LOFTY GUN PRACTICE.
When the identity of the Russian aircraft had been established, the big
ship was landed, and the aviators mingled with the soldiers on shore.
Henri was particularly active in making the rounds among the French
contingent.
He had been separated from his companions for less than a half hour,
when they saw him coming, with a joy-illumined face and a skip between
every other step. At Henri's side, but at a more dignified pace and
looking every inch a soldier in the uniform of a French artilleryman,
walked a youth who commanded immediate recognition from Billy.
"Hello, François," cried the Bangor boy, rushing forward with
outstretched hand, and the newcomer so hurried his stride that he came
more than half way with his warm return of happy greeting.
"The world isn't so wide, after all," laughingly declared Henri. "What
do you think of us running up against one another in this out of the way
neck of the woods? It is the remotest thing on earth that would have
entered my mind. But isn't it great?"
The boys had last seen François, Henri's brother, in a hospital at
war-torn Arras, these many days agone, and how much of history had been
written in red since that meeting!
François, then pale, worn and suffering from a serious wound, was now
straight as an arrow, ruddy of cheek, and in gallant array of blue and
red.
"I've heard all about how you and brother here," he said to Billy,
"saved for mother the family fortune, and it would make your ears burn
were I to tell you all else that has been related of your courage and
fidelity."
"Go lightly on that, please," was Billy's modest plea; "let's talk about
something different--cabbages or kings, for instance."
François laughed. "Same old boy, I see, bound to bloom under cover. Oh,
well, you can't get away from your record, so have it as you please."
"Say, Billy," broke in Henri, "I haven't had a chance to tell you
before, but the bold Britons have broken into Enos, and that storm
caused us to miss the grand entry. It was something of a scrap, too, I
hear."
"Don't worry about that," observed François; "just take a run over to
Smyrna instead; you will get all the thrills you desire there along
about now--the allies' aviators are scattering bombs all over the
place."
"There's a chance for the 'Sikorsky' to show them a thing or two in the
way of distributing fireworks."
Henri recalled the showering the Russian lieutenants gave Constantinople
as they passed over the ancient city coming down from the Bosphorus.
"What's your route?" inquired Billy.
"Don't know exactly," replied François, "but I fancy it will be the
Dardanelles for us. The transports have been waiting for several days to
take our troops somewhere."
"That will give us another look at you soon," rejoiced Henri, "for our
craft is going to be mighty close to the front when the real push is
made."
Within forty-eight hours the boys witnessed the embarking of all the
Anglo-French forces, with the exception of a few battalions left at
Mudros, for renewed assault on the Turkish defenses of the Gallipoli
peninsula. François was among the departing troops, and with farewell
words of gay assurance that he would soon meet again his brother and
Billy.
Lieutenant Moppa, enthused over the reports of aviation activity at
Smryna, and determined to give the "Sikorsky" another long-distance
try-out, ordered immediate flight toward the coast of Asia Minor.
"Barring a storm disturbance," declared the officer in command, "our
four engines ought to hit the high mark of going this time."
On this journey the barometer proved not at all fractious, and it was
easy sailing.
The aviators found a large number of troop transports off Smyrna, and on
the very day of the arrival of the big airship a French airman dropped
two bombs on Fort Kastro, killing several soldiers; another sank a
German ship lying in port, and a third struck the railroad station.
"Those French flyers certainly are a busy lot," commented Lieutenant
Moppa. The occupants of the "Sikorsky," in coming on high, had a full
and open view of these effective aeroplane maneuvers.
The aviators on the Russian craft were also impressed with the fact that
about 40,000 Turks were engaged in the defense of Smyrna, well
entrenched on heights commanding the city.
Constantinople had just contributed thirty heavy guns to the equipment
of the defenders.
Joining the allies in the offing, the mammoth machine, which dwarfed the
other planes to small proportions by comparison, excited much curiosity,
and attracted many ceremonial visits from the officers of the attacking
forces.
Lieutenant Moppa was more than willing to accept a test of efficiency of
his ship and the metal of his men.
"The only trouble is, your oversized aeroplane presents too big a target
for close flying," argued a member of the French aviation corps.
"Perhaps so," smilingly returned the lieutenant, "but we are elusive
enough at a speed of 90 miles an hour."
"Well, it is a powerful machine, no question about that," cheerfully
conceded the French aviator. "I would like very much to make a trial
trip with you."
"You have the invitation," promptly stated the lieutenant.
When the "Sikorsky" made a demonstration the next day over Forts Two
Brothers and Bastrati, on Smyrna heights, the Frenchman was an
interested passenger, and the four engines, working all at once, gave
him an earful of noise that he had not expected. He was no less
surprised at the youth of the pilots, but was soon convinced that they
were star performers at the wheels.
"Wonderful work there," he said to Lieutenant Moppa, after the big craft
had been put through all the paces of scientific planing.
This flight, however, was not intended solely as an exhibition trip.
Lieutenant Atlass was soon working overtime with his bomb-dropping
specialty, and Mowbray and Gault, the aviator-gunners, swiveled the
little growlers, mounted fore and aft, in most effective manner, raising
many a howl from the trenches with their expert downfire.
The fighters in the fortifications were not slow themselves in showing
that this was no holiday set apart for rest.
They banged away with more vigor than precision at the huge fabric above
them, and occasionally put a dent in the armor of the aerial tormentor.
"Your enclosures, I guess, have saved us many a flesh clip from spent
balls," said the French aviator, who was standing in the fore-cabin with
Lieutenant Moppa.
"Wouldn't be surprised," responded the officer, "yet if we held one
position long enough, there is no telling what a shell might do to us."
But it was the business of Billy and Henri to see that no fixed position
was presented to the aim of a long range gun.
"I was just thinking," remarked Billy, in an aside to his fellow
wheelman, "that if a chunk of lead should happen to strike full force
one of those magazines forward they'd be picking up pieces of us for a
week in Siberia or some other section of nowhere."
"Far be the dark moment," fervently declared Henri.
Happening to glance sidewise through the windows of the pilot house, the
last speaker saw a biplane lifting from the level between the two forts.
"Say, Buddy," he called, "they're going to fight us in our own strata.
There's another of 'em coming up--and yet another. Three to mix with."
Lieutenant Moppa himself had just sighted the hostile aircraft, and he
ordered the gunners to watch for an opportunity to put a check on the
flying challengers if they ventured too close. The men serving the
airship's little battery, however, needed no encouragement. They were
keyed up to best effort for the difficult test of marksmanship--wing
shooting from under wings.
"There goes one of their popguns," cried Mowbray, as a smoke wreath
showed at the bow of the leading Turkish aeroplane.
"Keep the nose right at them," the lieutenant instructed the pilots, "as
long as they come together. Don't present a side view unless you have
to."
"If they get far enough away from the forts what's the matter with
bumping them?"
This suggestion from Henri did not seem to appeal to Lieutenant Moppa,
who lifted a hand in protest.
"It would be taking big chances for mighty small game," he asserted.
"Let Mowbray and Gault give them the tumble at long range."
The first named gunner at the moment blazed away, and with successful
result, to which he testified with a whoop of satisfaction.
"One down," he yelled; "only crippled, maybe, but out of the game."
"Yes, and you have spoiled the day for the other two; they are not
coming to see the air circus at all."
It was Lieutenant Atlass who announced the retirement of the bold
navigators. What with Mowbray's center shot, the roaring of the four
engines and the appalling size of the great airship, it had been all
sufficient to send the Turkish craft to cover.
"I see how it is," chuckled the French aviator; "they thought we had
rigged one of the warships with wings, and the idea scared them stiff."
The "Sikorsky" after a week's service over the Turkish entrenchments, on
the heights of Smyrna, started on return voyage to Tenedos, where
Lieutenant Moppa proposed now to hold the big craft in readiness for
that long-expected summons to meet the Russian fleet when it should win
through the Bosphorus. That this was a near coming event, the officer
implicitly believed.
Billy and Henri were not so much concerned in the whys and wherefores
that prompted the backtracking as they were in the prospect of rejoining
Captain Johnson and Josh.
With these old scouts, as Billy said, "there was something doing every
day."