CHAPTER VIII.
ALONG THE BATTLE LINE.
WITH the arrival of the biplanes from the factory, the Boy Aviatorswere kept busy with brief test flights over valley and plain, awaitingthe convenience of Roque for the wider sweep he was planning. Itdeveloped that the boys were expected to navigate separately on thisoccasion, Billy to pilot Roque himself, and Henri to be accompaniedby one Renos, who had been awarded a service badge of honor for hiswork as an aerial observer in giving first warning of the advance of aFrench division against Burnhaupt, which saved the day for the Germans.
"The seaplane is the rig for weight carrying," exclaimed Roque, inaccounting for this assignment, "but these machines, as you know, aresolely in the speed class, and it is many chances to one that we willbe compelled to tax every ounce of power before we get through. So wehave no use for deadwood."
Renos, who was to sit behind Henri, was the silent man of theexpedition, as far as talking was concerned, but when it came to beup and doing he could be counted on to the limit. He was a humanroute-box of the Sundgau, the fighting territory, and very much at homein a flying machine. When the two machines one morning flew over theGerman frontier, in compliance with the "ready" order of Roque, Renos'knees were crossed by a wicked-looking rifle, and of the party he wasthe only one armed.
Billy, observing this war-like figure, asked Roque if he expected toget into close quarters on this trip.
"Not unless some of the bomb-throwing crowd that scarred the landscapethe other night should cross our path," replied the secret agent.
As Renos was the qualified guide, the biplane bearing him went to thefront, and Henri received overshoulder directions as to the course tobe maintained.
The apparent reason why the German expert did not pilot the crafthimself was that he wanted a loose hand in case of emergency, and afree eye for the panorama below. He was satisfied, too, that one asgood as the best was doing the steering.
Henri was instructed to keep a respectful distance from the nearmountain peaks, where the French had mounted artillery, for one roundfrom these guns, close enough, would have ended the flight and theflyers there and then.
But Roque and Renos kept constant vigil with glasses, and Billywondered that the pair did not get a crick in the neck with all thehead-turning they did.
A sharp order advised the pilots to send the biplanes farther aloft,and circle. The French fortress of Belfort could be seen directlyunderneath.
The aviators well knew that an explosion close to an aeroplane is oftensufficient, through the force of the air concussion alone, to bringit down, and they knew they could not chance a close shot from thelong-range guns in the fort.
Though the machines now evoluted at greater height, the powerfulglasses enabled the observers to plainly distinguish the movementsbelow.
It was quickly manifested that the garrison lookout had become aware ofthe aerial visitation, and that they did not approve of the color ofthe hovering aircraft.
A couple of smokeballs ascended and burst in the center of a cloudrackfar to the right of the machine. Renos broke his record for silencewith a shrill cackle.
"Save your powder, you numbskulls," he shouted for his own satisfaction.
Roque seemed oblivious of the gunplay below. As the biplane describedgreat circles over the fort, he kept his glasses steadily aimed at apoint in the enclosure over which the flag was floating.
The men who emerged from the officers' quarters all wore the Frenchuniform.
Roque had evidently cleared up a disturbing point in his mind as hemuttered something about a "fool story," and "I might have known therewas nothing to it."
Having satisfied himself that it was still an independent little war atthis remote point from the main field of operations, and that he hadbeen misled by some advices previously received, the chief observerpassed the word to his pilot to back-track, at the same time givingsignal to the companion biplane.
As the machines swung around for the return flight, and drew closertogether, Renos gave a megaphone yell through a hollow formed by hishands:
"Speed for your lives, they're on the wing!"
Above the gentle slopes on the west, leading to the summit of themountain ranges, aircraft had arisen, looking, at a distance, likeblack dragonflies.
At the same moment, the invading biplanes also had a reminder to hurryfrom the fortress they were leaving behind.
A shell burst seemingly quite close to the machine Henri was driving,and the craft dipped far to one side.
Billy's heart beat up to his throat when he saw the break in theflight.
But his was an exulting cry when the momentarily stricken flyerrighted, and bored ahead.
"Glory be!" hoarsely rejoiced the boy from Bangor, when his chum againdrew to the upper level.
Seventy miles an hour was the clip of the fleeing biplanes, and no lessspeedy the onrush of the aircraft from the slopes.
"Steady, and a little to the right," Renos instructed Henri.
The observer was resting the rifle barrel on the rigging, awaiting abroadside target.
Sping! One of the attacking aviators was first with his rifle, and thebullet nicked the armored side of the German craft. Sput! Henri heardan angry exclamation behind him, and shifted an eye long enough to seethat Renos was nursing a bloody wrist on his knee.
"How hard are you hit?" was the anxious question of the young pilot.
"Nothing to kill," replied the observer, as he used his uninjuredfingers and his teeth in knotting a handkerchief above the wound so asto compress the severed artery.
With the utmost calm he then deliberately used his left hand in rifleaiming, and sent a bullet into the nearest hostile machine.
Whether the shot crippled the pilot of the leading pursuer, or whetherit was the menace of the heavy howitzers on the German frontier, whichwas now of short approach--the French flyers suddenly ceased to beaggressive, and with a parting salute of rifle practice, turned backtoward their mountain station, while the German machines dashed acrossthe line of safety.
Upon landing Billy indulged in a sort of war dance around his chum.
"Thought you were gone that time, sure, Buddy," he cried, "and it wassimply great the way you pulled out of the hole."
"I guess I was stunned for a minute, as though somebody had hit me witha hammer," explained Henri, "but when I found the controls were stillworking, it was a bracer, I tell you. And if there isn't a cool head"(nodding toward Renos, who was inspecting his wounded wrist) "I neversaw one. He stretched his arms over me ready to take hold if I failedto rally, and did it as a matter of course. Not a tremble about him,either."
"What do you think of the No. 3's now, boys?" queried Roque, when hehad dispatched Renos in search of a surgeon.
"They're dandies, all right," promptly agreed the happy pilots.
"They will do to hunt trouble with, anyhow," laughed the secret agent,who was immensely pleased with the flying achievements of the day.
Roque, pluming himself with the idea that, though he did not holdArdelle when he had that artful dodger under his thumb, he had atleast chased his rival out of the empire; and, having also eased hismind as to the report of a new element in the Alsace campaign, he wasimpatient in his preparation for departure. Master of detail though hewas, the big moves only appealed to him.
A great battle was raging at Soissons, on the Aisne river, in France,and Roque had in mind an aerial journey north, and quick flight acrossthe border to the scene of the fierce artillery duel, following theline of march of the mighty force under General von Kluck.
The crippled Renos was replaced in the observer's perch by an aviatorknown as Schneider, a very daredevil, and who was at first inclinedto doubt that the boy with whom he was paired had sufficient skilland courage to pilot a military biplane in an active war zone. Henrivery quickly convinced the doubter that he was very much older than helooked when it came to the fine points of aeroplaning, and, too, thatwhen there was an emergency demand for "sand" the yo
ungster had plentyto spare. Schneider had additional assurance of capacity when he wasadvised that both of the lads carried Roque's indorsement of efficiency.
It was a bitter struggle that the Aeroplane Scouts were to witness atSoissons, and six days of it had already passed. The earth was stilldropping on many graves of the German fallen, and yet, sprawling inattitudes along the heights, in the deep-cut gorges of the plateau,and across the flat valley bed were French infantrymen in theirfar-to-be-seen red-and-blue uniforms, swarthy-faced Turcos, colonials,Alpine riflemen, and bearded territorials.
At staff headquarters, in the first officer that passed near them theboys recognized a familiar figure, no other than Colonel Muller, whomthey had first met in far-away Texas, U. S. A., on the day of therecord flight, and again in the hangar camp at Hamburg.
Billy impulsively stepped forward. "How do you do, Colonel?"
The officer instantly turned in his stride to inspect the speaker."Hello, Boy Aviator," was his hearty greeting. "How under the sun didyou ever get here?"
"Same old way," said Billy, "the airline, of course."
"And here's the other one," the colonel reaching for Henri's shoulder.
"By the way," continued the big soldier, "this must be a field day forflyers. Here, Hume, come and see what the wind brought in."
The officer addressed moved at quickstep in response to thisinvitation. It was the aviation lieutenant from Hamburg. He grinnedfrom ear to ear when he laid eyes on his former charges.
"Can't lose you if I try," he exclaimed. "Have you enlisted with us?"
"No," laughed Billy, "we're still driving cars for the good merchantfrom your town," with the backward point of the thumb at Roque, who wasengaged in close confab with a group of staff members near by.
"Did you blow in with Schneider, too?" asked the lieutenant. "I justwant to say that you will bore a hole in a stone wall sometime if youtrain with that fellow. Nature didn't give him red hair without reason."
"Now that you are here," broke in the colonel, "you must not be allowedto get out of practice. I expect that one of you will have to give me aride along the front before long. I have lost three horses this week."
"We'll do our best to oblige you, colonel," volunteered Billy.
It was no merry jest, that ride Billy gave the colonel!
At the time, the French retained a foothold north of the river at onlyone point--St. Paul--where the bridge from Soissons crosses, and thisby a perilous margin, since the bridgehead was completely commanded byGerman artillery on the heights.
The battlefield entire covered a front of about seven miles, the centerand eastern flank a high, level plateau rising steeply a couple ofhundred feet from the valley of the Aisne. On the western side a deepvalley ran northward, bounded on either side by turnpikes. An airmantaking the big curve of the river would not be considered a good riskfor a well-regulated insurance company.
But it could be done--and Billy Barry furnished the proof.
When the next day broke a bloody conflict was raging between the twoturnpikes, the French infantry attack on German trenches preceded by aterrible artillery bombardment, a storm of shell and shrapnel.
Colonel Muller beckoned Billy to his side. They stood together on theheights from which the French had been expelled only the day before.
"My boy," was the brisk address of the officer, making a field-glasssurvey of the smoke-crowned landscape, "I am going down the line, and Iam to do the distance in an aeroplane. Is it you or Schneider who willdo the driving?"
"You gave me the first call yesterday," reminded Billy.
"That was my intent, and it still holds. I was only seeking to learn ifyou were of the same mind since that powder mill let loose down there."
"I well know the odor of it," stoutly maintained Billy, "and it doesn'tweaken my knees."
The young aviator, accepting the matter as settled, hastened towardstaff headquarters. "Mr. Roque," he excitedly called, "Colonel Mullerwants to try one of the No. 3's this morning, and I'm to pilot."
The secret agent lifted his eyebrows as though surprised, but he reallywas not. The arrangement had already been made.
"Say, Buddy, this is rough that we can't both go; and suppose somethingshould happen to you?" Henri had just realized that something was up,in which his chum was vitally concerned.
"Don't you worry, pard," consoled Billy, "it is only a little spin of afew miles, and we'll be back in no time."
"Wish it was me," sighed Schneider, for this firebrand guessed that itwould be a red-hot journey.
As the biplane swept into the breeze current, trending to the river,which then was running brimful, and in many places overflowing itsbanks between the two armies, Colonel Muller advised Billy to keep themachine climbing for the time being, as a terrific fusillade was inprogress in the distance of the next two miles, the shells hurtlingthrough the air like lighted express trains. In the three steep-sidedravines that deeply notched the plateau on the east French troopersswarmed like bees, and at this cover the big German guns were blindlybanging.
"We can't see much, Colonel, at two thousand feet," complained Billy.
"You would see nothing at all if we ran into one of those fragments ofshells," coolly suggested the officer, "but never mind, you will dosome diving in a few minutes."
Billy got the signal to dip at the juncture of the turnpikes, and tohold a level and lower course along the line of battle, marked here byinfantry fighting between the seemingly crawling columns far below.
"Down!"
The colonel's order was peremptory, and Billy forthwith volplanedtoward the earth.