that the other aeroplane was much larger than his own. He saw too that
it was occupied by three men. But these elements of superiority would be
to some extent neutralized by the greater handiness of his own machine
in navigating the narrow gorges of the valley. The situation demanded a
readiness to take risks. The gorge to which Lawrence had now come after
passing the enemy was so constricted that in ordinary circumstances he
would never have dreamed of attempting a turning movement. But he felt
the supreme necessity of wheeling at once, in order to return to the
"bay" which he had lately left. There he might do something to protect
the mine, if only by diverting the enemy's attack upon himself. He
might also have an opportunity of rising to a sufficient height for
offensive purposes.
Choosing the widest part of the gorge, he banked his machine up, and
clearing the cliff apparently by inches he swept round again to the
north. When in half a minute he reached the turning place, the
aeroplane was not in sight. But he heard sounds of a fierce struggle
beyond. The bombardment had ceased, but the air was filled with the
crack of rifles, the rattle of the machine gun, and the shouts of men.
He could do nothing to help his brother. There was not even time to fly
on and drop a bomb among the enemy: he must utilise every moment in
preparing for the return of the aeroplane. He steered his machine in a
series of short spirals, rising as rapidly as possible, watching the
valley northward anxiously. As yet its windings concealed the enemy's
aeroplane from view. It was an inexpressible relief to him that they
had not attempted to turn at the spot where he now was. They had not
thought it practicable, or not had the time; probably they had shot by
before even the possibility had occurred to them.
He swept round and round in his corkscrew flight, rising gradually until
he was more than two thousand feet above the river. His view was now
greatly extended, and when the larger aeroplane came in sight from round
a bend nearly a mile away, he saw with a flash of hope that it was now
lower than his own machine, although somewhat higher than before.
Evidently the airmen had foreseen that he might rise in order to avoid
their bombs, and sought to forestall him; but his narrow spiral had
carried him up to a greater height than their two long inclined planes.
The moment he saw them he started straight to meet them. Nothing could
have been better calculated to assist his brother in the desperate
struggle on the track. It was as when a charging bull is diverted from
the object of his fury by the fluttering of a handkerchief or a
newspaper within his range of vision. The Kalmuck airmen recognised
that they had an opponent with whom they must seriously reckon; and
though perhaps their general, looking on from below, would have bidden
them to ignore the aeroplane, and pursue the more important duty of
shattering the defences, they no doubt thought that a few minutes' or
even hours' further delay would be less disastrous than the destruction
of themselves and their machine. When the defenders' aeroplane was out
of action, the rest would be easy.
Lawrence had resolved not to imitate the enemy in hurling a bomb while
the machines were flashing past in opposite directions. His missiles
were too precious for one to be wasted. As the aeroplanes met, he heard
two cracks, followed by two metallic thuds on the iron plates below his
chassis: the enemy had fired. What effect their shots had he knew not,
but neither the engine nor the occupants suffered any injury. He had
already commenced a turning movement. Completing his circle, he steered
straight after the enemy, who were heading directly up the valley.
There had been no explosion on the track or in the mine compounds as
they passed: so far his tactics had justified themselves.
But Lawrence had not been more than a few seconds in pursuit before he
found that in speed his machine was utterly outclassed. The enemy
seemed almost to leave him standing. This was not unexpected; but as
soon as he was sure of it he felt that his course of action was clearly
marked out. It would be a fatal mistake to give the enemy enough
air-room to take advantage of their superiority. If they got plenty of
space for manoeuvring they could rise as far above him as they pleased,
and either shatter the aeroplane with a well-placed bomb, or, having two
rifles to one, could wait an opening for a shot that would incapacitate
himself or Fazl, perhaps both. He must devote all his energy and skill
to dodging and deluding the enemy, attacking them if occasion offered,
in any case keeping them constantly employed. Their engine must consume
a much larger quantity of petrol and lubricant than his. They must have
used up a great deal in flying from their starting-place--Tash Kend, he
presumed--and it was unlikely that there was any supply with the army at
the end of the valley from which they could replenish their tanks. If
he could only manoeuvre so as to starve them out of fuel, all their
superiorities would be nullified and their usefulness would have
vanished.
It was a question now of calculating chances, or rather of
guessing--like the children's game when one brings his closed fists from
behind his back and asks another to guess which hand holds the concealed
object. When the two aeroplanes were out of sight, the occupants of
neither could know what the others were doing. They could only make a
random shot at the probabilities. Lawrence felt pretty sure that the
enemy would seek to rise to a greater altitude than they supposed him to
be attaining. He therefore decided to descend at once, and hover in the
lower part of the valley. A long vol plane northward brought him within
a short distance of the struggle going on at the bend. As he sped by,
he ordered Fazl to drop a bomb among the enemy beyond the breastwork,
then swooped past, three or four hundred feet above the river, turned at
the first possible spot, and flew back to meet the enemy. As he
expected, they had risen to a great height. Flying low as he now was,
they were probably two thousand feet above him. When they saw him, they
at once began to descend; but the machines were rushing in opposite
directions so swiftly that the vertical distance between them was
lessened by only two or three hundred feet when they met. A few seconds
after they had passed, Lawrence heard two explosions, and Fazl reported
that the enemy's bombs had fallen, one in the river, the other on the
cliff-side. Again they had missed their aim.
Lawrence knew that they could not return within fifteen minutes. While
it was important to him that they should waste their petrol, it was
equally important that he should husband his, for he had very little
left at the shed. It occurred to him that there would be time to alight
on the platform, run to the mine to see how things were passing there,
and get back in time to fly off before the enemy came in sight. He
therefore wheeled round at his usual place, and in less than a minute
slid gently on to the ledge. Leaving Fazl to look to the engine, he ran
along the pathway, and on turning the corner saw with some astonishment
that hostilities had apparently ceased. The breastwork was still manned
by Bob and his party: Lawrence almost winced as he noticed how large a
number of bodies lay prostrate around them. The enemy were invisible:
it seemed certain that their attack had been repulsed.
The mine compounds were deserted, except by Gur Buksh and two other men,
whom Lawrence recognised in a moment as Chunda Beg and Shan Tai. These
three were reclining against the wall near the machine gun. Every other
fighting man had crossed the bridge to bear his part in the holding of
the track. Lawrence felt a thrill of pride in the courage and loyalty
of the cook and the khansaman, who, house servants as they were, often
held in scorn by the warriors, had in this hour of peril given their
assistance to the steadfast havildar.
He hurried on to the compound, noting as he passed the havoc wrought by
the one bomb from the hostile aeroplane which had hit the mark. Gur
Buksh and the others saluted as gravely as if it were the prime of
peace.
"What has happened?" asked Lawrence breathlessly.
The havildar related how the appearance of the enemy's aeroplane had
been the signal for a more ferocious bombardment than had before taken
place. When the breastwork was half ruined by the shells, a swarm of
Kalmucks rushed to the attack with yells of anticipated triumph, while
the defenders, who had remained in comparative safety some distance
away, leapt back to their places at the shattered rampart. The enemy,
coming unawares on the wire entanglements, had been thrown into an
unwieldy and disordered mass; and after a few minutes of desperate
efforts to break through the obstacle, with partial success, they had
been so withered by the defenders' fire that flesh and blood could
endure no more. They had fled, a confused rabble, to their own
entrenchment.
There was no time for Lawrence to hear more, or to discuss with the
imperturbable Sikh any measures that might be devised to assist the
heroic fighters on the other bank. He knew well that the check could be
only temporary, and could not think without distress of the issue of the
next attack. Hurrying back to the ledge, he and Fazl got into their
places, ready to fly off directly they heard the returning aeroplane.
The Gurkha's ears first caught the throbbing drone, and as the machine
once more rose into the air, the field guns recommenced to bark and
spit.
As soon as Lawrence reached his turning-place he began to climb. In a
few moments he caught sight of the enemy's aeroplane skimming round the
bend below the mine. It was much lower than before, probably no more
than three hundred feet above Lawrence, and as soon as the airmen caught
sight of him, they dipped so suddenly as almost to suggest that the
machine was beyond control. But Lawrence realised that the descent was
intentional. They meant to come as close above him as they could in the
half mile between them. He ceased to mount, and steered straight down
the valley, hugging the cliff on the left hand. The enemy followed his
manoeuvre, edging to their right in order to pass immediately above him.
The two aeroplanes were only about a hundred yards horizontally apart
when with a quick movement of his rudder, which threw a hazardous strain
upon the planes, Lawrence shot out over the river. Before the enemy
could alter their own course he had passed well outside them. Their
bombs, dropped hurriedly while the pilot was striving to cope with
Lawrence's sudden movement, fell harmlessly into the river.
The enemy's turning-place up stream being much nearer the mine than that
in the opposite direction, there was no time to alight again and save
expenditure of petrol. But there was time to lend aid to the defenders
at the breastwork. Lawrence flew on, instructing Fazl to hurl a bomb
among the enemy as he passed the bend. Two teams of horses were dragging
more field guns up to the rampart. It was among these that Fazl let
fall his bomb, and looking back, he shouted gleefully that one of the
teams had stampeded and dashed with their gun over the bank into the
river, while the other were plunging furiously amid a smother of smoke.
At the same time the rattle of the machine gun announced that Gur Buksh
was again at work.
Lawrence did not wish to fly six or seven miles down the river to the
wide bay in which he was sure the enemy had turned. To wheel round
earlier involved some risk, but it was a risk from which his strung-up
nerves did not flinch.
About three-fourths of a mile beyond the bend, at the spot where the
enemy had established themselves after their first repulse, the gorge
curved to the west, and in the cliff-face there was an extensive
depression, scooped out as it were by a landslip. He resolved to try
his luck there. The margin was perilously narrow, and only a man
absolutely familiar with the spot, as he was, and prepared for the
turning movement at the very moment of reaching it, could have hoped to
wheel in the space.
At the critical point he banked up at a sharp angle, and for one brief
moment felt a cold shudder of fear as he recognised the beginning of the
sideslip that had brought disaster on so many reckless or unfortunate
airmen. But the planes recovered their grip; the machine swung round
across the river, having shaved the cliff on the left by an appallingly
fine margin; and flew lightly and evenly up stream again.
By this daring feat Lawrence had saved nearly ten miles and the
equivalent quantity of petrol. He had also avoided a meeting with the
enemy on the north side of the mine, where manoeuvring to dodge them
would have been much more difficult. By alighting when they next passed
him he would again save while they were expending, and however large
their supply had been when they started, it could not much longer stand
the drain of continual flight up and down the river. Even now, since
entering the valley, they must have travelled a good deal more than a
hundred miles; their flight from headquarters might have been three
hundred. No doubt a further supply of fuel and oil had been despatched
after them, but it would take a week or more to reach them over such
rugged country. If he could only keep them fruitlessly employed until
they were forced to leave the gorge through failing petrol, he would
gain perhaps just enough time for the garrison to prolong their defence
until the expected relief force arrived.
Thought is quicker even than an aeroplane's flight: these hopes,
conjectures, volitions flashed through Lawrence's mind in the interval
between his venturesome circuit and his arrival at the bend. The
bombardment had recommenced. Two guns had been got into position; others
were being hauled up the track. A hot rifle fire was opened upon the
aeroplane, and both pilot and passenger were struck by fragments of
bullets that had splintered on the metal work. Their great speed soon
carried them out of further danger, but the bomb which Fazl dropped
missed its aim, exploded on the rocky bank instead of on the track, and
did little harm.
Lawrence guessed that the Kalmuck airmen would now suppose him to have
risen, and would themselves be mounting in order to keep above him. He
therefore resolved to keep low. The sequel showed that the enemy had
been cunning enough to guess at his guess. When they reappeared, so far
from ascending they were descending, yet gradually, so that they might
adapt their course to the exigencies of the moment. They were now only
two hundred feet above him.
This time he decided not to rush past and continue his flight up stream,
but to wheel at the turning-place, and save time and petrol by flying
back in their wake to his platform. He realised afterwards that he
began his turning movement a trifle too soon, though, as the event
proved, his indiscretion served him well. The enemy had not quite met
him when he shifted his rudder for circling round the bay. He expected
them to flash by as usual at express speed, but to his intense
astonishment and alarm he found that instead of continuing on their
direct course they had suddenly banked over, and were wheeling above him
in the same direction as himself. It was a manoeuvre of extraordinary
daring, for the larger aeroplane required a much wider circle than the
smaller, and in order to clear the cliffs it had to remain banked up at
a dangerously sharp angle.
Lawrence felt himself trapped. He could not fly out at either end of
the bay, he thought, without being immediately followed by the enemy,
who would then have him at their mercy. Yet he was in equal danger if he
remained circling below them, for though their flight was swifter than
his, at some moment their machine would be vertically above him, and
they would doubtless seize that moment for hurling a bomb. He could not
descend without shattering the aeroplane on the banks or plunging into
the river. He felt as helpless as a pigeon beneath an eagle.
It was indeed an extraordinary situation: two aeroplanes wheeling round
and round in a cup-like hollow, with less than two hundred feet of space
between them. The Kalmucks had not as yet fired or dropped a bomb:
Lawrence imagined them gloating over their helpless victim, awaiting a
favourable moment for one crushing stroke. The first shot was fired by
Fazl; the enemy replied, but instead of keeping up a continuous fire,
they ceased after a few shots, which riddled the planes, but hit no
vital part. Lawrence wondered at their abstinence, until, following
them with his eyes, he had a sudden conviction that they were in
difficulties. The machine was banked up to the extreme limit of safety,
and it flashed upon him that the enemy, and not himself, were caged.
They could not ascend, for, a few hundred feet above them, the cliff on
the west side of the stream hung forward in a jagged bluff that came
within the circle of their flight. Contact with it would hurl them into
the river. Nor could they leave the bay by either of the exits north or
south without the risk of colliding with the cliffs, for the space was
so narrow, and the speed of the machine so great, that the movements
necessary for unbanking and steering could hardly be performed in the
fraction of a second between their quitting the bay and running into the
straight. It is one thing for a wasp to fly into a bottle, and quite
another to fly out again.
The machines had completed several circles before Lawrence had grasped
the situation. During this time Fazl had been steadily firing, but the
enemy had been silent. Suddenly the Gurkha uttered a shout; one of the
Kalmucks fell from the aeroplane, and whirled over and over in the air
until he struck the river and disappeared.
"Don't fire again!" cried Lawrence.
He had become conscious that the perpendicular distance between the two
planes was rapidly diminishing. The enemy's engine had not failed;
their speed was the same; yet it was plain that moment by moment they
were drawing nearer to the plane below. If the machines had been ships,
Lawrence would have been tempted to believe that the enemy were trying
to board; but he knew that a collision would be fatal to both. He was
at a loss to explain the strange movement; indeed, he had little time to
think of it, for he realised that unless he himself made his escape, his
machine would be soon hurled to the bottom by the impact of the larger.
He had not found it necessary to bank so much as the Kalmuck pilot. His
lesser speed and the greater handiness of his aeroplane enabled him to
fly out at the exit without the almost certainty of dashing against the
cliff. At his next round he steered straight through the northern gap,
and flew back in a flush of wonder and excitement to the platform.
As he expected, the enemy did not follow him. Alighting he rushed to the
projecting buttress and gazed up the valley. He could see the doomed
aeroplane as it flashed across the opening of the bay. It was still
whirling round and round, but falling, falling with ever increasing
velocity. He shuddered with horror as he contemplated the inevitable
end. He did not witness the actual close of the tragedy. The aeroplane
as it neared the bottom was hidden from him by the rocky banks of the
river. But half a minute after he himself stood in trembling safety a
tremendous explosion shook the ground, and a cloud of smoke and broken
rocks shot high into the air. Then there was a burst of flame, and he
knew that all was over.
Overcome with sickness at the terrible end of these gallant airmen, and
with nervous exhaustion after his own wearing efforts, he lay flat on
the rock to recover his composure. Thinking over the recent scene, he
hit upon a conjectural explanation of the uncontrollable descent of the
enemy's aeroplane. He supposed that, with the machine so critically
banked up in order to navigate the narrow cup, the pilot had been quite
unable to make those delicate adjustments of the planes and the elevator
that were necessary to counteract the dragging force of gravity. Later
on, when he had an opportunity of discussing the matter with his
brother, Bob scouted his theory, declaring that while the petrol lasted
nothing could have prevented the machine from whirling round and round.
But Lawrence stuck to his opinion, and Bob very naturally declared that
it was not a matter he would care to put to the test.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
AD INFIMOS
Just as the ticking of the household clock is unnoticed, but its
cessation is immediately remarked; so it was not until the coughing roar
of the field guns, which had continued ever since Lawrence last soared
over the bend, suddenly ceased, that he was roused to full consciousness
of the critical situation at the mine. Springing up, he ran with Fazl
along the pathway until he came to a spot where the whole theatre of the
combat could be viewed.
The noise of the guns had been followed by a hoarse babel of cries
mingled with the crackle of rifles. He was just in time to see a swarm
of Kalmucks surge over the breastwork, and Bob with his devoted band
rushing up the track to the second rampart a hundred yards away. The
machine gun beneath the north wall of the mine was silent; nobody was to
be seen in the compound; and Lawrence's heart sank with dread lest the
gun had been smashed, and Gur Buksh and his voluntary assistants slain.
In a moment, however, Fazl drew his attention excitedly to three men
lying flat on their faces upon the drawbridge. He recognised them at
once as the havildar, Shan Tai and Chunda Beg. But what were they doing?
Their arms were moving swiftly this way and that, like the arms of
tailors sewing.
"See, sahib!" cried Fazl, lifting his hand and pointing in still more
excitement.
And then Lawrence saw that the bridge was no longer a bridge. The end
which had rested on the rock in mid stream had been shattered by a
shell, and Gur Buksh and his companions were working with might and main
to replace the broken portion with rope. Fortunately, prone as they
lay, they were for the present concealed from the enemy by the
breastwork manned by the diminished garrison; but they would be in full
view when they rose to return to the compound. When the time should
come for the whole party to beat a final retreat, it would be almost
impossible for a single man to escape being shot down.
Lawrence looked down the track. Fighting had ceased. The Kalmucks who
had sprung over the breastwork had been recalled. A great number were
engaged in repairing and strengthening the rampart, so as to render
their gunners secure from enfilading fire. Behind, another crowd was
dragging more guns into position, and Lawrence noticed that there were
now machine guns as well as field pieces. The fact that Bob's men were
not firing seemed to indicate that their ammunition was failing. The
captured field gun was now useless for lack of shells; Gur Buksh had
very little ammunition for his gun, and in any case he could not return
to it until his work on the bridge was finished. It was of vital
importance that the retreat to the mine should be kept open. What
alarmed Lawrence most of all was his certainty that, even with the
bridge repaired, the little band of thirty fighters were practically cut
off because they could only cross under the enemy's fire. As soon as
the enemy's guns were placed, the second rampart would be knocked to
pieces in a few minutes at so short a range. The garrison would be
swept up the track, or shot in attempting to regain the mine. The siege
would be at an end, for so determined an enemy would doubtless find some
means of crossing the river, even if the defenders escaped destruction
and cut down the bridge behind them. They might hold out for a little,
perhaps, in the dark and narrow galleries; but as soon as the enemy
played on these with their artillery, they would be rendered untenable
by the deadly fumes. It seemed that before the sun went down the whole
place would be in the hands of the Kalmucks, and there would no longer
be any impediment to their march.
The one thing needful, to prolong the struggle even for a few hours, was
to bring the garrison back into the compound. There were still a few
bombs left; by attacking the enemy with these Lawrence thought he might
gain just enough time for the retreat. When he had done that he would
fly southward to look for the relief force, and if it were in sight,
urge it to haste. The mere knowledge that it was approaching would put
heart into the weary garrison, and nerve them for prolonged resistance.
"How much petrol is left?" he asked Fazl.
"Eight or nine gallons, sahib--and a little paraffin also."