OFF WITH A BOMBING UNIT
“I’m bringing you good news, Jack!”
It was just two days after Jack had expressed himself as “just dying
for active service of some sort,” that Tom burst in upon him with these
words.
Jack was finishing dressing for an ascent, as he had been detailed to
accompany the grizzled old sergeant on a little observation trip. He
looked up with a glad light on his now tanned face.
“A letter from mother, is it?” he demanded, extending his hand.
“Mail isn’t in yet for to-day,” the other told him. “Guess again.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you’ve met Bessie--Oh, shucks! that would
be an impossibility, seeing that this is the fighting front, where no
women save Red Cross nurses are allowed to visit. Then it must be we’re
to accompany the next bombing raiders who are starting out!”
“Your last shot struck the target plumb center, Jack!”
“Bully for that!” ejaculated the other, immediately commencing to cut a
few pigeon wings in the exuberance of his joy. “Now we’ll have a break
in the dull monotony, won’t we, Tom?”
“I hope that may be the only break we will have,” he was told. “Yes. I
was called over to the General’s headquarters, and he informed me that
our captain had spoken a good word for us. He also assured me we really
deserved some favor on account of the good work we had been doing ever
since coming to the front.”
“Then we’re really going, are we?”
“As sure as anything can be in these queer times.”
“When does it come off?” pursued the impatient Jack. “I hope right
away, because I’ll be counting the hours, yes, even the minutes, until
we’re shooting off over the lines of the Crown Prince, and headed,
perhaps for Berlin.”
Tom laughed.
“Oh! I don’t believe for a minute they’re thinking of any such big game
as that. This is going to be much nearer home.”
“But there was a fellow, a Frenchman, in the bargain, who did drop
a bomb on old Berlin not so very long ago, Tom,” expostulated Jack
earnestly.
“Not a bomb,” the other informed him. “It was some sort of placard,
telling the German people that a live French aviator had succeeded
in reaching their capital. He was on his way to the Russian front,
where I believe he finally succeeded in landing. It was partly to send
dispatches across country; but more in the line of bravado. They wished
to let those smug Berlinese know that their old capital wasn’t so
isolated, as they had been believing.”
“Huh!” grunted Jack, “I’ve always said that if Berlin could be bombed
just as Paris and London have been, all that stuff would stop. But when
do we go?”
“To-night!”
“And our objective?”
“We are bound up the Rhine to drop some tons of high explosives on
munition factories that have been turning out a tremendous amount
of supplies for the Crown Prince’s army here at Verdun. The French
commander believes that if only we can score some big hits there, it
will cripple the assault that is preparing.”
Jack heaved a sigh of relief.
“I’m glad to hear that. Of course I’m enlisted in this war, to see it
through, whether Uncle Sam later on gets into the mess or not, but I’d
hate to know that I had to drop those terrible bombs on a sleeping
German town, where peaceful and innocent people would likely be the
ones to suffer most.”
“That’s just why the British keep on refusing to pay back each raid on
London. They have their faults, we know, but somehow there’s a spirit
of national pride about their love of a square game. They fight fairly
and stubbornly, those British. The Germans once made all manner of fun
of them, but they have a deep respect for both the French and British
these days. It’s been pounded into them with hard knocks.”
It was then afternoon. Jack considered, and then came to a decision.
“Guess I’ll have to call my appointment with Sergeant Jean off for
to-day,” he said, as he commenced to change his clothes again. “With
such a long and tiresome trip ahead I’d better save myself all I can.”
The night promised to favor them, a fact Jack rejoiced to see, for he
kept fearing lest something should crop up to cause the general to call
the expedition off.
“The moon is nearly at its full, Tom,” he remarked, as they waited to
hear the ever welcome summons to supper; “and while it may be a bit
hazy, as it was night before last at the time they started, that will
only be in our favor. I guess we’ll get away all right.”
“There’s not a doubt about it,” he was assured by Tom, who had not
allowed himself to worry about that in the least. “By the way, I saw
the old sergeant gripping your hand as you came away. He took it in the
right spirit, of course, when you told him why you had to beg off?”
“Oh, yes. And, Tom, he’s to be one of the party. Think of his going up
this afternoon, just as if it was all in the day’s work; when to-night
he’ll have to be in his plane for many hours, and cruise far up the
Rhine and back.”
“He’s a hardened old vet!” laughed Tom. “Was he wishing you good luck,
Jack?”
“Sure thing. He also told me to say this to you: ‘Success on this trip
will be the making of you as a warplane pilot.’ And I guess it will put
us in line for promotion besides. Before long we may take our place
with the rest of the boys, and frequently meet a Boche in combat away
up near the clouds.”
Nothing was said at the supper-table about the bombing trip, so Jack
reasoned that it had not been scattered broadcast. But Tom decided
that others besides their captain might be told, as the secret would
certainly not be passed on. One and all were glad that a chance had
finally come for Jack and Tom to do “something worth while,” knowing
how they had been lamenting the enforced idleness.
Of course a bombing raid was “tame stuff” to those active members of
the fighting escadrille. Aboard one of those heavy and cumbersome
big machines, that made such slow progress compared with the speedy
Nieuports, going a couple of hundred miles in a night, dumping the load
of explosives on some object far below, and then returning to their
base, was a mere matter of form. The danger connected with such an
expedition could not for a moment be compared with what the fighting
pilots risked every day they went up to perform their hazardous duties.
Nevertheless they did not by any means, scorn those who carried out
the raiding expeditions. Their work was just as important, if not so
exciting, as any other, since every munition dump, or factory, which
they could successfully fire, meant hundreds of French lives saved in
the end.
As there was to be no rest for them later in the night the chums
retired to their room very early and lay down to snatch a few hours
sleep. Tom had an alarm clock and set it so as to be sure they would
awake on time.
It turned out that Tom was even better than the clock; or else that he
was afraid to risk it, for he had shaken his companion, and told him
to get up, before the alarm went off. Tom stifled the clock under the
bed clothes, so as to prevent its noise from arousing the rest of the
unit, by this time enjoying their initial sleep of the night.
When they got outside, however, they found a number of their fellows
bent on riding over to the camp hangars, to see them fairly on their
way. They made the short trip by means of a big car, one of many that
had been commandeered for the service of the Americans and a few other
aviators near by.
The busy mechanicians had the machines in line, and all tuned up
for the trip, even to the bombs adjusted beneath the body of each
big plane. Already the French pilots were around, and seeing that
everything was in proper trim.
Every man was so bundled up that he might have passed unrecognized
by his dearest friend so far as features went. Jack, however, had a
means of identifying the old sergeant, and his last word of greeting
received a buoyant reply that came straight from the heart, as Jean
wished them “_bon voyage_, and a safe return my children;” that being
a really French way of speaking, often used even by high commanders in
addressing their armies.
After considerable delay from one cause and another, the word was given
to start. In rapid succession did the great planes commence their
flight. Exceeding care had to be exercised on account of the terrible
missiles they were carrying for an unfortunate collision might have
caused immense damage.
“Some adventure, believe me!” was Jack’s comment.
“You bet!” returned Tom, laconically.
Presently Tom and Jack found themselves mounting upward in spirals,
and following the tail-light of the plane that was to serve them as a
pilot.