CHAPTER XV
GAME TO THE LAST
HAVING covered a considerable distance Athol sat down behind a treeand made a hearty meal of some meat pies which he had taken theprecaution to buy in Weert. By this time the excitement and lack ofsufficient sleep were beginning to tell very forcibly. Even as he atehe felt himself nodding drowsily.
It was growing very warm as the sun rose higher in the heavens. Theair was close and oppressive. Away to the southward, darkcopper-coloured clouds were working up against the light breeze.There was every indication of a thunderstorm breaking at no distanttime.
Presently a dull intermittent buzzing sound fell upon the lad's ears.
"An aeroplane," he muttered drowsily, hardly able to evince anyinterest in the familiar noise, until by the erratic sound of theengine he knew that something was amiss.
"Another Aviatik out of its bearings, I suppose," he said to himself.Then he looked upwards, trying to detect the plane against thedazzling light overhead.
The sound of the motor increased in volume. Chagrined at his failureto locate the source of the noise, Athol's interest deepened. Hescanned the sky until he perceived the hitherto elusive machine.
It was a monoplane, flying fairly low, and proceeding in a westerlydirection with a decided tendency to describe a right-handed curve.Although not immediately overhead, it was sufficiently close for thelad to distinguish the marking on the wings, fuselage, and verticalrudder.
Greatly to his surprise the monoplane bore the familiar red, whiteand blue concentric rings that denoted it to be a British machine.
"Whatever is that fellow doing over here?" wondered the lad. "He'splaced the whole of Belgium between him and our lines. By Jove, if hestarts dropping bombs about here there'll be trouble!"
But the airman made no attempt to let fall his cargo of explosives.Still describing a long erratic curve and decreasing his altitude ashe did so he was soon almost invisible from the place where Atholstood--merely a shimmer of silvery-grey against the dark sky.
"Wish the fellow, whoever he is, had stopped to give me a lift," saidthe foot-sore subaltern as he resumed his dusty journey. "It's jollyrotten having to pad the hoof after one has been used to a hundredmiles an hour or more through the air."
A few minutes later he noticed that the monoplane had swung round andwas almost retracing its former course, and heading toward theeast--in the direction of Germany.
"Perhaps he's trying to find Essen," thought Athol. "Krupp's placecan't be much more than sixty miles away. Evidently he's lost hisbearings and has just picked up a landmark. Yet it's strange thathe's flying alone and right over a neutral country."
It was not long before the lad was forced to admit that his theorywas at fault, for the monoplane suddenly executed a sharp turn andmaking a nose-dive was within an ace of crashing violently to theground. Only in the nick of time did the machine "flatten out,"alighting at a distance of almost two miles from the nowhighly-interested lad.
To see whether the pilot had effected a safe landing, or otherwise,Athol was at that time unable to determine, owing to the slightirregularity of the ground. He took to his heels along the highway inthe direction of the settled monoplane.
Hitherto the road had been little frequented that morning, beyond afew market carts and knots of country-folk making their way to town.But now people appeared as if by magic. Every field seemed todisgorge two or three, every house half a dozen or more, including alarge proportion of children--all intent on hurrying to see theforeign aircraft.
In less than twelve minutes Athol arrived upon the scene. Themonoplane was apparently undamaged save for a buckled landing-wheel,until closer inspection revealed the fact that the 'plane washoneycombed with bullet-holes. Jagged holes, too, were visible in thefuselage, as well as the splaying marks of bullets that had failed topenetrate the light steel armour.
The pilot, a boyish-looking lieutenant, was behaving in a mosteccentric fashion. He had alighted and had discarded his yellowleather coat and helmet. Across his forehead was a dark streak ofdried blood. With one hand in his trousers pocket he was walkingrapidly round and round the stranded monoplane, wildly waving hisdisengaged hand and shouting in unmistakable and forcible English forsomeone to oblige him with a match.
As he walked he tottered slightly. More than once he collided withthe tips of the wings and brushed awkwardly against the rudder. Thecrowd, keeping a discreet distance, watched with amazement; givingback whenever a collision with the eccentric Englishman appearedimminent.
"Come on, you fellows!" he appealed. "Who'll oblige with a match?Quickly, before those strafed Bosches come on the scene! A match.Does no one understand?"
To his intense satisfaction Athol saw that there were no soldiers orcivil guards amongst the throng, although at any moment the Dutchmilitary officials might appear upon the scene. The spectators werefor the most part men and women of the agricultural class.
"Can I bear a hand?" asked the lad, elbowing his way through thecrowd.
"Thank God, a British voice!" exclaimed the airman, coming to anabrupt halt, and holding out his hand--not towards Athol but towardsa man some feet to his left.
In a flash Athol understood. The luckless pilot of the monoplane wasalmost blind. He grasped the airman's hand, and drew him back fromthe crowd.
"You are in Holland," he said. "I saw you descend, and I guessedsomething was wrong. You've been hit pretty badly, I fear?"
"Got it properly in the neck this time," declared the lieutenantgrimly. "Across the forehead--one eye gone, worse luck, and the otheralmost bunged up. Much as I could do to see the land. Couldn't do itnow, by Jove! I've a chunk of one of their strafed Iron Crosses in mythigh, too. It's not much, but mighty unpleasant. Wanted to burn themachine, but found my matches had gone. Pocket of my coat shot cleanaway. But who are you?"
The flying man spoke in quick jerky sentences. His wounds were givinghim acute pain. Already he was bordering upon delirium, his injuriesaggravated by his inability, as he imagined, to prevent his machinefalling into the hands of he enemy.
"Yes, you are in Dutch territory," Athol reassured him. Then, seizedwith an inspiration he asked, "Is the plane all right?"
"Far as I know," was the reply. "Why?"
"Because I belong to the R.F.C.," announced Athol. "Came a croppernear Hasselt yesterday and managed to get clear. If you can hold outfor a couple of hours we'll fetch our lines, barring accidents. I'lltake her when we're properly up, but it's the take-off and thelanding part that are beyond me."
"Come along, then," exclaimed the other, his injuries forgotten inthe prospect of saving his machine. "She's only a single-seater, soyou'll have to perch up behind me."
Athol had to assist him to his seat. Deftly the almost sightless mantested the controls, and put the self-starter into operation. Withouta hitch the propeller began to revolve, the crowd giving back at thefirst explosions.
"Hurry, man, hurry!" exclaimed Athol. "There are Dutch troops comingalong the road."
"No internment for me, if I can help it," shouted the other, in orderto make himself heard above the roar of the propeller. "So heregoes."
Accelerating the engine, the lieutenant set the monoplane in motion,Athol shouting directions into his ear to enable him to avoid variousobstructions in the way. For nearly two hundred yards the machinerolled over the ground, wobbling under the erratic revolutions of thebuckled landing-wheel, until gaining sufficient momentum it rosesteadily in the air.
"Now take her," exclaimed the pilot in a strong voice that surprisedhis companion by the volume of sound. "Let me know when youraerodrome is in sight. You'll find it easier than you would mine, andafter all it doesn't much matter so long as it is a British one."
At a mean altitude of five thousand feet Athol steered the monoplaneon a compass course. The wounded pilot had changed places with thelad, and was resting one hand lightly on the latter's shoulder.Beyond the few sentences he had spoken on relinquishing thesteering-wheel the lieutenant maintain
ed silence.
The monoplane proved a veritable flier, for in a little more thanhalf the time Athol had estimated it was over the lines of theopposing armies.
Far beneath them a squadron of British aeroplanes was activelyengaged, for the British guns were strafing the Huns with terribleviolence. Not a single German aircraft appeared to join in combatwith the intruders over their lines, for the British machines weredoing good work by registering the results of the heavy shells.
"The flying ground is in sight," reported Athol. "Will you take hernow?"
"Right-o," replied the lieutenant. "Tell me when to flatten out."
He depressed the aerilons. The monoplane's tail rose as it sweptlandwards at terrific speed. Athol, holding the pilot's binoculars,brought the glasses to bear upon the landscape.
"Wind's dead against us," he announced.
"That's good," rejoined the wounded man. "It will save us making aturn. Say when."
The ground seemed to be rising to meet them. Objects, a few secondsbefore hardly discernible, resolved themselves into buildings ofvarious sizes, most of them roofless owing to the effects of repeatedbombardments. Little mud-coloured specks developed into khaki-cladfigures. And--a cheering sight indeed--there was the secretbattleplane just folding her wings before returning to her hangar. Inhis imagination Athol felt certain that he could distinguish Blakeand Dick superintending the labours of half a dozen men as theyguided the huge bird into its nest.
There was no time to use the binoculars. The ground seemed perilouslyclose.
"Now," exclaimed Athol.
With a perceptible jerk the direction of downward flight was checked.Then, giving a decided bump as the buckled landing-wheel touched theground, the monoplane "taxied" for full fifty yards, and haltedwithin ten feet of a group of officers, who scattered right and leftas the machine bounded awkwardly towards them.
Athol, kneeling on the deck of the fuselage, touched his companion inorder to guide him to the ground. The pilot, still holding thesteering-wheel, made no effort to move.
"Do you want me to give you a hand?" he asked, touching him again,Still no response.
"What's wrong with your pilot?" enquired one of the officersanxiously.
Athol crawled forward and looked into his companion's face. Thelieutenant's blood-rimmed eyes were wide open and staring fixedly infront of him, but they were the eyes of a corpse. The gallant pilot'smind had triumphed over his physical injuries up to the very momentthat he had brought the monoplane safely to earth. He had gained atleast one desire: he had brought his machine back to the Britishlines.
* * * * *
"Never expected to see you so soon, old man," was Dick's candidgreeting to his chum.
"Nor did I," admitted Athol. "For that matter I wasn't at all surethat you got away all right. I heard the bombs drop, so I knew thatthe battleplane had set to work. In fact the last bomb you droppednearly settled my hash. Instead it did me a good turn."
"And I went for Sergeant O'Rafferty for being such a clumsyblighter," said Blake. "By Jove, Athol, you seem to have had a run ofluck. Sorry I can't say the same for the poor fellow who brought youback."
"Most remarkable case that," remarked an Army Medical Corps officer."Not only was his sight injured, he had received a piece of shrapnelin his groin and a bullet lodged in his body in the region of hisheart. All the while he was piloting that machine back he wasbleeding to death internally. No wonder, with men of that stamp, thatwe hold the individual mastery of the air."