Tam o' the Scoots Part 17

Tight-rope Walkin', Loopin' the Loop by the death-defyin' Brothers Fritz, together with many laughable an' amusin' interludes by Whimsical Walker, the Laird o' Laughter, the whole concludin' with a Graund Patriotic Procession ent.i.tled Deutschland ower All--or Nearly All."

"I ain't seen a circus for years," said the corporal with a sigh. "Lord!

I used to love them girls in short skirts--"

"Restrain yeer amorous thochts, Alec," warned Tam, "an' fix yeer mind on leeterature. To proceed:

"'Can it be,' says our hero, 'can it be that Mr. MacBissing is doin' his stunts at ten-thairty o' the clock in the cauld morn, for sheer love o' his seenister profession? No,' says A'--says our young hero--'no,' says he, 'he has a distinguished audience as like as not.'

"Speerin' ower the side an' fixin' his expensive gla.s.ses on the groon, he espied sax motor-cars--"

The door was flung open and Blackie came in hurriedly. "Tam--get up," he said briefly. "All the d.a.m.n circuses are out on a strafe--and we're It--von Bissing, von Rheinhoff, and von Wentzl. They're coming straight here and I think they're out for blood."

The history of that great aerial combat has been graphically told by the special correspondents. Von Bissing's formation--dead out of luck that day--was broken up by Archie fire and forced back, von Wentzl was engaged by the Fifty-ninth Squadron (providentially up in strength for a strafe of their own) and turned back, but the von Rheinhoff group reached its objective before the machines were more than five thousand feet from the ground and there was some wild bombing.

Von Rheinhoff might have unloaded his bombs and got away, but he showed deplorable judgment. To insure an absolutely successful outcome to the attack he ordered his machines to descend. Before he could recover alt.i.tude the swift little scouts were up and into the formation. The air crackled with the sound of Lewis-gun fire, machines reeled and staggered like drunken men, Tam's fighting Morane dipped and dived, climbed and swerved in a wild baccha.n.a.lian dance. Airplanes, British and German alike, fell flaming to the earth before the second in command of the enemy squadron signaled, "Retire."

A mile away a battery of A-A guns waited, its commander's eyes glued to a telescope.

"They're breaking off--stand by! Range 4300 yards--deflection--There they go! Commence firing."

A dozen batteries were waiting the signal. The air was filled with the shriek of speeding sh.e.l.ls, the skies were mottled with patches of smoke, white and brown, where the charges burst.

Von Rheinhoff's battered squadron rode raggedly to safety.

"Got him--whoop!" yelled a thousand voices, as from one machine there came a scatter of pieces as a high-explosive sh.e.l.l burst under the wing, and the soaring bird collapsed and came trembling, slowly, head-over-heels to the ground.

Von Rheinhoff, that redoubtable man, was half conscious when they pulled him out of the burnt and b.l.o.o.d.y wreck.

He looked round sleepily at the group about him and asked in the voice of a very tired man:

"Which--of--you--fellows--bombed--our Kaiser?"

Tam leant forward, his face blazing with excitement.

"Say that again, sir-r," he said.

Von Rheinhoff looked at him through half-opened eyes. "Tam--eh?" he whispered. "You--nearly put an empire--in mourning."

Tam drew a long breath, then turned away. "Nearly!" he said bitterly.

"Did A' no' tell ye, Captain Blackie, sir-r, that ma luck was oot?"

CHAPTER VIII

A QUESTION OF RANK

Tam stood in the doorway of Squadron Headquarters and saluted.

"Come in, Sergeant Mactavish," said Blackie, and Tam's heart went down into his boots.

To be called by his surname was a happening which had only one significance. There was trouble of sorts, and Tam hated trouble.

"There are some facts which General Headquarters have asked me to verify--your age is twenty-seven?"

"Yes, sir-r."

"You hold the military medal, the French _Medaille Militaire_, the Russian medal of St. George and the French _Croix de Guerre_?"

"Oh, aye, Captain Blackie, sir-r, but A've no' worn 'em yet."

"You were created King's Corporal for an act of valor on January 17, 1915?" Blackie went on, consulting a paper.

"Yes, sir-r."

Blackie nodded. "That's all, Sergeant," he said, and as Tam saluted and turned, "oh, by-the-way, Sergeant--we had a bra.s.s ha--I mean a staff officer here the other day and he reported rather unfavorably upon a practise of yours--er--ours. It was a question of discipline--you know it is not usual for a non-commissioned officer to be on such friendly terms with--er--officers. And I think he saw you in the anteroom of the mess. So I told him something which was not at the time exactly true."

Tam nodded gravely.

For the first time since he had been a soldier he had a horrid feeling of chagrin, of disappointment, of something that rebuffed and hurt.

"A' see, sir-r," he said, "'tis no' ma wish to put mesel' forward, an'

if A've been a wee bit free wi' the young laddies there was no disrespect in it. A' know ma place an' A'm no' ashamed o' it. There's a shipyard on the Clyde that's got ma name on its books as a fitter--that's ma job an' A'm proud o' it. If ye're thinkin', Captain Blackie, sir-r, that ma heid got big--"

"No, no, Tam," said Blackie hastily, "I'm just telling you--so that you'll understand things when they happen."

Tam saluted and walked away.

He pa.s.sed Brandspeth and Walker-Giddons and responded to their flippant greetings with as stiff a salute as he was capable of offering. They stared after him in amazement.

"What's the matter with Tam?" they demanded simultaneously, one of the other.

Tam reached his room, closed and locked the door and sat down to unravel a confused situation.

He had grown up with the squadron and had insensibly drifted into a relationship which had no counterpart in any other branch of the service. He was "Tam," unique and indefinable. He had few intimates of his own rank, and little a.s.sociation with his juniors. The mechanics treated him as being in a cla.s.s apart and respected him since the day when, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, he had followed a homesick boy who had deserted, found him and hammered him until nostalgia would have been a welcome relief. All deserters are shot, and the youth having at first decided that death was preferable to a repet.i.tion of the thrashing he had received, changed his mind and was tearfully grateful.

Sitting on his bed, his head between his hands, pondering this remarkable change which had come to the att.i.tude of his officers and friends, Tam was sensible (to his astonishment) of the extraordinary development his mentality had undergone. He had come to the army resentfully, a rabid socialist with a keen contempt for "the upper cla.s.ses" which he had never concealed. The upper cla.s.ses were people who wore high white collars, turned up the ends of their trousers and affected a monocle. They spoke a kind of drawling English and said, "By gad, dear old top--what perfectly beastly weathah!"

They did no work and lived on the sweat of labor. They patronized the workman or ignored his existence, and only came to Scotland to shoot and fish--whereon they a.s.sumed (with gillies and keepers of all kinds) the national dress which Scotsmen never wear.

That was the old conception, and Tam almost gasped as he realized how far he had traveled from his ancient faith. For all these boys he knew were of that cla.s.s--most of them had an exaggerated accent and said, "By gad!"--but somehow he understood them and could see, beneath the externals, the fine and lovable qualities that were theirs. He had been taken into this strange and pleasant community and had felt--he did not exactly know what he had felt. All he did know was that a bra.s.s-hatted angel with red tabs on its collar stood at the gate of a little paradise of comradeship, and forbade further knowledge of its pleasant places.

He pursed his lips and got to his feet, sick with a sense of his loss.

He was of the people, apart. He was a Clydeside worker and they were the quality. He told himself this and knew that he lied--he and they stood on grounds of equality; they were men doing men's work and risking their lives one for the other.