AMID WAR'S ALARMS
Sanderson, in his fast-flying Nieuport, shaped his course in a long
slant toward the trenches. He flew over the hospital in which Belinda
worked. She might then be wending her way toward it from her lodging.
If so, and if she saw the flotilla of aeroplanes overhead would she
think of him?
The whole sector along the trenches had become alive since the first
streak of light. And of course the Germans were just as busy. From
above, the conflict seemed like a huge cauldron, over which the steam
hung like a cloud, and out of which pale rockets shot--the exploding
shrapnel.
The yellow mist rose to a great height, in places obscuring the
battleline for many rods. Flashes, like the snapping of parlor matches,
identified the positions of the guns. In some places, and for hundreds
of yards, the gun-carriages touched one another.
In other spots Sanderson could easily descry the network of
trenches, at certain points broken and half obliterated by muddy
excavations--huge shell holes.
It was difficult at some points to tell the French from the German
trenches, they were so close together. It was a horrid, barren waste,
this land. Forests had been wiped out, fields plowed so deeply by shell
and shrapnel that it almost seemed that for decades no green thing
would ever grow there.
Ruined villages lay like heaps of potsherd; in color the land was all a
dirty brown.
High, as Sanderson was now, above this boiling, turgid pit, it was a
silent battle. The noise of his motor drowned the whistle of the shells
and the roar of the bombardment.
The French artillery biplanes were hovering over the German lines like
buzzards over contemplated prey. And surely the carrion was in the
making.
On sentinel duty, as he was, Sanderson mounted higher to watch
for attacking German aeroplanes. A dull, explosive sound suddenly
reached his ears. He saw that certain white puffs were following him
about--exploding shrapnel from the enemy's anti-aircraft guns.
The work that fell to his share on this occasion, however, was not
all observational. Up from behind the German lines rose a squadron of
fighting Fokkers attended by smaller _tauben_. They spread out as they
advanced, and so could not always protect each other's flanks.
The American aviator saw his opportunity. He shot from an
eight-thousand-foot level in a sharp slant down upon one of the
heavier German machines that had come boldly over the French trenches.
Pointing his Nieuport with exactness he fired the mitrailleuse and saw
with satisfaction the havoc accomplished which had been his desire.
The heavier machine fell through the air like a wounded bird. Flames
broke out, for as is always the case when shot down over enemy
trenches, the German aviator ignited his gasoline tank that the machine
might be destroyed rather than be of use to the French.
Sanderson, shooting southward after his brief conflict, was not
untouched. The _tauben_ on duty had fired on him. A bullet had plowed a
furrow across one of his shoulders, and he felt a trickle of blood into
his shoe from a scratch above his left ankle.
But greater than these personal hurts was another discovery he made.
A bullet had severed a metal stability control. By all the rules of
aviation he should have lost control of his aeroplane and come down in
a fatal smash.
Sanderson did not lose his head. He was quite aware, when the rod
snapped, that death rode at his shoulder. He seized the broken stay and
held on, steering with his other hand. This called for all the strength
he possessed; for if an automobile traveling fifty miles an hour needs
muscle as well as skill at the wheel, how much more does an aeroplane
pilot need strength in handling his machine traveling at twice that
speed!
The American, still slanting downward, crossed above the French
trenches, aiming to descend in a not-far-distant field, a little out
of the line of fire, where repairs could be made. Fate, however, had
more in store for him. A whirling squall of wind suddenly caught his
Nieuport, and he felt the tail of the machine go down and the nose
shoot up.
He was caught in the fatal _perte de vitesse_.
There are two ways in which the aviator may know when he is approaching
the danger point of "loss of speed"--by closely watching the speed
indicator and by feeling the controls. The moment the controls become
lifeless and have no resistance the pilot must act instantly to regain
his momentum.
But situated as Sanderson was, he had no chance to save himself. The
_vrille_ was on before he could as much as think. His aeroplane was
suddenly descending in a whirlpool--spinning like a match in a basin.
The Nieuport was making the corner of one wing a pivot and was
revolving about it--the first turn slowly, but each succeeding turn
increasing in speed.
Sanderson whispered the one word "Belinda" as he looked out and saw
that he was less than a thousand feet above ground and approaching it
at an alarming rate of speed. He had shut off the motor the instant of
the alarm, or the Nieuport would have folded up like a book.
He had seen so many similar accidents where pilots had "slipped off the
wing." Seldom if ever had such accidents turned out other than utter
tragedies.
But there was one thing he knew--a possible way of salvation, though
almost an impossibility for any save the coolest brain. It is harder
to do nothing when danger threatens than anything else--unless one
is paralyzed with fear. And Frank Sanderson was not the person to be
bemused by peril.
So this one thing he did--_nothing_. He let go of everything save the
broken control rod and shut his eyes. He felt the sickening down-rush
of the aeroplane and sensed, too, the up-rush of the ground.
Expecting a crash that would be the last sound in his ears, the last
physical feeling he would have in this world, he was suddenly shocked
by the lurching and righting of the aeroplane. He turned on the motor,
recovered the steering wheel and control, finding himself on a line of
flight scarcely two hundred feet above the ground.
He came safely down in a field where a party of wondering French
soldiers welcomed him with acclamation. They had seen the _perte de
vitesse_ and thought the _Américain aviateur_ had been shot down.
A first-aid man of the Red Cross dressed Frank's slight wounds, while
an amateur mechanician repaired the broken stability rod. In half an
hour he took his machine up again and winged his way back to the firing
line, amid the cheers of the soldiers.
Clouds were gathering in the upper strata of air, and at the usual
observation level these drifting blankets of mist began to obstruct
his view of the battlefield and the space directly above it. He was
therefore driven down to the six-thousand-foot level and later to five
thousand feet.
There was fighting between the German and French aeroplanes over other
parts of the field; but just at present all seemed quiet near Sanderson.
A great cloud drifted over and touched him like a chill and almost
palpable hand. He felt that this was no place in which to remain, and
was about to descend a few hundred feet to escape the menace of the
cloud when, in shutting off his motor preparatory for the volplane, he
distinguished the noise of another motor near by.
He shot a keen glance about. He marked each friendly aeroplane in his
group. All the German machines he saw were at a distance.
Then he suddenly decided that the motor he heard must be that of an
aeroplane in the midst of the cloud just above him. An enemy aeroplane!
He had been observed from a distance, and a German _taube_ had been
sent to attack him, the enemy using the screen of this cloud to make
the attack sure. As Sanderson started downward he saw the black shape
of the _taube_ swoop out of the cloud.
His antagonist had the advantage at the start, and well Sanderson
knew it, for he was attacking the American's machine from above. The
German's mitrailleuse was already beginning to spit a hail of bullets
about the falling aeroplane, a fire which the American could not return
until he could change his flight and "point" his machine.
Every moment Sanderson delayed in changing his course added to his
peril, yet he hesitated to mount upward again. There was a chance--a
narrow one but a conclusive strategy if successful--that he was tempted
to put to the test. It was a desperate expedient and might end fatally
to himself as well as to the German; yet the American contemplated
putting it into execution.
The German continued to shoot as he fell upon Sanderson's machine, and
already there were several fresh bullet holes through the wings of the
latter's aeroplane. As always, the fear of a bullet in his gasoline
tank fretted the American's mind. And, too, he had thus far not fired a
shot in self-defense.
It was the desperate resort, therefore, that he embraced. He started
his motor, righted his aeroplane, and as soon as he was sure of his
speed, lifted the machine's nose for a higher altitude.
Seeing this change on the part of the Nieuport, the pilot of the
_taube_ instantly followed suit. At least, he shot into a level and his
own motor began to buzz again.
But Sanderson had expected this. He knew the German would not be
likely to give him a chance to pass and rake him broadside with his
mitrailleuse. He, however, trusted in the speed of the Nieuport. As
though shot out of one of the great guns hammering awe at each other
below, his _appareil de chasse_ darted up, turned, and was aimed
directly for the under side of the _taube_--and at the most vulnerable
part, the tail.
The speed of the American's aeroplane was what counted. His rain of
bullets crippled the German machine. It "went off on the wing," dropped
some hundreds of yards, and then righted before Sanderson could turn
again and shoot from above upon it.
Sanderson now had the advantage the German had previously held. He was
the pursuer and the German was in flight.
He held, too, an added advantage. Sanderson had the German running for
the rear of the French lines, having intervened his Nieuport between
the enemy and escape to the northward.
The injury to the German's aeroplane made it positively necessary for
its pilot to descend. And he was descending in enemy territory. This
being the case, he did what every aviator is supposed to do in like
circumstances--and what the German airman always does.
Racing downward for a landing, with Sanderson in hot pursuit, the pilot
of the _taube_ saw that he could not reach the earth in safety and
there fire his gas-tank, so destroying his machine that it should yield
no "comfort or support to the enemy." Sanderson saw his antagonist turn
deliberately and fire his gasoline tank while he was yet some hundreds
of feet above the ground. The little _taube_ was on fire in a moment.
The pilot still endeavored to make a landing and save his own life; but
the flames enveloped him.
Sanderson redressed his machine and made a safe landing. The burning
_taube_ came down in one place near by, while in another spot had
fallen all that was left of the brave fellow who had piloted it.
The American reached the remains of the German before anybody else.
He stood with head uncovered while a field surgeon made a perfunctory
examination of the charred heap.
"Indeed, yes, _Monsieur Américain_, he is dead," agreed the French
doctor. "But he was a brave man though a _Boche_."
* * * * *
Disaster stalked with hooded face across these waste lands of Northern
France. Belinda felt the spirit of it before she heard a word of
retreat. Before, even, the broken troops toiled thickly past the
hospital and through the village from the trenches, the Germans in her
ward seemed to know that along this sector their countrymen were making
gains.
Changes in the personnel of the ward had finally cleared out every
French soldier Belinda had nursed. There were only Germans left, many
of them seriously wounded. She spoke German all day long. Even Erard,
with the facility of the Latin, had picked up a speaking vocabulary
that served in his care of the detested "_Boches_." The little
_infirmier_ with his afflictions of harelip and twisted foot was really
accorded more polite treatment by the Germans than he had been by his
compatriots.
A nervous air of expectancy overlaid the entire hospital. The removal
of such wounded as could be moved started afresh. The _médecin chef_
was short in his replies to questions. _Madame la Directrice_ was in
tears.
The troops going up, who sometimes passed Belinda on the road as she
trudged to and from Minerva's, did not at first betray the feeling that
disaster was in the air. Though they were marching in coats already
saturated by the rain and knew they might remain in that condition
during their entire "stage" in the trenches, they seemed not to be
daunted.
They plodded on, singing gaily, unmindful of rain and wind, weighted
down by their equipment. They hailed the women they passed with:
"Good-morning, Margot!" "Chère Is'belle!" "By the old mill site,
to-night, Marie!"
But the men who came back!
They did not march back from the trenches at first. Sandwiched in with
the ambulances along the crowded roads were motor-busses containing the
dumb, stupid creatures that for a week had held back the enemy.
They looked scarcely human--brown with mud from head to foot, faces
masked with dirt and a week's growth of beard. They looked at the
passer-by with a faraway, half-unconscious expression, so utterly
stupefied by the terrible bombardment and their miseries that they
scarcely appreciated their escape.
The attack by the French along this front had not been a success, or
so it seemed to the layman. If it had been a thrust to call German
reserves from other places and center them here, to make the real
attack by French and British more potent, as some said, perhaps it was
a well-conducted piece of strategy.
But the enemy poured down upon the devoted soldiers holding the
front of this sector and by mere weight of numbers--and weight of
guns--forced the French to retreat. It went on so for several days. The
French gave only a few yards at a time; but it was retreat!
Belinda had seen nothing of Sanderson since the night he had come
to her window. Nor had she heard anything definite of him. Stories
were rife that the American escadrille of flying men had conducted
themselves with great honor in the raid over the German lines. One of
their number had been killed.
Through Erard, who was the recipient of much gossip and who took a
vivid interest in everything pertaining to the flying escadrilles, she
tried to learn who the lost aviator was.
This was impossible. Bulletins sent out for general consumption are
seldom read so near the battlefield.
She did hear that one of the younger members of the Lafayette Squadron
was acclaimed an "ace." He had brought down the necessary number of
enemy aeroplanes to receive that honorable title. Names, however, did
not reach Belinda's ears.
Then there came something else to startle her ears. The boom of the
great guns came nearer. Suddenly one afternoon a shell fell within the
hospital enclosure.
It was a chance shot without doubt; but the explosion of the engine of
destruction did as much damage as though it had been intended. The end
of a ward was torn to pieces and three _blessés_ and an orderly were
killed outright. A Red Cross nurse was one of those removed from the
ward and started upon an ambulance for the railroad that very night.
The order for evacuation came. All that night the ambulances rolled out
with their groaning burdens for the rear. No more ambulances returning
from the first-aid stations stopped at the hospital. The station must
be abandoned.
All was in confusion. There were to be no cases removed this night from
her ward, therefore Belinda could go home. The French wounded were to
be taken out first.
The girl from America felt her assistance was just as much required by
the German prisoners as by the brave Frenchmen. Three more shells fell
during the night within the corporate limits of the village. She came
back to the hospital early in the morning to find half the people gone
and utter panic reigning.
It had seized upon many of the attendants of the hospital. _Madame
la Directrice_ had been slightly wounded by a falling timber the day
before and the _médecin chef_ had ordered her taken away despite her
protestations. At once the nursing force went to pieces; for most of
the nurses had depended utterly upon the strong mind and vigorous
discipline of the energetic Frenchwoman.
Belinda found nobody in her ward save the prisoners. The sentinels at
the doors were gone, too. Breakfast was ready and there was nobody to
give it to the patients. The girl felt that her little world was fast
toppling about her.
She removed her cape and bustled into her huge apron and cap. The
ordinary formalities of the early morning hours must be dispensed with.
First of all it was necessary for her _blessés_ to eat.
In the midst of serving coffee and over-done eggs to the men who were
able to be of some help to themselves, before taking the trays to the
more helpless patients, little Erard put a very pasty-looking face in
at the door.
"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!" he cried.
"What is the matter with you, Erard? You have deserted me!"
The _infirmier_ pushed farther into the ward. He had a knapsack
strapped to his shoulders and carried a cheap straw bag.
"Everybody goes, Mademoiselle!" he cried. "It is retreat! Hear?"
A terrific explosion sounded near--then a fusillade of bombs. Several
German Fokkers had got by the French air scouts and were raining
missiles upon the sector, while the "Big Berthas" were getting the
range of the villages back of the line. These hamlets had been shelled
before, and the people knew what it meant. Old Minerva had been packed
up, ready to leave, before the girl had started for the hospital.
"What has that to do with us, Erard?" the nurse demanded. "Our duty is
here. They have not yet ordered the evacuation of our ward."
"Nor will they, Mademoiselle," cried the little _infirmier_. "These
_sales Boches_! Let them lie! Let their own guns cut them to shreds!
They shell the hospital now."
His shriek arose above that of the shell that landed within the hedge.
A window was broken. Belinda ran to pick up the bits of glass and close
the aperture as best she could against the draft.
Erard had gone. She looked out of the door. A throng of orderlies,
frightened nurses, the last of the French wounded, were crowding to the
entrance gate.
The _médecin chef_ was trying to preserve order and to "count noses."
He was getting them off in the motor-busses and ambulances commandeered
for the occasion. He turned and saw Belinda and beckoned commandingly.
Behind the girl lay thirty-four men on the cots of the ward--most of
them helpless--unable even to rise unaided from their pillows. Jacob
was almost the only patient who could hobble about. The poor lad
whose condition had first roused Belinda's pity for the prisoners had
pneumonia and must be attended hourly.
She shook her head. She understood only too well where her duty lay.
But those poor sick and dying men----
The _médecin chef_, his mouth open, his clenched hands gesticulating
his anger at what he considered her stupidity, started across the
yard toward her. The gateway was emptied suddenly and she heard the
throbbing of the engines as the autos made their departure.
She heard, too, the whistle of the falling shell. It burst with a
deafening report overhead.
Belinda saw the _médecin chef_ throw his hands heavenward, spin once,
and fall with his face masked in blood, and featureless. By the posture
of the limbs, by the utter stillness of the body, she knew it was
useless to go to him. He had died instantly.
The girl staggered back into the ward and let the door swing shut.
There was excitement here--excitement that would surely raise the
temperatures of the weaker patients.
Jacob had climbed out of his cot and stood on trembling limbs in the
short, gaily striped cotton flannel shirt that some woman in America
had made in a spare hour. It was a grotesquely made garment, and the
bewhiskered German was a grotesque figure in it.
"What is it, Fräulein?" he asked her.
"The station is abandoned. The Germans advance," she told him calmly.
"But we must not lose heart--or hope. Be cool. Keep quiet. I have not
forsaken you."
"_Mein Gott!_" gasped the old man. "_Sie sind Deutsch!_"
"I am the nurse--in charge of this ward," she said, almost fiercely.
"Get back into bed, Jacob."
He obeyed her, and she finished serving the breakfasts, for there was
no further alarm. Later, however, the man humbly asked to assist her
with the more seriously wounded, and she accepted his offer in the
spirit in which it was made.
She went no more to look out; but she knew by the immediate silence
that the hospital enclosure was deserted. In the distance was the
rumble of heavy lorries dragging away the big guns to prevent their
capture by the Germans, and the rattle of cannons and caissons as well,
as the horses galloped to the rear with the batteries.
Men's lives were being poured out like water to save these guns from
capture. The roll of the advancing German batteries drew nearer. The
marching by of troops was no longer heard. This was almost a rout;
those who retreated made no secret of their desire to escape, and they
ran!
Belinda tried to continue the usual routine of her work. She neglected
none of the wounded. For the most part these Germans were silent before
her; with each other they whispered excitedly.
Rescue for them was possibly near. But how about Belinda?
The dressings were over for the day. Even Ernest, the boyish pneumonia
patient, was quieted. But the hour was late and nobody had eaten since
breakfast. As for herself, a cup of coffee hastily swallowed had been
all with which she had broken her fast.
Of course, the cooks had gone with the other hospital attendants. She
wondered if she could find in the cooking hut the materials for a meal
for her thirty-four patients. It was a task from which, after her
tiring morning, she shrank.
And at that moment a heaven-sent smell seemed to assail her nostrils.
Of course, it could not be! It must be an hallucination!
The door of the ward swung slowly inward. A figure in a cook's cap and
long white apron backed in, bearing a huge cauldron of smoking broth.
He turned and Belinda saw the queer, twisted face of Erard.
"Mademoiselle," he said simply, "I could not leave you alone with these
_Boches_. _Non! non!_"