THE FINAL FIGHT
The two aviators, their planes much shot with holes but otherwise
unhurt, rose suddenly, swooping in long circles to higher and yet
higher altitudes. The first flushes of dawn were breaking. In the air
two observation planes flying over the Allied front were signaling to
the German batteries in the rear, from which came the barrage
protecting their infantry from Allied advances. At once they knew what
to do.
Both drove on through the hostile fire and bore down upon these
observation biplanes. Observation planes are not good fighters. In
less than a minute after rising those two fighting planes had chased
the larger, slower machines off the ground.
But what was Blaine's surprise to see Bangs, not a hundred yards away,
making bold signals strange code to the Germans back in the rear. Lafe
himself could not read them. What did it mean? For an instant there
flashed to him a suspicion that Bangs from Montana might not be just
plain American.
"I won't think such a thing!" thought Lafe. "What is he up to?"
Then he saw that the enemy barrage was falling further back, just about
where the recovering infantry was resuming its advance, after the short
shock occasioned by the two raiding triplanes that had suddenly gone
aloft.
"Were the Allies in their turn assaulting the Boches? What could it
mean? In another brief interval Blaine found out, when sudden
demoralization set in at once. Without apparent cause the Boches, now
nearly upon the first Allied trenches, found that they were the center
of a bombardment from the rear. What did that mean? The fire was
withering.
Could the foe they were attacking be taking them in the flank? The
idea was almost unbelievable. And yet the fire was also insupportable.
With one accord the front lines recoiled, although their officers beat
the privates with their sword flats, cursing and reviling them as
cowards. Right on top of this, the queer noises in front materialized
into certainties.
The Allies were advancing. Were there not also reinforcements behind?
Reinforcements hitherto kept back by what? The barrage. Where was
that barrage now? Falling not only on their rear but also further
back. How did this happen? Where were their own planes?
Officers and men were dropping on every hand. A charging foe in front
was almost on them. After a minute or two of this, that whole section
of the advance appeared to melt like froth on the water.
Meantime up above, and from a higher altitude than before, Bangs
continued his mysterious signaling; not to Blaine or to the Allies, but
-- wonder of all wonders -- to the Boches themselves.
Blaine now understood this, for he had noticed that the barrage itself
had fallen back. Instead of covering and protecting the Germans, it
was slaughtering them even more than the two aviators had done with
their machine guns from a lower altitude.
Upon the sudden rout below, which was sensed rather than seen by the
two fliers as the dawn rapidly grew, came the new rush of the Allies.
By this time Blaine felt that he and Buck must do one of two things.
Those retreating observation planes would undoubtedly bring up air
reinforcements. The barrage had already stopped. This was good for
the charging Allies as well as the retreating Boches.
"Buck and I have either got to get back inside our lines or fight," he
thought, carefully balancing his triplane against a rising breeze. "Or
we might rise higher and take another chance. One thing we have done.
We've helped bust up that charge, no matter how their advance has fared
at Appincourte or elsewhere."
Forward went the Allied infantry, driving the now disrupted Huns before
them. The fog kept clearing. Presently both Blaine and Bangs saw
heavy masses of men advancing in platoon formation over the scraggy
battle-scarred plain. They were probably two miles distant from the
retreating Huns.
Blaine darted back and sent out his signal flares, announcing the fact.
Indicating the probable distance, he waited for the barrage he was
sure would come. Bangs, seeing that Lafe was signaling, doused his now
useless Boche flares and confirmed what Blaine had signaled. Presently
the barrage began, and now both saw that it was incumbent on them to
remain up there as long as possible to assist the new Allied assault by
rendering their barrage effective.
But Bangs once more perplexed Lafe by another manifestation of his way
of fooling the Germans. More and more Blaine was perplexed.
"Where in sin did Buck get read up in Boche code flares like he is now?
I know a thing or two, but he's got me beat to the woodpile this time!"
Bangs, spiraling upward and back towards the Hun front, was sending
forth flare after flare that was meaningless to Lafe, yet which was for
some purpose. Then suddenly Buck shot off on the side towards Blaine
the following words in the code familiar to all Allied spad-pilots.
"Get back! Tell our folks to double their fire, keeping ahead of our
advance. Savvy?"
Blaine mutely obeyed. The Allied fire was redoubled as per
instructions. Buck, by this time far to the east, could now be seen
making back towards the Allied front where Blaine was zigzagging to and
fro waiting for what might come. Suddenly, behind Bangs, he saw the
speck-like dots of Teuton planes emerging into the upper air and
rapidly approaching. At the same time other planes in the west
appeared, biplanes, scouts, and one or more heavy battle planes.
Evidently the cards were being laid for a squadron air battle unless
something else intervened. Instinctively Lafe thought of his
ammunition roll. He was well supplied at starting on this trip, and
had transferred his own remaining stock to Finzer's plane when
abandoning his own. But the most of it had already been used. It was
not likely that Buck was any better prepared in that line. At least
they might wait and join their own planes, now coming out of the west.
In the east the hostile squadron came on rapidly. Deploying as they
advanced, both Blaine and Bangs could see that there were battle
planes, scouts, and heavy bombing machines. These last were sweeping
lower, trying to get in range of the advancing Allies.
"Come on! Hurry up!" both aviators kept repeating to their own
advancing air fleet. "No time to waste! Let's get at 'em. They're
going to bomb our front lines."
Almost immediately a number of fast triplanes forged on ahead of the
rest at a speed which a year before would have been deemed impossible.
Joining the two weary airmen who had been up all night, yet were still
full of the battle hunger, they swept low down and straight at the
bombing planes, now beginning to drop their deadly explosives along the
lines of advancing infantry. But only for an instant, as it were, did
they go uninterrupted.
A hail of bullets from machine guns rained down upon them. In almost
no time two of these planes went staggering earthward. Blaine,
forgetting his almost empty sheaves of Lewis gun ammunition, hung upon
the tail of one, while Buck, with side loops and a nose dive, flung
himself almost literally on another.
"Holy Moses!" ejaculated Buck as his last full sheaf went into the
cartridge roll, and he realized that with this gone he would be
absolutely helpless. "I don't want to quit. But if this don't fetch
another one, I'll have to. I'll have to anyhow."
In the meantime, the Boche fighting planes had mixed in with the Allied
fighters, interrupting their assault upon the bombers. And such an
exhibition of diving, darting, nose dipping, looping, and what not had
seldom been seen along that extended front.
Realizing the damage to be done by bombs on the unprotected infantry
charging below, both Blaine and his comrade kept strictly after the
bombing planes. Let those fresh arrivals who had plenty of ammunition
attend to the fighting Fokkers and other battling planes that had
arrived so inopportunely.
By this time the anti-aircraft guns were getting in their work. With
the targets so close, though darting hither and yonder with bewildering
speed, two of the German fighting planes were soon zigzagging towards
the ground. One fell right in the path of a disorderly advance of the
infantry, which happened to be a well-known Canadian battalion. From
his perch, his own ammunition exhausted, Blaine saw those troops surge
around and over that unlucky plane, then pass on, leaving a flaming
wreck behind.
The bombs began to explode. Blaine saw the danger to other troops
behind. It so happened that these troops were Sammies and Blaine, with
a swoosh, swept down to within a dozen yards right over the heads of
these men and the column heard his megaphone bellowing:
"Watch out, bunkies! 'Ware that wrecked plane! She's full of Boche
bombs. Watch out -- spread out! Give it room! Oh, you doughboys!
Rah for Uncle Sam!"
Recognizing the meaning and divining that it must be an American, the
Sammies shouted back as they divided and gave the necessary room:
"Oh, you Spaddy! What you doin' down so low? Rah for you! Bully boy!
Rah, rah, rah! You're all right!"
And on they went, comforted themselves, and comforting the weary,
ammunitionless aviator who now recognized that his present job was
about over.
His plane was literally shot to pieces. The wings hung in tatters.
Only the vital mechanism that kept him moving, thereby supporting him
in the air, fortunately remained untouched. Even now he staggered and
with difficulty rose a trifle upward, while off to the right he saw
Bangs in even a worse fix.
The latter, with his wings honeycombed by bullet holes, had received
the full charge of a machine gun from some passing battle plane in an
around his propellers. His supply of ammunition too was now exhausted.
Could he make the ground in a safe place? With every ounce of power,
his propeller crank revolving like lightning, still he made alarmingly
slow progress. Good reason why. Two of his propeller blades were shot
off. The other two were revolving swifter than can be imagined. He
felt that he was drifting down, down, amid the riff-raff, smoke and
confusion of a battlefield over, which the thunders of conflict had
twice passed.
Above, the aerial battle was still going on, though making towards the
east; for the Germans, following their retiring columns, were being
slowly yet persistently pushed back to their trenches. Occasional
bullets spattered about him. Day was fully on, and a rising sun
disclosed a prospect of clearing skies.
There was a ruined house or cabin just ahead. Could he land there? It
lay deserted for the time being amid war wreck and ruin, its roof
battered in, its stone walls crumbling. Still it promised temporary
shelter. Blaine had vanished. Had his plane gone down? Was he
smitten by a stray bullet? Had his plane, unguided, crashed to the
earth? Would he, Bangs, live to?
Buck's hurried thoughts were suddenly checked by a sharp, stinging
sensation that began at his side, then seemed to fill him completely.
At the same time he realized that his hands no longer hold the steering
wheel. He strove to seize it again, but his muscles did not obey. A
stupor was on him. The sunlight faded, gave way to a bewildering maze
of twinkling stars. His last conscious sensation was that his machine
was crashing downward. Then came a long mental blank.
Meantime Blaine was having his own troubles.
The rest of the air fighting had gone eastward, while he was contending
with the increased crippling of his planes. Overhead he saw only the
now clearing sky. Ahead of him, beyond a rippling stream, lay certain
trenches held, he felt sure, by his own side. But could be reach them?
Far behind the noise of battle rumbled. Where was Buck? Somehow he
had lost sight of his comrade within the last few minutes.
"Buck is a good, bang-up fellow. We ought to go back together."
But his power was waning. Try as he might, the plane was sagging
groundward. Only Blaine's skillful efforts kept it from dropping with
a crash which he knew would probably be the end of him -- Lafe Blaine.
What was that just below him which some scraggy shell-torn timber had
kept him from seeing before?
"Looks like a piece of a house," he muttered.
Stoutly he tried to make the small open space around this half ruined
hovel. Almost he made, it. But just beyond a crumbling stone wall,
that once must have been the enclosure of a tidy yard, the tail of his
machine dipped all at once. It struck the wall, causing the heavier
bow, weighted with the propellers, the petrol tank and the machinery,
to crash downward with force.
The recoil sent Blaine, now at the last physical gasp, plunging forward
over the almost perpendicular machine. He struck the earth heavily,
and lay there almost insensible, while the vanquished plane fell
sideways, striking wall and ground, then, with a last respiration not
unlike that of its master, it lay still, a wreck for the time being.
From out the house two skirted figures ran, figures in nurse's attire,
with the omnipresent red cross blazoned conspicuously on their
white-capped headgear.
"Oh, Andra, Andra!" cried the first to the one following. The last
cast a swift glance back inside the cabin. Then she, too, hurried to
the prostrate form lying beside the wrecked machine.