It was indeed a severe test of Billy Barry’s nerve that was put
upon him in this trying moment. To let go of the controllers of the
aëroplane would mean the finish; to neglect for an instant his comrade,
whom he believed to be bleeding to death, was agony. Almost blindly
he set the planes for a nearly vertical descent from a dizzy height
of three thousand feet which the machine had attained before Billy
had fully realized that he was holding across his knees the inert body
of his beloved chum. Like a plummet the aircraft dropped eastward.
With rare presence of mind Billy shifted for a rise when close to the
ground, and managed to land without wrecking the machine. A scant ten
feet, though, to the right, and the aëroplane would have crashed into a
cow-shed and all would have been over.
An old woman, digging potatoes nearby, was so frightened when this
winged bolt came down from the sky that she gave a squawk and fell
backward into the big basket behind her.
When Billy had tenderly lifted out and laid Henri upon the turf, he ran
to the well in front of the neat farmhouse, filled his leather cap with
water, and hastened back to bathe the deathly pale face and throbbing
temples of his wounded chum. With the cooling application Henri opened
his eyes and smiled at the wild-eyed lad working with all his soul to
win him back to life.
“I am not done for yet, old scout,” he faintly murmured.
Billy gulped down a sob.
“You’re coming around all right, Buddy, cried Billy, holding a wet and
loving hand upon Henri’s forehead.
“The pain is in my right shoulder,” advised Henri; “I have just begun
to feel it. Guess that is where the bullet went in.”
“Let me see it.” Billy assumed a severe professional manner. The
attempt, however, to remove the jacket sleeve from the injured arm
brought forth such a cry of pain from Henri that Billy drew back in
alarm.
“Ask the woman for a pair of shears,” suggested Henri, “and cut away
the sleeve.”
“Hi, there!” called Billy to the old woman, who had risen from the
basket seat, but still all of a tremble.
“Get her here,” urged Henri. “I can make her understand.”
Billy, bowing and beckoning, induced the woman to approach.
Henri, politely:
“_Madame, j’ai ete blesse. Est-ce que nous restons ici?_” (Madam, I
have been wounded. Can we rest here?)
“_Je n’ecoute pas bien. J’appelerai, Marie._” (I do not hear good. I
will call Marie.)
With that the old woman hobbled away, and quickly reappeared with
“Marie,” a kindly-eyed, fine type of a girl, of quite superior manner.
Henri questioned: “_Vous parlez le Français?_” (You speak French?)
“_Oui, monsieur; j’ai demeure en le sud-est._” (Yes, monsieur; I have
lived in the southeast.)
The girl quickly added, with a smiling display of a fine row of teeth:
“And I speak the English, too. I have nursed the sick in London.”
“Glory be!” Billy using his favorite expression. “Get busy!”
Marie “got busy” with little pocket scissors, cut the jacket and shirt
free of the wound, washed away the clotted blood and soon brightly
announced:
“No bullet here; it went right through the flesh, high up; much blood,
but no harm to last.”
Cutting up a linen hand-towel, Marie skillfully bandaged the wound,
and, later, as neatly mended the slashes she had made in Henri’s jacket
and shirt.
For ten days the boys rested at the farmhouse, Henri rapidly recovering
strength.
They learned much about Belgium from Marie. She laughingly told Henri
that his French talk was good to carry him anywhere among the Walloons
in the southeastern half of Belgium, but in the northwestern half he
would not meet many of the Flemings who could understand him. “You
would have one hard time to speak Flemish,” she assured him.
Henri confided to Marie that they were bound for the valley of the
Meuse.
“La la,” cried the girl, “but you are taking the long way. Yet,” she
continued, “you missed some fighting by coming the way you did from
Bruges.”
On the eleventh morning Henri told Billy at breakfast that he (Henri)
was again as “fit as a fiddle.” “Let’s be moving,” he urged.
“All right.” Billy himself was getting restless. They had been
absolutely without adventure for ten long days.
But, when Henri returned from a visit to the aëroplane, he wore a long
face.
“There’s no more ‘ammunition’ in the tanks,” he wailed. “There isn’t as
much as two miles left.”
“That means some hiking on the ground.” With this remark Billy made a
critical survey of his shoes. “Guess they’ll hold out if the walking is
good.” Henri, however, was not in a humor to be amused.
“I say, Billy, what’s the matter with making a try for Roulers? Trouble
or no trouble, we’ll not be standing around like we were hitched. It
would be mighty easy if we could take the air. No use crying, though,
about spilt milk.”
Marie, who had been an attentive listener, putting on an air of
mystery, called the attention of the boys to a certain spot on the
cleanly scrubbed floor, over which was laid a small rug of home
weaving. The girl pushed aside the rug and underneath was shown the
lines of a trap-door, into which Marie inserted a chisel point. The
opening below disclosed a short flight of steps leading down to an
underground room, where candle light further revealed, among other
household treasures, such as a collection of antique silver and the
like, two modern bicycles.
“The boys who rode those,” said Marie, pointing to the cycles, “may
never use them again. They were at Liège when it fell, and never a word
from them since. On good roads and in a flat country you can travel far
on these wheels. Take them, and welcome, if you have to go.”
In an hour the boys were on the road. They left two gold-pieces under
the tablecloth and a first-class aëroplane as evidence of good faith.