“Well, to-morrow, if all goes well, we'll be with Pershing's boys,”
remarked Jack, as he and Tom were sitting in their quarters after
breakfast, the last day but one they were to spend in the Lafayette
Escadrille with which they had so long been associated.
“That's so. We'll soon be on the firing line with Uncle Sam,” agreed
Tom. “Of course we've been with him, in a way, ever since we've been
fighting, for it's all in the same cause. But there'll be a little more
satisfaction in being 'on our own,' as the English say.”
“You're right. What's on for to-day?” asked Jack.
“Haven't the least idea. But here comes a messenger now.”
As Tom spoke he glanced from a window and saw an orderly coming toward
their quarters. The man seemed in a hurry.
“Something's up!” decided Jack. “Maybe they've got word from poor
Harry.”
“I'm beginning to give him up,” said Tom. “If they were going to
let us have any news of him they'd have done it long ago--the beasts!”
and he fairly snarled out the words.
“Still I'm not giving up,” returned Jack. “I can't explain why, but I
have a feeling that, some day, we'll see Harry Leroy again.”
Tom shook his head.
“I wish I could be as hopeful as you,” he said. “Maybe we'll see him
again--or his grave. But I want to say, right now, that if ever I have
a chance at the Hun who shot him down, that Hun Will get no mercy from
me!”
“Same here!” echoed Jack. “But here comes the orderly.”
The man entered and handed Jack a slip of paper. It was from the
commander of their squadron, and said, in effect, that though Tom and
Jack were no longer under his orders, having been duly transferred to
another sector, yet he would be obliged if they would call on him, at
his quarters.
“Maybe he has news!” exclaimed Jack, eagerly.
Again Tom shook his head.
“He'd have said so if that was the case,” he remarked as he and his chum
prepared to report at headquarters, telling the messenger they would
soon follow him.
“Ah, young gentlemen, I am glad to see, you!” exclaimed the commander,
and it was as friends that he greeted Tom and Jack and not as military
subordinates. “Do you want to do me one last favor?”
“A thousand if we can!” exclaimed Jack, for he and Tom had caught
something of the French enthusiasm of manner, from having associated
with the brave airmen so long.
“Good! Then I shall feel free to ask. Know then, that I am a little
short-handed in experienced airmen. The Huns have taken heavy toll of
us these last few days,” he went on sorrowfully, and Torn and Jack knew
this to be so, for two aces, as well as some pilots of lesser magnitude,
had been shot down. But ample revenge had been taken.
“By all rights you are entitled to a holiday before you join your
new command, under the great Pershing,” went on the flight commander.
“However, as I need the services of two brave men to do patrol duty,
I appeal to you. There is a machine gun nest, somewhere in the Boche
lines, that has been doing terrible execution. If you could find
the battery, and signal its location, we might destroy it with our
artillery, and so save many brave lives for France,” he went on. “I do
not like to ask you--”
“Tell 'em to get out the machines!” interrupted Jack. “We were just
wishing we could do something to make up for the loss of Harry Leroy,
and this may give it to us. You haven't heard anything of him, have
you?” he asked.
The commander shook his head.
“I fear we shall never hear from him,” he said. “Though only yesterday
we received back some of the effects of one of our men who was shot down
behind their lines. I can not understand in Leroy's case.”
“Well, we'll make 'em pay a price all right!” declared Tom. “And now
what about this machine gun nest?”
The commander gave them such information as he had. It was not unusual,
such work as Tom and Jack were about to undertake. As the officer
had said, they were practically exempt now that they were about to be
transferred. But they had volunteered, as he probably knew they would.
Two speedy Spad machines were run out for the use of Tom and Jack, each
one to have his own, for the work they were to do was dangerous and they
would have need of speed.
They looked over the machine guns to see that they were in shape for
quick work, and as the one on the machine Tom selected had congealed
oil on the mechanism, having lately returned from a high flight, another
weapon was quickly attached. Nothing receives more care and attention
at an aerodrome than the motor of the plane and the mechanism of the
machine gun. The latter are constructed so as to be easily and quickly
mounted and dismounted, and at the close of each day's flight the guns
are carefully inspected and cleaned ready for the morrow.
“Locate the machine gun battery if you can,” was the parting request to
Tom and Jack as they prepared to ascend. “Send back word of the location
as nearly as you can to our batteries, and the men there will see to the
rest.”
“We will!” cried the Americans.
Locating a machine gun nest is not as easy as picking out a hostile
battery of heavier guns, for the former, being smaller, are more easily
concealed.
But Tom and Jack would, of course, do their best to help out their
friends, the French. Over toward the German lines they flew, and began
to scan with eager eyes the ground below them. They could not fly at a
very great height, as they needed to be low down in order to see, and in
this position they were a mark for the anti-aircraft guns of the Huns.
They had no sooner got over the enemy trenches, and were peering about
for the possible location of the machine gun emplacement, when they
were greeted with bursts of fire. But by skillfully dodging they escaped
being hit themselves, though their machines were struck. The two chums
were separated by about a mile, for they wanted to cover as much ground
as possible.
At last, to his great delight, Tom saw a burst of smoke from a building
that had been so demolished by shell fire that it seemed nothing could
now inhabit it. But the truth was soon apparent. The machine gun nest
was in the cellar, and from there, well hidden, had been doing terrible
execution on the allied forces. Pausing only to make sure of his
surmise, Tom began to tap out on his wireless key the location of the
hidden machine gun nest.
Most of the aeroplanes carry a wireless outfit. An aerial trails after
them, and the electric impulses, dripping off this, so to speak, reach
the battery headquarters. Owing to the noise caused by the motor of the
airship, no message can be sent to the airman in return, and he has to
depend on signs made on the ground, arrows or circles in white by day
and lighted signals at night, to make sure that his messages are being
received and understood.
The Allies, of course, possess maps of every sector of the enemy's
front, so that by reference to these maps the aircraft observer can send
back word as to almost the precise location of the battery which it is
desired to destroy.
Quickly tapping out word where the battery was located, Tom awaited
developments, circling around the spot in his machine. He was fired at
from guns on the ground below, but, to his delight, no hostile planes
rose to give him combat. A glance across the expanse, however, showed
that Jack was engaging two.
“He's keeping them from me!” thought Tom, and his heart was heavy, for
he realized that Jack might be killed. However, it was the fortune of
war. As long as the Hun planes were fighting Jack they would not molest
him, and he might have time to send word to the French battery that
would result in the destruction of the Hun machine nest.
There came a burst of fire from the Allied lines he had left, and Tom
saw a shell land to the left and far beyond the Hun battery hidden in
the old ruins. He at once sent back a correcting signal.
The more a gun is elevated up to a certain point, the farther it shoots.
Forty-three degrees is about the maximum elevation. Again, if a gun is
elevated too high it shoots over instead of directly at the target aimed
at. It is then necessary to lower the elevation. Tom has seen that the
guns of the French battery, which were seeking to destroy the machine
gun nest were shooting beyond the mark. Accordingly they were told to
depress their muzzles.
This was done, but still the shells fell to the left, and an additional
correction was necessary. It is comparatively easy to make corrections
in elevation or depression that will rectify errors in shooting short
of or beyond a mark. It is not so easy to make the same corrections in
what, for the sake of simplicity, may be called right or left errors,
that is horizontal firing. To make these corrections it becomes needful
to inscribe imaginary circles about the target, in this case the machine
gun nest.
These circles are named from the letters of the alphabet. For instance,
a circle drawn three hundred yards around a Hun battery as a center
might be designated A. The next circle, two hundred yards less in size,
would be B and so on, down to perhaps five yards, and that is getting
very close.
The circles are further divided, as a piece of pie is cut, into twelve
sectors, and numbered from 1 to 12. The last sector is due north, while
6 would be due south, 3 east, and 9 west, with the other figures for
northeast, southwest, and so on.
If a shot falls in the fifty-yard circle, indicated by the letter D,
but to the southwest of the mark, it is necessary to indicate that by
sending the message “D-7,” which would mean that, speaking according to
the points of the compass, the missile had fallen within fifty yards of
the mark, but to the south-southwest of it, and correction must be made
accordingly.
Tom watched the falling shells. They came nearer and nearer to the
hidden battery and at last he saw one fall plump where it was needed.
There was a great puff of smoke, and when it had blown away there was
only a hole in the ground where the ruins had been hiding the machine
guns.
Tom's work was done, and he flew off to the aid of Jack, who had
overcome one Hun, sending his plane crashing to earth. But the other,
an expert fighter, was pressing him hard until Ton opened up on him with
his machine gun. Then the German, having no stomach for odds, turned
tail and flew toward his own lines.
“Good for you, Tom!” yelled Jack, though he knew his chum could not hear
him because of the noise of the motor.
Together the two lads, who had engaged in their last battle strictly
with the French, made for their aerodrome, reaching it safely, though,
as it was learned when Jack dismounted, he had received a slight bullet
wound in one side from a missile sent by one of the attacking planes.
But the hurt was only a flesh wound; though, had it gone an inch to one
side, it would have ended Jack's fighting days.
Hearty and enthusiastic were the congratulations that greeted the
exploit of Torn in finding the German machine gun nest that had been
such a menace, nor were the thanks to Jack any less warm, for without
his help Tom could never have maintained his position, and sent back
corrections to the battery which brought about the desired result.
“It is a glorious end to your stay with us,” said the commander, with
shining eyes, as he congratulated them.
There was a little impromptu banquet in the quarters that night, and Tom
and Jack were bidden God-speed to their new quarters.
“There's only one thing I want to say!” said Jack quietly, as he rose in
response to a demand that he talk.
“Let us hear it, my slice of bacon!” called a jolly ace.
“It's this,” went on Jack. “That I hereby resolve that if we--I mean Tom
and I--can't rescue our comrade, Harry Leroy, from the Huns--provided
he's alive--that we'll take a toll of five Germans for him--or as many,
up to that number, as we can shoot down before they get us. Five German
fliers is the price of Harry Leroy, who was worth a hundred of them!”
“Bravo! Hurrah! So he was! Death to the Huns!” were the cries.
Torn Raymond sprang to his feet
“What Jack says I say!” he cried. “But I double the toll. If Harry Leroy
is dead he leaves a sister. You all saw her here! Well, I'll get five
Huns for her, and that makes ten between Jack and me!”
“Success to you!” cried several.
With this resolve to spur them on, Tom and Jack bade their bravo
comrades farewell and started for Paris, whence they were to journey to
the headquarters of General Pershing and his men.