THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME
Within the next two minutes Jimmy reversed his opinion that the end
had come. True, they were still dropping, but at the instigation of a
master hand on the controls, the Voisin was once more obeying its pilot
and volplaning easily earthward.
Now they were not more than two hundred feet from the ground and
hanging over a ruined farmhouse. Some distance behind it stood a
dilapidated barn. A little below the barn was an orchard of apple trees
which sloped gradually down to open meadow land.
At a point in the meadow close to the orchard, the plane finally made
harbor. As it touched ground Jimmy peered anxiously about for signs of
human beings. German soldiers could not be far away. Behind the German
lines, as they were, they could not hope to escape being seen and fired
upon.
Strangely enough, no shots were fired as the plane made a landing.
Over all hung the mystery of dawn, broken only by the pounding of the
guns on the battle lines. Jimmy had fully expected to fight for his
life the instant he reached terra firma. It dazed him to find himself
behind the German lines, for even a moment, unmolested.
"We are in a most dangerous locality, _mon cher_ Blaise." Voissard
had already left the machine and was circling it, making a hasty
examination as he went. "We must leave here at once!" he continued. "It
was either this or perhaps a fall when over the Boche lines. I knew
not the extent of damage done by that Archie. It has lost me my good
Gaston. That is, indeed, a loss. I am deeply grieved. Yet this is not
the occasion for the grief. A moment and I shall know how quickly we
may ascend. I knew this spot and determined thus to take the risk of
one little moment's landing."
"Is there anything I can do, sir?" Jimmy eagerly offered. "Perhaps I
can help----"
"Wait."
Voissard dived into the car, returning with a pair of revolvers and a
box of cartridges.
"Take these and stand guard," he ordered, offering one of the revolvers
to Jimmy. "Should a Boche soldier appear, shoot him on sight. It is yet
early and we are some distance from the enemy trenches. Still there is
always the outpost guard or the patrol to reckon with. Again, this is
of a truth a fitting spot for an early morning execution."
Obediently mounting guard, Jimmy stood at alert while the aviator
busied himself with his machine. For twenty minutes he remained thus,
his ears cocked for the slightest hostile sound, his eyes keeping a
bright lookout.
"It is well!" the aviator at length exclaimed, raising up from the
engine. "The damage to the plane has been, after all, small. We shall
regain our lines easily, provided we can escape enemy planes on our
way. We cannot fight as we have no Gaston. The enemy guns we may escape
by flying high. Come; into the seat, my boy. We must lose no time. Do
not fail to strap yourself in."
Motioning him into the observer's seat, Voissard turned sorrowfully to
the crumpled form of the bomber. It had slid well down into the seat
Gaston had been occupying when killed. Strapping the body securely, so
that it could not tumble out, the aviator sighed:
"_Mon pauvre ami_," he mourned. "It is the best I can do for you until
we have reached our station."
Very grimly he strode to the propeller. Starting the engine he leaped
into the pilot's seat. The engine responding with a deafening roar, the
plane began to roll over the soft ground.
His revolver in readiness, Jimmy kept his eyes trained earthward as
they left the meadow and took to the air. Again they passed over the
orchard and were on the point of spiraling upward when a shout issued
from Jimmy's lips that Voissard heard even above the noise of the
engine.
Simultaneous with it a revolver spoke. Instantly Cousin Emile looked
down and understood. Shutting off the motor, he volplaned and made
skilful landing on an open space between the barn and the orchard.
Before the plane touched earth, the revolver had spoken again.
"Oh, the brutes! The dirty, yellow brutes! Thank God, I've done for two
of 'em!"
Another shot accompanied Jimmy's hoarse exclamation, shouted in a
perfect frenzy of loathing. Out there in the stillness of the morning,
Jimmy had come upon the thing which will forever brand the Germans as
fiends incarnate. Half a dozen Boches were about to crucify an American
soldier.
Looking down, his eyes had come to rest on the barn. Grouped about the
closed door were half a dozen German soldiers. He caught a glimpse of a
hatless, olive-drab figure, spread-eagled against the door. He saw the
gleam of bayonets--then he shouted and in the same instant fired his
revolver.
Intent on their fiendish work, the crucifiers had paid no attention to
the purr of the aeroplane's engine. They were not looking for an enemy
plane so far behind their own lines.
At Jimmy's first shot a Boche threw up his arms and dropped. Instantly
the other five whirled and left their victim, whose outspread arms were
bound to two staples hastily driven into the door. Then another Hun
clutched his breast and pitched forward. A third fell, shot through the
head.
Always cowardly when cornered, two of the remaining trio took one look
at the plane and ran. Only one stood his ground. Bayonet discarded, he
pulled an automatic pistol and opened fire on Jimmy.
A shot from Voissard's revolver pierced the Hun's left arm. Jimmy fired
again. He thought he had missed his man, and was about to try again
when he saw the Boche sway, take a tottering step forward, and collapse
forward in a heap on the ground.
The plane having rolled along a few yards and come to a standstill,
Jimmy and the aviator leaped out of it and ran to the rescue of the
trussed Sammy.
"My poor fellow----"
Sheer amazement checked the expression of sympathy that welled to
Cousin Emile's lips. His young friend Blaise was laughing and crying
and hugging the man fastened to the door as though quite bereft of his
senses.
"Oh, Schnitz! _Oh, Schnitz!_" Jimmy sobbed out wildly.
"Blazes, my--bunkie!" Down Schnitzel's wan cheeks the tears were
streaming.
Then Voissard knew and his own eyes blurred. For a moment he stood
back, saying nothing. Realization of their peril made not only speech
but prompt action necessary. Whipping a clasp knife from a coat pocket
he opened it and proceeded to cut Schnitzel loose from the door. This
done he offered his hand to the German-American, saying simply: "Thanks
to _le bon Dieu_, we arrived in time. Now we must leave here instantly.
Two of the beasts have escaped. They will give the alarm and a patrol
will be sent out against us. We must make haste or perhaps all suffer
the fate intended for you. The Boches will be much enraged over the
loss of these _canaille_."
Voissard scornfully indicated the four dead Boches, sprawling hideously
on the ground, the result of Jimmy's ability to shoot to kill.
"I'd forgotten the dogs for the moment." Turning from Schnitzel,
Jimmy's face registered the utmost loathing as his eyes took in the
ugly but satisfactory sight.
"Just a second and then we'll beat it. Come here, Blazes."
Schnitzel strode over to one of the dead, lying face downward in the
mud. Grasping the body by the shoulders, he turned it viciously on its
back. It was clothed in the uniform of a Boche captain.
Jimmy peered down at the ghastly, black-bearded face. The dead man's
eyes, wide open, stared malignantly up at him.
"The tiger man!" burst from his amazed lips.
At the cry, Voissard sprang to his side. Together the three men stood
looking down for an instant at that glassy-eyed, wicked face.
"And _I_ got him!"
Jimmy spoke in awed, unbelieving tones.
"Come," Voissard warned sharply. "To the plane. The explanation of this
must wait. I doubt not that it must be of a truth amazing."
"It is," Schnitzel grimly assured.
With one accord the three turned and hurried to the spot where the
aeroplane stood. Turning his revolver over to Schnitzel, the aviator
ordered them into the plane, provided Schnitzel with an extra coat and
cap which had belonged to Gaston, and made hurried preparations to
rise. The open space between the barn and orchard was large and level
enough to permit of an easy get-away.
Hardly had the plane left the ground when the dreaded patrol appeared.
It was composed of at least a dozen Boches. They charged through the
orchard, shooting as they came. Bullets whistled past the plane, but
failed to touch it.
Spiraling on upward, the plane drew away from the orchard and beyond
range of Boche rifles. Higher and higher it flew and found protection
above a long gray cloud-bank. The morning sky heavily overcast, Cousin
Emile looked to the friendly clouds to shield them in their flight over
the German lines.
Once well above the clouds, Schnitzel had laid aside his revolver
and turned his attention to the machine gun. Finding a fresh belt of
cartridges close beside it, he removed the spent belt, which Gaston had
used up in the attack on the Aviatik, and loaded the gun for ready use.
Traveling at high speed half an hour's run would see them clear of the
German lines. As they continued the flight the clouds began to scatter
and the sun came out. Above No Man's Land they broke from the clouds
and in the same instant encountered a foe. Not far ahead and above them
flew an Aviatik on its way back to the German lines. It had also been
taking advantage of the cloud curtain.
Each pilot saw his enemy in the same moment. Without a gunner, Voissard
realized that in flight lay the only chance of safety. He must dash
straight on under the Aviatik and win clear of it if he could. Its
speed being greater than that of his own plane, he already regarded
himself as doomed.
As the plane darted on in a swift, level course, Voissard's ears
caught a dim rattling sound that briefly startled him. Had Gaston come
to life? A flashing glance over his shoulder revealed not Gaston, but
Schnitzel, at the machine gun. Schnitzel had acted with lightning
swiftness. His carefully gathered knowledge of guns and aircraft now
saved the day.
Behind the Aviatik and on an even keel under it, he knew their position
to be ideal for hitting the Boche plane. Having made ready for any
emergency, he had opened fire at the right moment. A rain of bullets
hit the Aviatik squarely. One of them toppled the pilot over. Others
must have struck a vital point of the machine, for it began to stagger.
Fairly riddled by bullets, the doomed plane lurched wildly, turned
half over, and began a last tumultuous, uncontrolled descent to earth.
Schnitzel had indeed made good as a gunner.
The Aviatik done to death, the flight was swiftly continued. Now over
the American lines the danger momentarily lessened. In the distance
they saw three French planes chasing a Boche Albatross that was making
a desperate effort to get away from its pursuers.
They came at last to the aviation station and were received jubilantly
by a group of shouting aviators who had run out to meet them. It had
been feared by those who had taken part in the bombing expedition that
Voissard had made his last flight.
Clambering out of the aeroplane, it seemed to Jimmy Blaise as though
he was returning to reality from a strange dream. Only the living,
breathing presence of Schnitz, his bunkie, standing beside him, assured
him that he had not dreamed. His "hunch" that Schnitz and he would meet
again had not been an idle one. Out of the very jaws of death, Schnitz
had come back.