ARCHIE AND OTHERS
However, to be serious. It was as he came away from this scene of alarm
and despondency that Jim met an old pal who boasted the gunner badge,
and whom conversation revealed as the proud owner of an Archie, or
anti-aircraft gun. And as the salient is perhaps more fruitful in
aeroplanes than any other part of the line, and the time approached five
o'clock (which is generally the hour of their afternoon activity), Jim
went to see the fun.
In front, an observing biplane buzzed slowly to and fro, watching the
effect of a mother[1] shooting at some mark behind the German lines.
With the gun concealed in the trees, a gunner subaltern altered his
range and direction as each curt wireless message flashed from the
'plane. "Lengthen 200--half a degree left." And so on till they got it.
Occasionally, with a vicious crack, a German anti-aircraft shell would
explode in the air above in a futile endeavour to reach the observer,
and a great mass of acrid yellow or black fumes would disperse slowly.
Various machines, each intent on its own job, rushed to and fro, and in
the distance, like a speck in the sky, a German monoplane was travelling
rapidly back over its own lines, having finished its reconnaissance.
Behind it, like the wake of a steamer, little dabs of white plastered
the blue sky. English shrapnel bursting from other anti-aircraft guns.
Jim's gunner friend seemed to know most of them by name, as old pals
whom he had watched for many a week on the same errand; and from him Jim
gathered that the moment approached for the appearance of Panting
Lizzie. Lizzie, apparently, was a fast armoured German biplane which
came over his gun every fine evening about the same hour. For days and
weeks had he fired at it, so far without any success, but he still had
hopes. The gun was ready, cocked wickedly upon its motor mounting,
covered with branches and daubed with strange blotches of paint to make
it less conspicuous. Round the motor itself the detachment consumed tea,
a terrier sat up and begged, a goat of fearsome aspect looked pensive.
In front, in a chair, his eye glued to a telescope on a tripod, sat the
look-out man.
* * * * *
It was just as Jim and his pal were getting down to a whisky and soda
that Lizzie hove in sight. The terrier ceased to beg, the goat departed
hurriedly, the officer spoke rapidly in a language incomprehensible to
Jim, and the fun began. There are few things so trying to listen to as
an Archie, owing to the rapidity with which it fires; the gun pumps up
and down with a series of sharp cracks, every two or three shots being
followed by more incomprehensible language from the officer. Adjustment
after each shot is impossible owing to the fact that three or four
shells have left the gun and are on their way before the first one
explodes. It was while Jim, with his fingers in his ears, was watching
the shells bursting round the aeroplane and marvelling that nothing
seemed to happen, that he suddenly realised that the gun had stopped
firing. Looking at the detachment, he saw them all gazing upwards. From
high up, sounding strangely faint in the air, came the zipping of a
Maxim.
"By Gad!" muttered the gunner officer; "this is going to be some fight."
Bearing down on Panting Lizzie came a British armoured 'plane, and from
it the Maxim was spitting. And now there started a very pretty air duel.
I am no airman, to tell of spirals, and glides, and the multifarious
twistings and turnings. At times the German's Maxim got going as well;
at times both were silent, manoeuvring for position. The Archies were
not firing--the machines were too close together. Once the German seemed
to drop like a stone for a thousand feet or so. "Got him!" shouted
Jim--but the gunner shook his head.
"A common trick," he answered. "He found it getting a bit warm, and that
upsets one's range. You'll find he'll be off now."
Sure enough he was--with his nose for home he turned tail and fled. The
gunner shouted an order, and they opened fire again, while the British
'plane pursued, its Maxim going continuously. Generally honour is
satisfied without the shedding of blood; each, having consistently
missed the other and resisted the temptations of flying low over his
opponents' guns, returns home to dinner. But in this case--well, whether
it was Archie or whether it was the Maxim is really immaterial. Suddenly
a great sheet of flame seemed to leap from the German machine and a puff
of black smoke: it staggered like a shot bird and then, without warning,
it fell--a streak of light, like some giant shooting star rushing to the
earth. The Maxim stopped firing, and after circling round a couple of
times the British machine buzzed contentedly back to bed. And in a
field--somewhere behind our lines--there lay for many a day, deep
embedded in a hole in the ground, the battered remnants of Panting
Lizzie, with its great black cross stuck out of the earth for all to
see. Somewhere in the debris, crushed and mangled beyond recognition,
could have been found the remnants of two German airmen. Which might be
called the black and white of the overworld.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: 9.2" Howitzer.]