Our Pilots in the Air Part 10

"Fritzy is preparing to look into things. He must know that some of us were knocked out. Doubtless he is getting ready for a more thorough look around."

Without formulating any definite plan, Blaine headed towards where the last sounds of some thing or some one falling had come from. To the left came the far rumble of trains crawling forward on one of the many side lines used by the Huns for war transportation.

From the right came the distant roar of heavy artillery, such as enlivens the front night and day. Yet it was so distant as to insure no connection with the finished air raid that now threatened disaster to himself.

Under the trees the darkness deepened, if such was possible. Where was he going? Could he find his way back to his own crippled plane?

A heavy, yet trembling sigh, terminating in a m.u.f.fled groan, showed him his next course. Stumbling forward, he almost fell over a body p.r.o.ne across his path. Another groan, then:

"Oh-h-h, Gawd -- Gawd!" Blaine thought he recognized something half familiar in the words or voice.

Stooping down, he felt a horrible slime and a mashed something that was not like anything he had ever felt before. He dropped to his knees, drew out his small flashlight, hitherto held in reserve for desperate emergencies, and cautiously turned it on.

It glimmered across a face -- a face at once familiar and horrible. A well-known face, yet so ghastly in its b.l.o.o.d.y disfigurement that Blaine shivered, drew back, then bent downward and forward.

"Finzer!" he gasped. "My G.o.d! Is this you?"

The one eye left faintly opened and the gashed lips muttered, though Blaine shuddered as he saw by the flashlight that the man's face and head were so torn by machine gun spatter that it was only a question of minutes, if not seconds, before he would be dead.

As it was, Finzer's one eye recognized his sergeant. He tried to speak, but vainly. Finally, with an effort that must have been a last clutch at his vanishing strength, he flung his mashed and b.l.o.o.d.y hand on a paper pad, with pencil laying by. One sentient gleam; then he gave up the ghost. What did Finzer mean by that last gesture?

With reluctance Blaine picked up the pad and read the following words now almost illegible with blood.

"Boche got me. Machine back by log pile. Good shape. Landed in tree.

Done for. Saw you drift this way. Get machine if yours won't --"

Sadly Lafe drew the body of his friend aside, covered it with his leather blanket coat, piled brush over it, and drew meditatively back, saying:

"Poor Milt! It's all I can do for him now."

Again he scanned the penciled lines, remembering that his own machine was in bad shape. "Maybe Milt's will do better. I'll see. Where's that log pile?"

His question was suddenly answered by his stumbling against something for he had already started on the search, having repocketed the tell-tale flashlight. No knowing when a stray ray might be seen by some enemy eye and its cause investigated.

Groping about, he discovered Finzer's machine half slanting down one side of the log pile. It had fallen through a tree top, hitting the logs. Milt, already blind, wounded unto death, had tumbled out, crawling a few feet, where he lay dying until Blaine heard and found him.

Swiftly Lafe righted and trundled the machine to a small, clear place.

Risking the flashlight again, he briefly inspected it. Aside from sundry bullet perforations and certain unimportant scars in the wings, it was all right. The tank was pretty full yet, the interior mechanism in fair order, and the wheels propelling it in such good shape that Blaine soon had it back in the open s.p.a.ce where he had been compelled to come down. As for the near-by woods, there was not much real life there. Long ago the ruthless sh.e.l.ling had reduced most of the timber to scraggy, scarred skeletons. Still they were dangerous to planes when trying to land -- or to rise again. So he quickly transferred such of his belongings as he cared to save, placing them in Finzer's machine, and then a.s.sured himself that everything would work right when it came to rising again. All was ready. Another thought came.

"I ought to fire this plane of mine. Too good yet to fall into Fritzy's hands. He'd soon have it ready again."

Pushing Finzer's plane still further out m the open, he looked, listened, but still detecting no sign of human nearness, he opened the petrol tank of his plane, touched with a match the running liquid, and jumped nimbly to his seat in Finzer's machine. Applying the power, the plane rolled, skidded slightly then came to a full stop.

"What the mischief is the matter now?"

Out he jumped, vaguely fearful, while the other plane flared up brightly, the red flame mounting high, higher, scarcely forty yards away. In and out among the mechanism he fumbled, turned, twisted, adjusted, until from a distance came the sound of hoofs -- galloping hoofs.

"Good Heavens! The Boches! They're coming? What will I do?"

As he asked this question his eyes, wildly distorted, roamed round the open s.p.a.ce now lighted up for a hundred yards or more by the burning airplane.

Just then he happened to look upward, and all at once saw the cause of his present trouble. One of the longer limbs of an old, battle-scarred poplar, partly broken and hanging lower than usual, had caught in one of the top wings, thus halting him as he was about to rise.

"What a fool I am!" This while wrenching loose the ragged wing-end.

"Let me get out of this somehow!"

Already he was again in his seat, turning on the power, swiftly yet surely manipulating the controls. The high-powered scout and battle plane rose with a rush and almost immediately began to climb, spiraling in long acute sweeps and turns.

"There they come!" breathed Lafe, venturing a last look around down below.

A field battery of horse artillery was emerging from the torn timber into the open s.p.a.ce, which the burning plane had already showed Blaine to be a beet or turnip field of considerable extent. The constant roaring of artillery and a continuous red glow on the western horizon made known the cause of the uproar that had been growing for some time back.

"They're fighting hard," conjectured Blaine. "Guess wrecking them sausages must 'a' stirred Fritzy up a bit. Hullo! What's that?"

Already Lafe was a thousand or more feet up. The field battery was now fading from view as the flames of the burning plane died down.

CHAPTER VIII

BLAINE'S FURTHER ADVENTURES

Once more sharp reports from the Archies came from below. Whether these were by the battery he had seen Lafe could not now tell. So thick was the fog, the gun flashings did not reach up to where he was now spiraling still upward, in order to get beyond the chance effect of some stray shot.

All along the now distant battle line the dull red glow of bursting sh.e.l.ls lined the front as the rumble of sound jarred more clearly upon his ears. Undoubtedly some kind of battle must be going on. Was it one result of the night raid? Was Fritz, now that his observation points were at least temporarily out of active service, taking his revenge by another drive? And where the Allies would least suspect?

That is, right over the Appincourte Bluff?

"What ought I do?" reflected Blaine, still gently climbing higher.

"It's a still night, foggy, good for most anything up here, except to see or be seen and that's what I don't want. Wonder if poor Finzer had his night signals along? Ah, here they are!"

He was overhauling with one hand a small locker that was part of the fuselage Moreover, there were still two unused sheafs of ammunition for the Lewis gun and a few grenades and bombs. Finzer had not expended all his allotment in the balloon attack.

"Guess I'd better edge in towards where that drive seems to be centering. That is the reason, probably, that this battery broke in where I was on the point of going up again. Fritz is up to some new thing, I'll bet."

Taking his bearings as best he could, Blaine headed more westward, keeping at an elevation of six or seven thousand feet.

"Wonder what they'll think back at the station when they don't find me among the ones that get back? Poor Milt! I lost my machine; he lost his life. And there were others, too. That Montana chap Bangs. Last I saw of him he was right under one of them sausages, letting Fritz have it with the Lewis. Looked like something would get him -- heigho!

What is that?"

Down below, slightly to his rear, there flashed through the fog a short series of vari-colored lights, which to Blaine's active mind spelled forth:

"Boches 'bout to get me. Big drive on hand. Yonder they go -- watch out!"

That was all, but it was enough. Blaine knew that it must come from another of the raiding scouts who had somehow gone down in No-Man's-Land. It might come from a sh.e.l.l hole. Anyway, it was being sent up by some one risking almost certain death in order to let the Allies know that big things were already under way.

"Where are the Boche planes?" Blaine had more than once asked himself.