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TAM O' THE SCOOTS
By EDGAR WALLACE
A. L. BURT COMPANY
_PUBLISHERS_
New York Chicago
Printed in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1919
By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
BOOKS BY
Edgar Wallace
ANGEL ESQUIRE
THE ANGEL OF TERROR
THE BLACK ABBOT
BLUE HAND
CAPTAINS OF SOULS
THE CLEVER ONE
THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN
THE CLUE OF THE TWISTED CANDLE
THE CRIMSON CIRCLE
THE DAFFODIL MURDER
THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
DIANA OF KARA-KARA
THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS
THE FACE IN THE NIGHT
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
THE FLYING SQUAD
THE FOUR JUST MEN
THE GIRL FROM SCOTLAND YARD
THE GREEN ARCHER
GREEN RUST
GUNMAN'S BLUFF
THE HAIRY ARM
JACK O'JUDGMENT
KATE PLUS 10
A KING BY NIGHT
THE MAN WHO KNEW
THE MELODY OF DEATH
THE MISSING MILLIONS
THE MURDER BOOK OF J. G. REEDER
THE NORTHING TRAMP
THE RINGER
THE SECRET HOUSE
THE SINISTER MAN
THE SQUEALER
THE STRANGE COUNTESS
TAM O' THE SCOOTS
THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE
TERROR KEEP
THE TRAITORS' GATE
THE THREE JUST MEN
THE TWISTER
THE VALLEY OF GHOSTS
To
QUENTIN ROOSEVELT
AND ALL AIRMEN, FRIEND AND FOE
ALIKE, WHO HAVE FALLEN IN CLEAN FIGHTING
The world was a puddle of gloom and of shadowy things,
He sped till the red and the gold of invisible day
Was burnish and flames to the undermost spread of his wings,
So he outlighted the stars as he poised in the grey.
Nearer was he to the knowledge and splendour of God,
Mysteries sealed from the ken of the ancient and wise--
Beauties forbidden to those who are one with the clod--
All that there was of the Truth was revealed to his eyes.
Flickers of fire from the void and the whistle of death,
Clouds that snapped blackly beneath him, above and beside,
Watch him, serene and uncaring--holding your breath,
Fearing his peril and all that may come of his pride.
Now he was swooped to the world like a bird to his nest,
Now is the drone of his coming the roaring of hell,
Now with a splutter and crash are the engines at rest--
All's well!
E. W.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I THE CASE OF LASKY 1
II PUPPIES OF THE PACK 21
III THE COMING OF MÜLLER 40
IV THE STRAFING OF MÜLLER 58
V ANNIE--THE GUN 76
VI THE LAW-BREAKER AND FRIGHTFULNESS 100
VII THE MAN BEHIND THE CIRCUS 130
VIII A QUESTION OF RANK 157
IX A REPRISAL RAID 191
X THE LAST LOAD 220
TAM O' THE SCOOTS
CHAPTER I
THE CASE OF LASKY
Lieutenant Bridgeman went out over the German line and "strafed" a
depot. He stayed a while to locate a new gun position and was caught
between three strong batteries of Archies.
"Reports?" said the wing commander. "Well, Bridgeman isn't back and Tam
said he saw him nose-dive behind the German trenches."
So the report was made to Headquarters and Headquarters sent forward a
long account of air flights for publication in the day's communique,
adding, "One of our machines did not return."
"But, A' doot if he's killit," said Tam; "he flattened oot before he
reached airth an' flew aroond a bit. Wi' ye no ask Mr. Lasky, sir-r,
he's just in?"
Mr. Lasky was a bright-faced lad who, in ordinary circumstances, might
have been looking forward to his leaving-book from Eton, but now had to
his credit divers bombed dumps and three enemy airmen.
He met the brown-faced, red-haired, awkwardly built youth whom all the
Flying Corps called "Tam."
"Ah, Tam," said Lasky reproachfully, "I was looking for you--I wanted
you badly."
Tam chuckled.
"A' thocht so," he said, "but A' wis not so far frae the aerodrome when
yon feller chased you--"
"I was chasing him!" said the indignant Lasky.
"Oh, ay?" replied the other skeptically. "An' was ye wantin' the Scoot
to help ye chase ain puir wee Hoon? Sir-r, A' think shame on ye for
misusin' the puir laddie."
"There were four," protested Lasky.
"And yeer gun jammed, A'm thinkin', so wi' rair presence o' mind, ye
stood oop in the fuselage an' hit the nairest representative of the
Imperial Gairman Air Sairvice a crack over the heid wi' a spanner."
A little group began to form at the door of the mess-room, for the news
that Tam the Scoot was "up" was always sufficient to attract an
audience. As for the victim of Tam's irony, his eyes were dancing with
glee.
"Dismayed or frichtened by this apparition of the supermon i' the
air-r," continued Tam in the monotonous tone he adopted when he was
evolving one of his romances, "the enemy fled, emittin' spairks an'
vapair to hide them from the veegilant ee o' young Mr. Lasky, the Boy
Avenger, oor the Terror o' the Fairmament. They darted heether and
theether wi' their remorseless pairsuer on their heels an' the seenister
sound of his bullets whistlin' in their lugs. Ain by ain the enemy is
defeated, fa'ing like Lucifer in a flamin' shrood. Soodenly Mr. Lasky
turns verra pale. Heavens! A thocht has strook him. Where is Tam the
Scoot? The horror o' the thocht leaves him braithless; an' back he
tairns an' like a hawk deeps sweeftly but gracefully into the
aerodrome--saved!"
"Bravo, Tam!" They gave him his due reward with great handclapping and
Tam bowed left and right, his forage cap in his hand.
"Folks," he said, "ma next pairformance will be duly annoonced."
* * * * *
Tam came from the Clyde. He was not a ship-builder, but was the
assistant of a man who ran a garage and did small repairs. Nor was he,
in the accepted sense of the word, a patriot, because he did not enlist
at the beginning of the war. His boss suggested he should, but Tam
apparently held other views, went into a shipyard and was "badged and
reserved."
They combed him out of that, and he went to another factory, making a
false statement to secure the substitution of the badge he had lost. He
was unmarried and had none dependent on him, and his landlord, who had
two sons fighting, suggested to Tam that though he'd hate to lose a good
lodger, he didn't think the country ought to lose a good soldier.
Tam changed his lodgings.
He moved to Glasgow and was insulted by a fellow workman with the name
of coward. Tam hammered his fellow workman insensible and was fired
forthwith from his job.
Every subterfuge, every trick, every evasion and excuse he could invent
to avoid service in the army, he invented. He simply did not want to be
a soldier. He believed most passionately that the war had been started
with the sole object of affording his enemies opportunities for annoying
him.
Then one day he was sent on a job to an aerodrome workshop. He was a
clever mechanic and he had mastered the intricacies of the engine which
he was to repair, in less than a day.
He went back to his work very thoughtfully, and the next Sunday he
bicycled to the aerodrome in his best clothes and renewed his
acquaintance with the mechanics.
Within a week, he was wearing the double-breasted tunic of the Higher
Life. He was not a good or a tractable recruit. He hated discipline and
regarded his superiors as less than equals--but he was an enthusiast.
When Pangate, which is in the south of England, sent for pilots and
mechanics, he accompanied his officer and flew for the first time in his
life.
In the old days he could not look out of a fourth-floor window without
feeling giddy. Now he flew over England at a height of six thousand
feet, and was sorry when the journey came to an end. In a few months he
was a qualified pilot, and might have received a commission had he so
desired.
"Thank ye, sir-r," he said to the commandant, "but ye ken weel A'm no
gentry. M' fairther was no believer in education, an' whilst ither
laddies were livin' on meal at the University A' was airning ma' salt at
the Govan Iron Wairks. A'm no' a society mon ye ken--A'd be usin' the
wrong knife to eat wi' an' that would bring the coorp into disrepute."
His education had, as a matter of fact, been a remarkable one. From the
time he could read, he had absorbed every boy's book that he could buy
or borrow. He told a friend of mine that when he enlisted he handed to
the care of an acquaintance over six hundred paper-covered volumes which
surveyed the world of adventure, from the Nevada of Deadwood Dick to the
Australia of Jack Harkaway. He knew the stories by heart, their
phraseology and their construction, and was wont at times, half in
earnest, half in dour fun (at his own expense), to satirize every-day
adventures in the romantic language of his favorite authors.
He was regarded as the safest, the most daring, the most venomous of
the scouts--those swift-flying spitfires of the clouds--and enjoyed a
fame among the German airmen which was at once flattering and ominous.
Once they dropped a message into the aerodrome. It was short and
humorous, but there was enough truth in the message to give it a bite:
Let us know when Tam is buried, we would a
wreath subscribe.
Officers, German Imperial Air Service.
Section ----
Nothing ever pleased Tam so much as this unsolicited testimonial to his
prowess.
He purred for a week. Then he learned from a German prisoner that the
author of the note was the flyer of a big Aviatic, and went and killed
him in fair fight at a height of twelve thousand feet.
"It was an engrossin' an' thrillin' fight," explained Tam; "the bluid
was coorsin' in ma veins, ma hairt was palpitatin' wi' suppressed
emotion. Roond an' roond ain another the dauntless airmen caircled, the
noo above, the noo below the ither. Wi' supairb resolution Tam o' the
Scoots nose-dived for the wee feller's tail, loosin' a drum at the puir
body as he endeavoured to escape the lichtenin' swoop o' the intrepid
Scotsman. Wi' matchless skeel, Tam o' the Scoots banked over an' brocht
the gallant miscreant to terra firma--puir laddie! If he'd kept ben the
hoose he'd no' be lyin' deid the nicht. God rest him!"
* * * * *
You might see Tam in the early morning, when the world was dark and only
the flashes of guns revealed the rival positions, poised in the early
sun, fourteen thousand feet in the air, a tiny spangle of white, smaller
in magnitude than the fading stars. He seems motionless, though you know
that he is traveling in big circles at seventy miles an hour.
He is above the German lines and the fleecy bursts of shrapnel and the
darker patches where high explosive shells are bursting beneath him,
advertise alike his temerity and the indignation of the enemy.
What is Tam doing there so early?
There has been a big raid in the dark hours; a dozen bombing machines
have gone buzzing eastward to a certain railway station where the German
troops waited in readiness to reinforce either A or B fronts. If you
look long, you see the machines returning, a group of black specks in
the morning sky. The Boches' scouts are up to attack--the raiders go
serenely onward, leaving the exciting business of duel _à l'outrance_ to
the nippy fighting machines which fly above each flank. One such fighter
throws himself at three of the enemy, diving, banking, climbing,
circling and all the time firing "_ticka--ticka--ticka--ticka!_" through
his propellers.
The fight is going badly for the bold fighting machine, when suddenly
like a hawk, Tam o' the Scoots sweeps upon his prey. One of the enemy
side-slips, dives and streaks to the earth, leaving a cloud of smoke to
mark his unsubstantial path. As for the others, they bank over and go
home. One falls in spirals within the enemy's lines. Rescuer and rescued
land together. The fighting-machine pilot is Lieutenant Burnley; the
observer, shot through the hand, but cheerful, is Captain Forsyn.
"Did ye no' feel a sense o' gratitude to the Almighty when you kent it
were Tam sittin' aloft like a wee angel?"
"I thought it was a bombing machine that had come back," said Burnley
untruthfully.
"Did ye hear that, sir-rs?" asked Tam wrathfully. "For a grown officer
an' gentleman haulding the certeeficate of the Royal Flying Coorp, to
think ma machine were a bomber! Did ye no' look oop an' see me? Did ye
no' look thankfully at yeer obsairvor, when, wi' a hooricane roar, the
Terror of the Air-r hurtled across the sky--'Saved!' ye said to yersel';
'saved--an' by Tam! What can I do to shaw ma appreciation of the hero's
devotion? Why!' ye said to yersel', soodenly, 'Why! A'll gi' him a box
o' seegairs sent to me by ma rich uncle fra' Glasgae--!'"
"You can have two cigars, Tam--I'll see you to the devil before I give
you any more--I only had fifty in the first place."
"Two's no' many," said Tam calmly, "but A've na doot A'll enjoy them wi'
ma educated palate better than you, sir-r--seegairs are for men an' no'
for bairns, an' ye'd save yersel' an awfu' feelin' o' seekness if ye
gave me a'."
Tam lived with the men--he had the rank of sergeant, but he was as much
Tam to the private mechanic as he was to the officers. His pay was good
and sufficient. He had shocked that section of the Corps Comforts
Committee which devoted its energies to the collection and dispatch of
literature, by requesting that a special effort be made to keep him
supplied "wi' th' latest bluids." A member of the Committee with a
sneaking regard for this type of literature took it upon himself to
ransack London for penny dreadfuls, and Tam received a generous stock
with regularity.
"A'm no' so fond o' th' new style," he said; "the detective stoory is
verra guid in its way for hame consumption, but A' prefair the mair
preemative discreeptions, of how that grand mon, Deadwood Dick, foiled
the machinations of Black Peter, the Scoorge of Hell Cañon. A've no
soort o' use for the new kind o' stoory--the love-stoories aboot mooney.
Ye ken the soort: Harild is feelin' fine an' anxious aboot Lady
Gwendoline's bairthmark: is she the rechtfu' heir? Oh, Heaven help me to
solve the meestry! (To be continued in oor next.) A'm all for bluid an'
fine laddies wi' a six-shooter in every hand an' a bowie-knife in their
teeth--it's no' so intellectual, but, mon, it's mair human!"
* * * * *
Tam was out one fine spring afternoon in a one-seater Morane. He was on
guard watching over the welfare of two "spotters" who were correcting
the fire of a "grandmother" battery. There was a fair breeze blowing
from the east, and it was bitterly cold, but Tam in his leather jacket,
muffled to the eyes, and with his hands in fur-lined gloves and with the
warmth from his engine, was comfortable without being cozy.
* * * * *
Far away on the eastern horizon he saw a great cloud. It was a detached
and imperial cumulus, a great frothy pyramid that sailed in majestic
splendor. Tam judged it to be a mile across at its base and calculated
its height, from its broad base to its feathery spirelike apex, at
another mile.
"There's an awfu' lot of room in ye," he thought.
It was moving slowly toward him and would pass him at such a level that
did he explore it, he would enter half-way between its air foundation
and its peak.
He signaled with his wireless, "Am going to explore cloud," and sent his
Morane climbing.
He reached the misty outskirts of the mass and began its encirclement,
drawing a little nearer to its center with every circuit. Now he was in
a white fog which afforded him only an occasional glimpse of the earth.
The fog grew thicker and darker and he returned again to the outer edge
because there would be no danger in the center. Gently he declined his
elevator and sank to a lower level. Then suddenly, beneath him, a short
shape loomed through the mist and vanished in a flash. Tam had a tray of
bombs under the fuselage--something in destructive quality between a
Mills grenade and a three-inch shell.
He waited....
Presently--swish! They were circling in the opposite direction to Tam,
which meant that the object passed him at the rate of one hundred and
forty miles an hour. But he had seen the German coming.... Something
dropped from the fuselage, there was the rending crash of an explosion
and Tam dropped a little, swerved to the left and was out in clear
daylight in a second.
Back he streaked to the British lines, his wireless working frantically.
"Enemy raiding squadron in cloud--take the edge a quarter up."
He received the acknowledgment and brought his machine around to face
the lordly bulk of the cumulus.
Then the British Archies began their good work.
Shrapnel and high explosives burst in a storm about the cloud. Looking
down he saw fifty stabbing pencils of flame flickering from fifty A-A
guns. Every available piece of anti-aircraft artillery was turned upon
the fleecy mass.
As Tam circled he saw white specks rising swiftly from the direction of
the aerodrome and knew that the fighting squadron, full of fury, was on
its way up. It had come to be a tradition in the wing that Tam had the
right of initiating all attack, and it was a right of which he was
especially jealous. Now, with the great cloud disgorging its shadowy
guests, he gave a glance at his Lewis gun and drove straight for his
enemies. A bullet struck the fuselage and ricocheted past his ear;
another ripped a hole in the canvas of his wing. He looked up. High
above him, and evidently a fighting machine that had been hidden in the
upper banks of the cloud, was a stiffly built Fokker.
"Noo, lassie!" said Tam and nose-dived.
Something flashed past his tail, and Tam's machine rocked like a ship at
sea. He flattened out and climbed. The British Archies had ceased fire
and the fight was between machine and machine, for the squadron was now
in position. Tam saw Lasky die and glimpsed the flaming wreck of the
boy's machine as it fell, then he found himself attacked on two sides.
But he was the swifter climber--the faster mover. He shot impartially
left and right and below--there was nothing above him after the first
surprise. Then something went wrong with his engines--they missed,
started, missed again, went on--then stopped.
He had turned his head for home and begun his glide to earth.
He landed near a road by the side of which a Highland battalion was
resting and came to ground without mishap. He unstrapped himself and
descended from the fuselage slowly, stripped off his gloves and walked
to where the interested infantry were watching him.
"Where are ye gaun?" he asked, for Tam's besetting vice was an
unquenchable curiosity.
"To the trenches afore Masille, sir-r," said the man he addressed.
"Ye'll no' be callin' me 'sir-r,'" reproved Tam. "A'm a s-arrgent. Hoo
lang will ye stay in the trenches up yon?"
"Foor days, Sergeant," said the man.
"Foor days--guid Lord!" answered Tam. "A' wouldn't do that wairk for a
thoosand poonds a week."
"It's no' so bad," said half-a-dozen voices.
"Ut's verra, verra dangerous," said Tam, shaking his head. "A'm
thankitfu' A'm no' a soldier--they tried haird to make me ain, but A'
said, 'Noo, laddie--gie me a job--'"
_"Whoo!"_
A roar like the rush of an express train through a junction, and Tam
looked around in alarm. The enemy's heavy shell struck the ground midway
between him and his machine and threw up a great column of mud.
"Mon!" said Tam in alarm. "A' thocht it were goin' straicht for ma wee
machine."
* * * * *
"What happened to you, Tam?" asked the wing commander.
Tam cleared his throat.
"Patrollin' by order the morn," he said, "ma suspeecions were aroused by
the erratic movements of a graund clood. To think, wi' Tam the Scoot,
was to act. Wi'oot a thocht for his ain parrsonal safety, the gallant
laddie brocht his machine to the clood i' question, caircling through
its oombrageous depths. It was a fine gay sicht--aloon i' th' sky, he
ventured into the air-r-lions' den. What did he see? The clood was a
nest o' wee horrnets! Slippin' a bomb he dashed madly back to the ooter
air-r sendin' his S. O. S. wi' baith hands--thanks to his--"
He stopped and bit his lip thoughtfully.
"Come, Tam!" smiled the officer, "that's a lame story for you."
"Oh, ay," said Tam. "A'm no' in the recht speerit--Hoo mony did we
lose?"
"Mr. Lasky and Mr. Brand," said the wing commander quietly.
"Puir laddies," said Tam. He sniffed. "Mr. Lasky was a bonnie lad--A'll
ask ye to excuse me, Captain Thompson, sir-r. A'm no feelin' verra weel
the day--ye've no a seegair aboot ye that ye wilna be wantin'?"