Tam o' the Scoots Part 27

The general nodded. "It was signalled to me on the road," he said; "I expected it. Who is in charge of that flight?"

"Mr. MacTavish, sir."

"Tam, eh?" The general nodded his approval. "The circus is getting big and bold," he said; "Fritz has a new machine and he is making the most of it. There they come, the beauties!"

He slipped his field-gla.s.ses from the case at his belt and focused them upon the sky. The enemy came, a graceful V-shaped flight of monstrous geese, throbbing and humming, and the wandering patrols above changed direction and flew to meet them.

As at a signal the V parted at the fork, each angle divided and subdivided into two, so that where one broad arrow-head had been, were four diamonds. The anti-aircraft guns were staining the evening skies brown and white till the attacking squadrons came gliding like tiny flies into the disturbed area, when the gun-fire ceased.

And now friend and enemy were so mixed that it needed an expert eye to distinguish them. They circled, climbed, dived, looped over and about one another, and it seemed as if the tendency of the oncoming wave was to retire.

"They're going. They've had enough," said the general.

Two machines were wobbling to earth, one in a blaze, whilst a third planed down toward the enemy's lines. The fighters were going farther and farther away, all except three machines that seemed engaged in weaving an invisible thread one about the other.

Under and over, round, up, down, and all the time the ceaseless chatter of machine-guns.

Then one side-slipped, recovered and dropped on his tail to earth. The fight was now between two machines, the maneuvers were repeated, the same knitting of some queer design until--

"Got him!" yelled the general.

The German plane fell in that slow spiral which told its own tale to the expert watchers. Then suddenly his nose went down and he crashed.

"Who's the man? Tam, for a ducat!"

Blackie nodded.

Tam's machine was planing down to earth.

"He'll miss the aerodrome," said the general.

"That's not Tam's way of returning at all," said Blackie with knitted brows.

The machine dropped in the very field where the "Sausage-Killer" had been brought down a week before. It did not skim down but landed awkwardly, swaying from side to side until it came to a stand-still.

Blackie was racing across the field. He reached the machine and took one glance at the pilot. Then he turned to the mechanic who followed at his heels.

"'Phone an ambulance," he said; "they've got Tam at last."

For Tam sat limply in his seat, his chin on his breast, his hand still clasped about the b.l.o.o.d.y grip of his machine-gun.

The matron beckoned Vera.

"Here's your last job, Vera," she said with a smile. "Take your car to the aerodrome. One of the pilots has been killed."

Vera stared. "At the aerodrome?"

Control it as she might, her voice shook.

"Yes--didn't you see the fight in the air?"

"I came out as it was finis.h.i.+ng--oh, may I take the ambulance?"

The matron looked at her in wonder. "Yes, child, take the Stafford car," she nodded to an ambulance which waited on the broad drive.

Without another word Vera ran to the car and cranked it up. As she climbed into the driver's seat she felt her knees trembling.

"Please G.o.d, it isn't Tam!" she prayed as she drove the little car along the aerodrome road; "not Tam, dear Lord--not Tam!"

And yet, by the very panic within her she knew it was Tam and none other.

"To the left, I think."

She looked round in affright.

She had been oblivious to the fact that a doctor had taken his seat by her side--it was as though he had emerged from nothingness and had a.s.sumed shape and substance as he spoke.

She turned her wheel mechanically, b.u.mped across a little ditch and pa.s.sed through a broken fence to where a knot of men were regarding something on the ground.

She hardly stopped the ambulance before she leapt out and pushed her way through the group.

"Tam!" she whispered and at that moment Tam opened his eyes. He looked in wonder from face to face, then his eyes rested on the girl.

She was down on her knees by his side in a second and her hand was under his head.

"Tam!" she whispered and thrilled at the look which came into his blue eyes.

Then before them all she bent her head and kissed him.

"From which moment," said Blackie afterward, "Tam began one of the most remarkable recoveries medical science has ever recorded. He had three bullets through his chest, one through his shoulder-blade, and two of his ribs were broken."

Tam closed his eyes. "Vera," he murmured.

She looked up, self-possessed, and eyed Blackie steadily as the doctor stooped over the stricken man on the other side and gingerly felt for the wounds.

"Tam is going to live, Captain Blackie," she said, "because he knows I want him to--don't you, dear?"

"Aye--la.s.sie," said Tam faintly.

"Because--because," she said, "we are going to be married, aren't we, Tam?"

He nodded and she stooped to listen. "Say it--in--Scotch."

She said it--in his ear, her eyes bright and s.h.i.+ning, her face as pink as the sunset flooding the scene and then she got up to her feet and they lifted the stretcher and slid it gently into the grooved guides on the floor of the ambulance.

"Now--driver," said the doctor with a little smile.