Stillinger was giving his full attention to managing his aircraft now.
They were circling in a great curve toward the north. This route would
bring them nearer to the lines of battle. The pilot turned to his
passenger and tried to warn him of what he was about to do. But Tom had
recovered his self-possession and was staring straight ahead with steady
intensity.
So Stillinger shut off the motor and the airplane pitched downward. A
fifty-mile drive is a swift pace anywhere--on the ground or in the air;
but as the airplane fell the air fairly roared past their ears and the
pace must have been nearer eighty miles an hour.
The machine was pointing down so straight that the full weight of the
two young men was upon their feet. They were literally standing erect.
Stillinger shot another glance at his passenger. Tom's lips were parted
again and, although he could not hear it, the pilot knew Tom had emitted
another shout of excitement.
The earth, so far below, seemed rushing up to meet them. To volplane
from such a height and at such speed is almost the keenest test of
courage that can be put upon a man who for the first time seeks to
emulate the bird.
Nor is real danger lacking. If the pilot does not redress his plane at
exactly the right moment he will surely dash it and himself into the
earth.
While still some hundreds of feet from the earth, Stillinger leveled his
airplane and started the motor once more. They skimmed the earth's
surface for some distance and then began to spiral upward.
It was just then that a black speck appeared against the clouded sky
over the not-far-distant battleline. They had not been near enough to
see the trenches even from the upper strata of air to which the airplane
had first risen. There was a haze hanging over the fighting battalions
of friend and foe alike. This black speck was something that shot out of
the cloud and upward, being small, but clearly defined at this distance.
The morning light was growing. The sun's red upper rim was just showing
over the rugged line of the Vosges. Had they been nearer to the earth it
would have been possible to hear the reveille from the various camps.
The whole sector had been quiet. Suddenly there were several puffs of
smoke, and then, high in the air, and notably near to that black speck
against the cloud, other bursts of smoke betrayed aerial shells.
Stillinger's lips mouthed the word, "Hun!" and Tom Cameron knew that he
referred to the flying machine that hung poised over No Man's Land,
between the lines.
The aerial gunners were trying to pot the enemy flying machine. But of a
sudden a group of similar machines, flying like wild geese, appeared out
of the fog-bank. There must have been a score of them.
Taking advantage of the morning fog, which was thicker to the north and
east than it was behind the Allied lines, the Germans had sent their
machines into the air in squadrons. A great raid was on!
Out of the fog-bank at a dozen points winged the Fokkers and the smaller
fighting airplanes. It was a surprise attack, and had been excellently
planned. The Allies were ready for no such move.
Yet the gunners became instantly active for miles and miles along the
lines. In the back areas, too, a barrage of aerial shells was thrown up.
While from the various aviation camps the French and British flying men
began to mount, singly and in small groups, to meet the enemy attack.
The raid was not aimed against the American sectors to the east. They
were a long way from this point. Stillinger had flown far and was now
nowhere near his own unit, if that should come into the fight.
Nor was he prepared to fight. He would not be allowed to--unless
attacked. He had been permitted to take up a passenger, and after
winging his way along the battle front to the sea, was expected to
return to the aviation field from which he had risen.
Nevertheless, the machine gun in the nose of the airplane needed but to
have the canvas cover stripped off to be ready for action. Tom Cameron's
flashing glance caught the pilot's attention.
"Are we going to get into it?" questioned Tom.
"Don't unhook that belt!" commanded Stillinger. "We can do nothing yet."
"It's a surprise," said Tom. "We must help."
"You sit still!" returned his friend. "I presume you can handle that
make of gat?"
Tom nodded with confidence. Stillinger shot the airplane to an upper
level and headed to the north of west, endeavoring to turn the flank of
the farthest Hun squadron. Over the lines the yellow smoke now rolled
and billowed. An intense air barrage was being sent up. They saw a
German machine stagger, swoop downward, and burst into flames before it
disappeared into the smoke cloud over No Man's Land.
Stillinger knew he was disobeying orders; but his high courage and the
plain determination of his passenger to help in the fight if need arose,
caused him to take a chance. It was taking just such chances that had
made him an ace.
Yet, as the airplane swung higher and higher, yet nearer and nearer to
the group of enemy machines nearest the sea, and as the bursts of
artillery fire grew louder, it was plain that this was going to be a
"hot corner."
The rolling smoke and the fog hid a good deal of the battle. Suddenly
there burst out of the murk a squadron of flying machines with the
German cross painted on the under side of their wings. With them rose
three French attacking airplanes, and the chatter of the machine guns
became incessant.
There were eight of the enemy planes; eight to three was greater odds
than Americans could observe without wishing to take a hand in the
fight.
Stillinger shot his airplane up at a sharp angle, striving to get above
the German machines. Once above them, by pitching the nose of his
machine, the enemy would be brought under the muzzle of the machine gun
which already Tom Cameron had stripped of its canvas covering.
They were between six and seven thousand feet in the air now. Without
the mask, the passenger would never have been able to endure the
rarified atmosphere at this altitude. Unused as he was to aviation,
however, he showed the ace that he was an asset, not a liability.
The free-lance airplane was observed by the Germans, however, and three
of the eight machines sprang upward to over-reach the American. It was a
race in speed and endurance for the upper reaches of the air.
The fog-bank hung thickest over the sea, and the racing American
airplane was close to the coastline. But so high were they, and so
shrouded was the coast in fog, that Tom, looking down, could see little
or nothing of the shore.
Suddenly swerving his airplane, Stillinger darted into the clammy
fog-cloud. It offered refuge from the Germans and gave him a chance to
manoeuvre in a way to take the enemy unaware.
The moment they were wrapped about by the cloud the American pilot shot
the airplane downward. He no longer strove to meet the three German
machines on the high levels. If he could get under them, and slant the
nose of his machine sharply upward, the machine gun would do quite as
much damage to the underside of the German airplane as could be done
from above. Indeed, the underside of the tail of a flying machine is
quite as vulnerable a part as any.
But flying in the fog was an uncertain and trying experience. Where the
German airplanes were, Stillinger could only guess. He shut off his
engine for a moment that they might listen for the sputtering reports of
the Hun motors.
It was then, to his, as well as to Tom Cameron's, amazement, that they
heard the stuttering reports of an engine--a much heavier engine than
that of even a Fokker or Gotha--an engine that shook the air all about
them. And the noise rose from beneath!
Stillinger could keep his engine shut off but a few seconds. As the
popping of its exhaust began once more a bulky object was thrust up
through the fog below. That is, it seemed thrust up to meet them,
because the American plane was falling.
In half a minute, however, their machine was steadied. Tom uttered a
great shout. He was looking down through the wire stays at the enormous
bulk of an airship, the like of which he had never before seen close to.
Once he had examined the wreck of a Zeppelin after it had been brought
down behind the French lines. These mammoth ships were being used by the
Hun only to cross the North Sea and the Channel to bomb English cities.
This present one must have strayed from its direct course, for it was
headed seaward and in a southwest direction.
Taking advantage of the fog, it was putting to sea, having flown
directly over the British or Belgian lines. While the fighting planes
attacked the Allied squadrons of the air, thus making a diversion, this
big Zeppelin endeavored to get by and carry on out to sea, its objective
point perhaps being a distant part of the Channel coast of England.
Where it was going, or the reason therefore, did not much interest Ralph
Stillinger and Tom Cameron. The fact that the great airship was beneath
their airplane was sufficiently startling to fill the excited minds of
the two young Americans.
Were they observed by the Huns? Could they wreak some serious damage
upon the Zeppelin before their own presence--and their own peril--was
apprehended by the crew of the great airship?