the first time they had done such a dastardly trick. And that they purposed sending down explosives somewhere in the neighborhood was evident from the tactics of the hostile machines.

They flew about, so high above the group of buildings containing the wounded and convalescents as to make it difficult to hit them, and appeared to be waiting their best chance to drop a bomb where it would do the most damage.

Meanwhile, nurses and orderlies were moving out their charges into the open, so there would be less likelihood of their being caught in the collapsed structures.

For a few minutes the scene was one of wild confusion, and then army discipline was established and matters went on as they should. Ned, Bob, and Jerry helped in taking out the wounded, while the gun crews increased their fire at the hostile planes.

Suddenly there was a terrific explosion just in the rear of the hospital. It shook the ground and brought forth screams of agonized apprehension on the part of men suffering from sh.e.l.l shock. But either the bomb was misdirected or the Huns were more merciful than they had been on other similar occasions, for the bomb, dropped from one of the aircraft, only tore a big hole in an adjacent field.

"Too close for comfort, though," declared Ned.

"Our boys are gettin' after 'em!" exclaimed Bob, as he and his chums hurried back into the endangered building to a.s.sist in taking out more of the helpless ones.

This was true in two senses, for the fire of the anti-aircraft batteries was increasing, and now several Allied airmen were mounting aloft in their swift machines to give battle to the attacking Huns.

It was high time, too, for now bombs were dropping on all sides of the hospital, and there was no telling when the entire building might go down in ruins. Whether the German airmen were deliberately trying to hit the place where wounded men were being saved from death, or whether they aimed their infernal machines at objects near it, could not be said with certainty.

Fiercer and more rapid became the firing from the anti-aircraft batteries established near the hospital for this very purpose, and more Allied planes took the air, seeking to drive off the invaders.

By this time most of the wounded had been carried out and put under trees, in the open, wherever it was considered safest for them.

Though from the ruthless manner in which the Huns waged war no place was immune from their bombs--even in the neighborhood of a hospital.

"Look! Look!" suddenly cried Ned. "They got one!"

"That's right!" echoed Jerry. "They've brought one down!"

Tumbling over and over, in a fashion no airman, however reckless, would dare to imitate as a ruse, was one of the German planes. It had been hit either by a sh.e.l.l from a battery, or the bullets from one of the machine guns on an Allied plane had found a mark.

Then, as the invading machine continued to fall, out of control, it burst into flames, and a small dark object was seen to detach itself from the ma.s.s and fall to one side.

"There goes the pilot!" said Bob grimly. "He's done for."

And so he was, and so was his machine. It was a horrible death, but none the less horrible than he had planned for others--and helpless others, too.

"There they go! They've had enough!" shouted Ned, and as he spoke it was seen that the Hun machines, which had been circling about, as though looking for more targets on the ground below, had turned and were speeding toward their own lines, pursued by the American and other machines, eager to visit on them just vengeance.

And then the hospital patients, some of them wounded airmen themselves, watched the battle of the clouds, out of danger now that the Huns were in retreat.

The machines were so high that little could be seen, but some one had a pair of gla.s.ses and reported that one of the German craft was disabled and was coming down out of control.

This information afterward proved to be correct. Then during the battle which followed another German machine was set on fire; so that a total of three were destroyed, and another of the six engaged in the raid sent back damaged, and one of its occupants killed.

Nor did the Allied planes come off scatheless. One was shot down and both occupants killed, while another man was wounded. But the hospital had not been bombed, which was the great thing.

"Do you wonder that I'm aching to get back into the fight against such beasts?" asked Jerry, when the patients had once more been carried back to the wards, and Jerry and his chums had resumed their conversation in a quiet place outside.

"Don't blame you a bit," a.s.sented Ned. "But we were talking about Noddy Nixon."