Air Service Boys Flying for Victory; Or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold
disappointed person.
"What rotten luck for us, after all our work, Harry!" he complained, to
the utter bewilderment of his comrade.
"I don't get your meaning, Tom!" exclaimed Harry. "This is one of the
Huns, all right, and we've got him at last. What is there to kick about,
I'd like to know?"
"Why, don't you understand? He's wounded!" said Tom scornfully.
"Wounded! How?" echoed the other, still groping for the truth.
"Somebody shot him in the leg!" explained Tom, in disgust. "Just as I
was bound to jump him in another ten seconds! Did you ever hear of such
tough luck? Took the wind right out of our sails, he did, by using his
gun. If he'd put a bullet in my leg I could hardly feel madder, for a
fact."
Harry, however, quickly chuckled, as though he did not look at the
matter in the same way as his chum seemed to.
"Oh, well, the main thing isn't that we'd get a little glory from the
capture of the Hun," he said, "but that their desperate game has been
blocked. But this chap seems to be groaning as if suffering, Tom. He
ought to be taken care of, Boche or not."
"Yes, that's right, Harry," added the other, for the time being crushing
down his disappointment.
As some of the attendants of the aviation field came up just at that
moment there was need for explanations. Among them Tom noticed one who,
as he well knew, had charge of the hangars during the night.
"Lieutenant Simmons, here's a Boche spy who, with a companion, was
trying to bomb the big Beresford plane. Sorry we couldn't round up both
of them. This fellow has been shot, and ought to have attention. Now,
Harry, if you don't mind, we'll step around to your hangar and look into
the little job that brought us over here from the camp."
Tom really wished to get away from the crowd that was gathering. He had
no liking for being made an object of special interest. Although always
eager to attempt unusual exploits, it was only to please himself, and
not because of any reward or a morbid desire to be looked on as a hero.
Harry was not quite as diffident, and might have liked to linger a bit
to explain further how they had managed to discover the creeping
figures, and, having their suspicions aroused, closed in on them.
"I can see you later, Lieutenant, and answer any questions you may want
to ask about this stuff," he remarked, as he followed Tom away from the
group.
Tom was still "huffy" as Harry called it. He seemed to feel that the
ambitious marksman who had taken a pot-shot at the runner ahead had
really cheated him out of half the pleasure accompanying the capture of
the spy.
"I heard one big splash," Harry said, "which I take it was made by a
trench grenade. Did that Boche try to knock you out, Tom?"
"Oh, he let loose with one of his sort, but it was the easiest thing
going to duck under. He's got a lot to learn about flinging those little
knockers underhand. It takes a baseball pitcher to do the trick right.
How about your man, Harry?"
The other gave a grunt of disgust.
"Nothing doing with that slick dodger, I tell you, Tom. He must have
been a premium sprinter when at home, for the way he dodged in and out
made my brain reel. I kept after him as best I could, but, shucks! he
was in another class from me. And so I lost him in the shuffle. He
disappeared just like a wisp of smoke in the breeze."
"But you were still running like a hare when we banged into each other,
unless I'm greatly mistaken," continued Tom humorously.
"Sure I was! Trying to get a fresh glimpse of my duck. When I hit you I
thought it was that Boche, and then a light fell on your face, coming
from that head-lamp on a motor truck some one suddenly turned on. I
reckon I'll have a beautiful lump on my forehead where I struck against
a pole while running. It knocked me flat, and that was when I lost my
man."
Tom now began to laugh.
"A pretty lively skirmish, all told, when you come to think of it," he
observed. "I'll have to forget about that chap who was too quick on the
trigger, and only add up results. One Boche spy captured, wounded; and
the other gets away. But he's had his scare good and hard, and there's
little danger of his giving us any more trouble."
Whatever became of the captured Boche neither of them ever knew. Perhaps
he was simply taken to the hospital and treated for his wound, as so
many of his fellow Huns had been; and then again did time permit and
opportunity arise he might be tried by drumhead courtmartial on the
serious charge of being a spy.
Having satisfied themselves with regard to the matter in dispute, the
two boys later on returned once more to the camp and sought to secure
some much needed sleep, fully conscious that the duties of the coming
day would again sap their energies and bring them renewed chances for
thrilling action.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WINNING OF THE ARGONNE
DAYS passed and each setting sun saw the Yankee boys in khaki further
along the terrible trail they had set out to follow to the end. Another
mile, perhaps two, of the dense Argonne Forest had been redeemed, and
the stubborn foe sent reeling backward.
The end was in sight, many believed. Once they passed out of the vast
stretch of woods, the pace of the retreating enemy must be accelerated,
though of course he would take advantage of every ravine, abandoned farm
building, destroyed hamlet and village that offered sites for
machine-guns, on which Hindenburg was coming to rely more than on his
Big Berthas.
They made the Yankee pay the price for it all, even though the famous
Kriemhild-Stellung line was broken in the end. In addition to the heavy
blanketing of woods, hills and ravines intersected the forest at
intervals. These very often were knee deep in mud, through which the
fighters from overseas had to wade as they pushed steadily on.
Then there were barbed wire defenses, sometimes twenty feet in height,
with the hills and surrounding country villages fortified with acres of
rapid-fire guns, often in vast nests, and requiring the work of
batteries to blast them out of the path.
During all these days they had charged through villages, fought through
morasses, forded swollen streams, bayoneted machine gunners at their
posts, and used their rifles as clubs when they came to grips with the
foe in the wire entanglements.
Hunger and thirst joined hands with the enemy. Gas attack followed
charge, and charge succeeded gas attack. From overhead Boche planes
rained bombs down upon them. Comrades fell on every hand, and the cries
of the wounded rose above the shrieking of shrapnel and shell.
And day after day the young air-service boys rendered their full duty to
the cause they stood for. Filled with the ardor that spurs patriots on
to do astonishing feats they never shirked when the order came that sent
them again and again into the air to measure wits with the Boche fliers.
Hardly a day but what there was a vacancy in the ranks of those gallant
airmen who were so willingly giving their service in answer to their
country's call. More than a few had been sent to the hospital from which
they would only emerge, it might be, cripples for life, but doubtless
thankful to have escaped even a sadder fate.
Tom and Jack, as well as Harry Leroy, had had their close calls, but
somehow it seemed as though they were watched over by a kind Providence,
for so far none of them had met with a serious mishap.
There were compensations, too; for after a hard day's work in the air
how pleasant it was for Jack to lounge in the temporary field hut of the
Red Triangle and watch Bessie's nimble fingers handing out hot coffee,
sandwiches, or any of the hundred-and-one things which those industrious
workers managed to have in store for the wearers of Uncle Sam's khaki,
so as to make them feel that here was indeed a touch of home life,
though far removed from the actual thing.
And then perhaps from time to time, when Bessie was relieved by some
other worker, how delightful it was to find a chance to sit with her,
sipping tea, and chatting.
Of course Jack had long ago confided to her all that had happened to him
and to Tom and Harry since last they had met in Paris. If he was over
modest in his descriptions, especially when speaking of his personal
doings, why, Bessie had imagination, and could easily color the
narrative to suit her own ideas of what was fit and proper.
This sort of thing could not keep up indefinitely, of course.
The losses which the American army was sustaining were very severe, for
they never allowed themselves to be balked of their object. If they
found after trying that it was impossible to secure what they were after
one way, they turned around and went at it from a second, perhaps even a
third angle, but what in the end they gained their objective.
But it was known that they had now arrived close to the northern edge of
that vast wooded tract. For twenty-three days they had battled
continuously and pushed their lines forward in a way that must have been
peculiarly discouraging to Hindenburg.
His generals, who knew the ground best, had assured the Hun commander
that no army on earth could ever force the Argonne Forest, defended as
it was by every possible contrivance ever invented by a cunning Boche
brain. Yet here in October those persistent Yankees were on the point of
emerging from the bloody shambles, and ready to continue the drive to
the banks of the Rhine, if need be.
It was on one of those never-to-be-forgotten October nights that Jack
entered the tent that was being used as the temporary rest house for
the Y. M. C. A. workers, with a hastily dug hole adjoining where the
girls could seek shelter in case the Boche became troublesome with his
shells or bombs. He motioned to Tom whom he found chatting with Bessie.
The place was crowded as usual. Some of the doughboys had taken
possession of the battered old piano, moved up each day as though it
were their choicest possession, as indeed it really was. They sang their
favorite songs over and over again, and seemed to enjoy every minute of
the time.
It was no easy thing to make oneself heard with so much noise going on;
but Tom obeyed the signal of his chum, under the conviction that Jack
must have something of more or less importance which he wished to
communicate.
"What's in the wind this time, Jack?" he asked lightly, when he found
himself alongside the other. "Any more spies trying to blow up our
hangars?"
"Forget all that now. I want to speak to you about Helene, Tom."
"Oh, yes! We've almost forgotten all about Helene these days, what with
our many duties in the field and the air. What's new concerning little
Jeanne's sister, Jack?"
"Well, I haven't been neglecting the job I undertook, all the same,"
came the steady answer. "Never a batch of Boche prisoners is put behind
the barbed-wire enclosure but what I find a chance to look 'em over and
air my limited German vocabulary."
"Trying to find out if there are any Lorrainers in the bunch--is that
what you mean?"
"It is," the other told him, smiling at the accurate guess made by Tom.
"I suppose," continued Tom, "you've run across quite a few of them, and
some Alsatians in the bargain; for the Prussian war-lords saw to it that
few, if any, escaped the draft."
"Oh, I picked out dozens of men who claimed they had homes in Lorraine,
and every mother's son of them was fighting in the Hun army because of
compulsion. A lot of them lied, of course, because their names told that
they came of German stock, their people having settled there after the
war of Seventy-one had given the country to Germany."
"And at last ran across the one you most wanted to meet, did you?"
"I did come on a chap who admitted his home was just on the other side