Tam o' the Scoots Part 23

"Ye don't say!"

There was amazement in his look, but there was pain, too. The traditions of the air service had become his traditions. A breach of the unwritten code by the enemy was almost as painful a matter to him as though it was committed by one of his own comrades. For his spiritual growth had dated from the hour of his enlistment, and that period of life wherein youth absorbs its most vivid and most eradicable impressions, had coincided with the two years he had spent in his new environment.

He understood nothing of the army and its intimate life, of its fierce and wholesome code. He could only wonder at the courage and the endurance of those men on the ground who were cheerful in all circ.u.mstances. They amazed and in a sense depressed him. He had been horrified to see snipers bayoneted without mercy, without being given a chance to surrender, not realizing that the sniper is outside all concession and can not claim any of the rough courtesies of war.

He had placed his enemy on a pedestal, and it hurt almost as much to know that the German fell short of his conception as it would have, had one of his own comrades been guilty of an unpermissible act.

Hospitals had been bombed before, but there was a chance that the wandering night-bird had dropped his pills in ignorance of what lay beneath him. Of late, however, hospitals and clearing stations had been attacked with such persistence that there was very little doubt that the enemy was deliberately carrying out a hideous plan.

"Ye don't say?" he repeated, and the girl noticed that his voice was a little husky. "Were ye--" he hesitated.

"I was on convoy duty, fortunately," said the girl, "but that doesn't save you in the daytime, and I have been bombed lots of times, although the red cross on the top of the ambulance is quite clear--isn't it?"

Tam nodded.

"There was no damage?" he asked anxiously.

"Not very much in one way," she said, "he missed the hospital but got the surgery and poor Hector--" She stopped, and he saw tears in her eyes.

"Ye don't tell me?" he asked, startled.

She nodded.

"Puir Hector; well, that's too bad, puir wee little feller!"

"Everybody is awfully upset about it, he was such a cheery little chap.

He was killed quite--nastily." She hesitated to give the grisly details, but Tam, who had seen the effect of high explosive bombs, had no difficulty in reconstructing the scene where Hector laid down his life for his adopted country.

When he got back to the aerodrome that night he found that the bombing of hospitals was the subject which was exciting the mess to the exclusion of all others.

"It's positively ghastly that a decent lot of fellows like German airmen can do such diabolical things," said Blackie; "we are so helpless. We can't go along and bomb his collecting stations."

"Fritz's material is deteriorating," said a wing commander; "there's not enough gentlemen to go round. Everybody who knows Germany expected this to happen. You don't suppose fellows like Boltke or Immelmann or Richthoven would have done such a swinish thing?"

That same night One-Three-One was bombed again, this time with more disastrous effects. One of the raiders was brought down by Blackie himself, who shot both the pilot and the observer, but the raid was only one of many.

The news came through in the morning that a systematic bombing of field hospitals had been undertaken from Ypres to the Somme. At two o'clock that afternoon Blackie summoned his squadron.

"There's a retaliation stunt on to-night," he explained; "we are getting up a scratch raid into Germany. You fellows will be in for it. Tam, you will be my second in command."

At ten o'clock that night the squadron rose and headed eastward. The moon was at its full, but there was a heavy ground mist, and at six thousand feet a thin layer of clouds which afforded the raiders a little cover.

Tam was on the left of the diamond formation, flying a thousand feet above the bombers, and for an hour and a half his eyes were glued upon the signal light of his leader. Presently their objective came into sight: a spangle of lights on the ground. You could follow the streets and the circular sweep of the big Central Platz and even distinguish the bridges across the Rhine, then of a sudden the lights blurred and became indistinct, and Tam muttered an impatient "Tchk," for the squadron was running into a cloud-bank which might be small but was more likely to be fairly extensive.

They were still able to distinguish the locality, until three spurts of red flame in the very center of the town marked the falling of the first bombs. Then all the prominent lights went out. There were hundreds of feeble flickers from the houses, but after a while these too faded and died. In their place appeared the bright, staring faces of the searchlights as they swept the clouds.

Tam saw the flash of guns, saw the red flame-flowers of the bombs burst to life and die, and straining his eyes through the mist caught the "Return" signal of his leader. He banked round and ran into a thicker pall of fog and began climbing. As he turned he saw a quick, red, angry flash appear in the clouds and something whistled past his head. The guns had got the alt.i.tude of the bombers to a nicety and Tam grinned.

By this time Blackie's lights were out of sight and Tam was alone. He looked down at his compa.s.s and the quivering needle now pointed to his right, which meant he was on the homeward track. He kept what he thought was a straight course, but the needle swung round so that it pointed toward him. He banked over again to the right and swore as he saw the needle spin round as though some invisible finger was twirling it.

Now the airplane compa.s.s is subject to fits of madness.

There are dozens of explanations as to why such things occur, but the recollection of a few of these did not materially a.s.sist the scout. The thing to do was to get clear of the clouds and take his direction by the stars. He climbed and climbed, until his aeronometer pointed to twenty thousand feet. By this time it was necessary to employ the apparatus which he possessed for sustaining himself at this alt.i.tude. It was amazing that the clouds should be so high, and he began to think that his aeronometer was out of order when he suddenly dived up into the light of a cold moon.

He looked around, seeking the pole-star, and found it on his left. So all the time he had been running eastward.

And then his engine began to miss.

Tam was a philosopher and a philosopher never expects miracles. He understood his engine as a good jockey understands his horse. He pushed the nose of his machine earthward and planed down through an interminable bank of clouds until he found a gray countryside running up to meet him. There were no houses, no lights, nothing but a wide expanse of country dotted with spa.r.s.e copses.

There was sufficient light to enable him to select a landing-place, and he came down in the middle of a big pasture on the edge of a forest of gaunt trees.

He unstrapped himself and climbed down, stretching his limbs before he took a gentle trot around the machine to restore his circulation. Then he climbed back into the fuselage and tinkered at the engine. He knew what was wrong and remedied the mischief in a quarter of an hour. Then he inspected his petrol supply and whistled. He had made a rough calculation and he knew within a few miles how far he was in the interior of Germany, and by the character of the country he knew he was in the marshy lands of Oosenburg, and there was scarcely enough petrol to reach the Rhine.

He left his machine, slipped an automatic pistol into the pocket of his overall and went on a voyage of exploration.

Half a mile from where he landed, he struck what he gathered was a high-road and proceeded cautiously, for the high-road would probably be patrolled, the more so if the noise of his machine had been correctly interpreted, though it was in his favor that he had shut off his engines and had planed down for five miles without a sound.

There was n.o.body in sight. To the left the road stretched in the diffused moonlight, a straight white ribbon unbroken by any habitation.

To the right he discerned a small hut, and to this he walked. He had taken a dozen steps when a voice challenged him in German. At this point the road was sunken and it was from the shadow of the cutting that the challenge came.

"h.e.l.lo," said Tam in English, and a little figure started out.

Tam saw the rifle in his hand and caught the glitter of a bayonet.

"You English?" said a voice.

"Scotch," said Tam severely.

"Aha!" There was a note of exultation. "You English-escaped prisoner! I haf you arrested and with me to the Commandant of Camp 74 you shall go."

"Is it English ye're speakin'?" said Tam.

The little man came closer to him. He stood four feet three and he was very fat. He wore no uniform, and was evidently one of those patriotic souls who undertake spare-time guard duty. His presence was explained by his greeting. Some men had escaped from the German prison-camp seven miles away and he was one of the sentries who were watching the road.

"You come mit me, _vorwarts_!"

Tam obeyed meekly and stepped out to the hut.

"I keep you here. Presently the _Herr Leutnant_ will come and you shall go back."

He walked into the hut and waited in silence while the little man struck a match and lit an oil-lamp. The sentry fixed the gla.s.s chimney and turned to face the muzzle of Tam's automatic pistol.

"Sit down, ma wee frien'," said Tam; "let ma take that gun away from ye before ye hairt yeersel'--maircifu' Heavens!"

He was staring at the little man, but it was not the obvious terror of the civilian which fascinated him, it was the big, white, unshaven face, the long upper lip, and the low corrugated brow under the stiff-bristling hair, the small twinkling eyes, and the broad, almost animal, nose that held him for a moment speechless.