XVI
THRILLS
It was a bad day for kite-balloon work; first, because the air was not clear and the visibility was bad, and second, because there was an uncomfortable wind blowing, and the balloon was jerking and swaying and lurching at the end of its long tether, making it hard for the observers to keep a steady eye on such targets as they could pick up, and still harder to plot out angles and ranges on the map spread on the table sticking out from the side of the basket.
But hard fighting was going on, and the line was getting badly hammered, so that every balloon which could get up was in the air, and every observer was hunting for hostile battery positions, directing the fire of our guns on to them, and doing all they could to lessen the shell-fire that was pouring down on our infantry in their scanty trenches. At times a swirl of mist or cloud came down and shut off the view altogether from the balloons; but they hung on, and stayed aloft waiting for a clear and the chance to observe a few more rounds the moment they got it.
In one balloon the two observers had been sitting aloft for hours, after an early rising and a hurried breakfast. They had only been having fleeting targets at intervals as the haze cleared, but any danger of becoming bored was removed by the activities of a certain anti-balloon gun which did its best to shoot them down whenever it could get a sight on them, and by the excitement of watching out for an air attack whenever the low clouds came down and offered good cover to any Hun air man who cared to sneak over above them and chance an attack.
When a blanketing mist crawled down over the target again, one observer swore disgustedly and spoke down the telephone. The second kept watch round and listened to the one-sided conversation. When it finished, the first observer turned to the map. "This is unpleasant, Dixie," he said, pointing to a spot on it. "We've lost the hill out there."
"Lost the hill!" said Dixie disconsolately. "Don't talk to me about losing. I've lost my beauty sleep; I've lost interest; and if this cussed gas-bag doesn't stop behavin' like a cockle-boat in a tide-rip, I'm goin' to lose my breakfast next."
"It's clearing a little again," said the other cheerfully. "Hope so, anyway. I want to finish that battery off. Can you see what the line's doing?"
"Seems to be mainly occupied absorbin' Hun high explosive," said Dixie. "They don't look to be enjoyin' life down there any more'n I am – an' that's not enough to write to the papers about."
"There they go!" said the other. "Spot that flash? Let's get on with it. The P.B.I.6 down on the floor there want all the help we can give 'em."
"You've said it, Boy," remarked Dixie, and turned to his spotting again.
Both were hard at work five minutes later trying to pick up the burst of their shells and pass their observations down to the guns, when there came a whistle and a howl and a loud, rending c-r-r-rack! somewhere above them.
"See here, Boy!" said Dixie. "This is gettin' too close to be pleasant, as the turkey said about Christmas. Can't we find where he's located and pitch a few back at him? I'm about tired of perchin' up here being made a cock-shy of."
"Wait a bit," said Boy. "I'm almost finished with this other battery. Maybe – Look out! Here she comes again!"
"Look out!" retorted Dixie, when the shell had howled up and burst in a cloud of filthy black smoke not more than a hundred yards out and on their level. "Pleasant prospect to look out at. Hades! Here's another. Say, Boy, this is gettin' too hot, as Casabianca said to the burnin' deck. He's got our elevation all right, and if we don't change it he'll get us next, for sure."
The closeness of the shot had been observed below, and, after a brief telephoned talk, the balloon was hauled rapidly down a thousand feet. Another shell crashed angrily above them as it went down.
The next hour was a highly unpleasant one to the two observers. The "anti" gun was plainly out to down them, and kept pitching shell after shell with most discomforting accuracy all around them. The winch below hauled them down and let them soar up to all sorts of varying elevations in strenuous endeavours to cheat the gunners, while the two observers did their best to pick up targets and lay their guns on to them, and the anti shells continued to scream up and burst about them. Several times the explosions were so close that it appeared certain the envelope must be holed, and the observers stopped work and waited with held breath to discover whether they were sinking and if they would have to jump for it and trust to their parachutes. But the balloon held up, and the two continued their shoot. It was unpleasant, highly unpleasant, but the hard-pressed infantry wanted all the assistance the guns could give them, and the guns wanted all the help air observation could give; so the observers held on, and chanced the shells, and kept their guns going on such targets as they could pick out of the dull light and grey mist.
It must be admitted that, as the time dragged past, the strain began to tell on the tempers of both men. The only respite they had from the continued torment of the anti-balloon gun was when the mist closed down on them; and then the strain was in no way lessened, but altered only to that of watching out for an attacking enemy.
And that looked-for attack came at last. There came a sudden and urgent call on the telephone from below, and both men strained their eyes out through the lifting haze to the next balloon in the line and, with an instinctive fumbling at the attachment of their parachute harness, made ready to jump. But what they saw held them spellbound for a moment. The next balloon in the line was being attacked. It was over a quarter of a mile away; but the silhouette of a plane could clearly be seen swooping down on the defenceless balloon, flashes of fire spitting and streaking from his guns as he came. The two balloon-men leaped over the edge of the basket. One plunged down the regulation distance, his parachute fluttered open with a shimmer of gleaming silk that looked exactly like a bursting puff of white smoke, began to drop down in wide pendulum swings. But with the second man's parachute something plainly had gone wrong. Dixie and the Boy, clutching the sides of their basket and staring horror-stricken, gasped as they saw the little figure go plunging plummet-wise hundreds after hundreds of feet … hundreds … thousands … and still the parachute followed in a solid unopened black dot. The balloon was near 3,000 feet up when the man jumped, and he and the parachute went down 3,000 feet, as a stone would drop down a well. Dixie and the Boy watched fascinated, tried to turn their heads or shut their eyes – and couldn't.
When it was over, Dixie spoke hurriedly. "Come on, kid! Over! Or it's our turn next!"
But to watch a parachute fail to open, and the next instant to trust your life to the proper working of your own, is rather a severe test, and it is little wonder that both Dixie and the Boy waited another second watching and waiting before leaping over. They saw a lick of flame flicker along the top of the attacked balloon, die down, flash out again – and then caught sight of the Hun scout wheeling and heading for their balloon. The winch below was hauling down with frantic haste; but there is little hope of pulling down a K.B. 3,000 feet in anything like the time it takes a fast scout to cover 500 yards, and the Boy, taking a gulping breath, was on the point of jumping, when Dixie clutched at him and cried – croaked is a truer word – hoarsely at him. The new act of the drama was begun and ended almost quicker than the first. Out of the grey mist another plunging shape emerged, hurtling straight across the path of the enemy scout, its guns streaming fire, clattering a long postman-knock tat-tat-tat-tat. The enemy machine swerved violently, missed collision by bare yards, swept round, thrust his nose down and tried to dive away. But the other machine was after him and on him like a hawk after a pigeon, clinging to his tail and pelting fire at him. A gust of sooty black smoke puffed from the leading machine, a spurt of flashing fire followed, and it went diving headlong with flame and clouds of smoke trailing after.
"Boy," said Dixie unsteadily, "I've mighty near had balloonin' enough for one morning's amusement!"
The telephone was calling, and the Boy turned to answer it. But before he spoke there rose to them again the shrieking rush of an approaching shell – a rush that rose to a shriek, a bellow, and ended in an appalling crash that sent the balloon reeling and jerking at its tether. Again both men fingered the parachute harness buckled about them and stared up intent and uneasy at the swaying envelope above them. Before they could decide whether it was hit or not another wailing yowl heralded another shell, another rending crash, another leaping cloud of black smoke just below them, the shriek and whistle of flying fragments up past them, told of another deadly close burst. Choking black smoke swirled up on them, and the Boy began to shout hurriedly into his telephone.
"Tell 'em the basket's shot full of holes," said Dixie, "and my parachute's got a rip in it big enough to put your fist in. And tell – "
He broke off suddenly. The pitching, tossing, jerking of the tethered balloon had changed to a significant smoothness and dead calm. The Boy dropped his telephone receiver. "Dixie," he gasped, "we're – we're adrift!"
Dixie took one swift look over the edge of the basket. "You've said it," he drawled, "an' that ends the shoot, anyway."
"Should we jump for it?" asked the Boy hurriedly.
"If you feel like it, go ahead," said Dixie, "but not for mine, thank'ee. My parachute's shot up to glory, an', anyhow, we're driftin' back over our own lines. I'd as soon stay with her till she bumps."
"I think she's dropping," said the Boy. "The shell that cut the cable, maybe, holed the gas-bag, and she'll come down with a run."
"We're comin' down all right," said Dixie philosophically, "but not fast enough to hurt. You jump if you like. I'm goin' to hang on and pull the rippin'-cord when she's near the floor."
But the remembrance of that other observer, falling like a bullet beneath an unopened parachute, was too close to encourage the Boy to leap, and the two waited, hanging over the edge of the basket, watching the ground drift past beneath them, trying to gauge how fast the balloon was coming down. It fell slowly, very slowly, at first, losing height so gradually that it was hard even to say it was losing. It began to look as if the two were in for an easy and comfortable descent without leaving the balloon. Then plainly the rate of descent began to quicken. The ground began to swirl up to them at an alarming speed; the balloon, which had up to now been drifting so smoothly that its movement could hardly be felt, started to lurch down in sickening swerves and drops and swings.
"Boy," said Dixie seriously, "I dunno you hadn't better chance it an' jump. Looks like this ol' sausage was punctured bad, an' I'm gettin' to think she's goin' to phut out quick an' go down wallop. S'pose you jump, an' I hang on to her. My parachute – "
"Take mine," said the Boy quickly. "I'd as soon stay with her."
"Nothin' doin'," answered Dixie. "Parachute jumps is no popular pastime of mine at the moment, an' I don't mind ownin' to it."
So both waited, Dixie with his hand on the ripping-cord, both with their heads over the side, their eyes fixed on the passing ground. There was a strong wind blowing, and, as they came closer to the ground, they began to discover the surprising speed at which they were travelling, to feel a good deal uneasy about the crash with which they must hit solid earth. The balloon was falling now at dangerous speed, and, worse, was coming down in a series of wild swings and swayings.
"The wood!" shouted Dixie, pointing out and down. "Better crash her in it, eh?"
"Go on," answered the Boy briefly.
The next minute was rather a nightmare – a wild impression of a sickening plunge, of tearing crackling noises, of breaking branches, of a basket jerking, tossing, leaping, falling, bouncing and falling again, and finally coming to rest amongst the crashing tree-tops, hanging there a moment, tearing free and, falling and bringing up completely with a bump amongst the lower branches, while the envelope settled and sagged and flopped in another crescendo of cracklings and rippings and tearings on top of the trees. The two clung for dear life to their basket; were jerked and wrenched almost from their grip a dozen times; hung on expecting every moment to be their last; felt the basket at last settle and steady, and cease to do its best to hurl them overboard.
They climbed over, caught stray cords, and slid thankfully to firm ground. "Did it ever strike you, Boy," said Dixie, "what a pleasant thing a lump of plain solid dirt under your feet can be?"
That ended their adventure so far as the air was concerned. But it cost them an hour's tramp to find a main road and discover where they were; and another hour to tramp along it to a fair-sized town where there might be an inn or hotel. A mile-stone on the roadside gave them their whereabouts and surprised them by the distance they had drifted back.
They set their faces east and began a steady tramp. The road was rather crowded with a stream of French civilians all moving west, and, as they walked, the crowd grew closer and more solid and showed plainer signs of haste and anxiety. There were no troops on the road; it was wholly filled with civilians – women and children and very old men for the best part, all laden with bundles or pulling or pushing or driving vehicles of every sort and description. There was a cow dragged behind an old woman and a child, a huge bed-mattress bundled and roped on its back; a perambulator piled high with clothing and blankets, and with a baby nested down in the middle of the pile; an old man leading a young child and carrying a bird-cage with two full-sized chickens crammed into it; a decrepit cart and still more decrepit pony, with a load of furniture that might have filled a pantechnicon; a family, apparently of mother and five children of descending ages and sizes, but each with a bundle hugged close; an old bent woman tottering a step at a time on two sticks. All trailed along wearily in a slow drifting mass; and all, except the very young children, were casting uneasy glances over their shoulders, were evidently struggling to put as many paces as possible between them and their starting-point.
Dixie and the Boy knew well what it all meant – merely the evacuation of another village that had come within shell-range of the Hun, or was near enough to the shifting battle-line to make it wise to escape before all in it were engulfed, made prisoner, and set to slavery in the fields on starvation rations for Hun task-masters, or, worse, deported, torn apart, child from mother, weak from strong, helpless from helpers, and deported to far-off factories or the terrors of an unknown fate. The French and Belgians have learned their lesson – learned it slow and hard and bitterly – that it is bad to be driven to leave all they own on earth, but infinitely worse to stay and still lose all, and more in the "all" than mere earthly possessions.
Dixie and the Boy tramped slowly against the tide of refugees and drew at last to near the town from which the stream was pouring. It was all very pitiful, very cruel. But worse was to come. The road was one of those long main national route highways common in France, running straight as a ruler for miles on end, up hill and down dale. The roofs of the village were half a mile away, and suddenly, over these roofs, an aeroplane came skimming. It flew low, and it flew in a bee-line along above the wide straight road; and as it flew there sounded louder and plainer the unmistakable ac-ac-ac-ac of a machine-gun; there was plainly to be seen a stream of spitting fire flashing from the flying shape. It swept nearer, and the clatter of its guns sounded now through a rising wail, a chorus of shrieks and calls and sharp screams, and the cries of frightened or hurt children. The gun shut off abruptly as the machine swooped up; burst out again in a long savage tattoo as it curved over and came roaring down in a steep dive. In the road there was a pandemonium of screams and cries: a wild turmoil of figures rushing hither and thither, flinging down into the ditches, scrambling over them and fleeing in terror out over the open fields. As the machine dived the two observers could see the streaking lines of the tracer bullets, hear the sharp cracks and smacks of explosives hitting the ground – and other things. They could only stand and curse in impotent rage, and the Hun machine, with a rush and a roar, spat a last handful of bullets over and past them and was gone on down the road. The two stood and watched its graceful soaring and plunging, listened to the steady rattle of its guns, swore savagely again, then turned to help some of the shrieking women and crying children about them. But next moment another distant tat-tat-tat made them look up to see another black-crossed machine, and then a third, leap into sight over the village and come tearing down above the road. Dixie and the Boy both filled the few intervening seconds trying to hustle the fear-stricken villagers off the road down into the cover of the ditches, behind carts – anywhere that might be out of reach of the bullets. But the newcomers had gone one better than bullets for fiendish destruction. As the first one approached a black blob fell away from it, and next second there was a rending crash, a leaping cloud of smoke and dust whirling and eddying up from the road. The machine roared over and past, with her machine-gun hailing bullets down the road, and far down the road came another billowing cloud of smoke and the crash of another bomb. The third machine followed close, also machine-gunning hard and also splashing bombs down at intervals, one falling with horrible effect fairly in a little crowd of women and children clustered under and behind a country cart. The cart was wrecked, and the horse and half of the women and children…
The two observers gave what help they could, their faces white and their hands shaking and their ears tingling as they worked. The whole scene after the passing of the destroyers was heart-rending and pitiful and far too horrible for description. And the cruel part of it was that it was all such useless destruction, such wanton savagery, such a brutal and wilful slaughter of the innocents. The low-fliers were too close down for there to be any possibility of their not knowing well what they were shooting and bombing. There was not a sign of a uniform on the road; it was packed with what clearly and unmistakably was a crowd of refugees, of helpless women and children. It was hard to imagine what the Huns hoped to gain, what object they could have had in such indiscriminate murder; but, object or no object, its happening is a matter of cold history.
It was growing late when the two observers, continuing their journey, saw a distant aerodrome, made their way across the fields to it, explained themselves, and were offered dinner first, and then transport back to their unit.
The two told their tale of the day while they waited with the Squadron for dinner to be served. It was dark by this time, and an annoying delay came before dinner in the shape of an order to put all lights out, and in the droning approach of some enemy bombers. They passed somewhere overhead, and the machine-gun defences fired a few streams of ineffectual bullets up at them. One bomb whistled and shrieked down and burst noisily a few hundred yards from the 'drome and others farther afield. The pilots and the two observers were collected again just outside the door of the mess listening to the distant drone of the Hun bombers, watching the flicker and jump of gun flashes in the horizon and a red glare that rose in a wide steady glow from one or two points. It was an unpleasant reminder of the trying time the Army was having, of the retreat they had made, of the stores and dumps that had been fired to prevent the enemy taking possession of them.
One of the pilots – a youngster of under twenty, with two wound stripes on his cuff – laughed suddenly. "That Hun bomber just about rounds off a complete day of frightfulness for you two fellows," he said. "You have had a lively time, one way and another."
"We have," said Dixie. "I've had thrills enough for this day to fill a boy's adventure library full an' overflowin'."
"Too many for me," said the Boy, "when I think of watching that man go down with an unopened parachute."
"It was worse seeing that Hun come down the road," said Dixie, "and bein' able to do nothin' to stop him. An' when I think of that mother with a dead baby, an' that kid – a girl – about five years old, that an explosive bullet – " And he stopped abruptly.
There was silence for a minute, broken by the young pilot.
"Speaking of thrills," he said, and laughed again, "there was a paragraph – some of you will remember how we grinned over it. Wonder if I could find the paper? It would tickle you diving balloonatics especially. I'll see," and he disappeared into the mess-room and began to hunt round with an electric torch.
He found the paper and brought it out and read the paragraph by the light of his torch. It was headed "60,000 Thrills," and it ran:7 "A Blanktown cable, received by the Chief Representative for Blancountry, states: At an aquatic carnival, held by the Big Stone Swimming Club at Light Falls, there was an attendance of 60,000. The proceeds go to the Soldier's Fund. Prince Walkiyick – known as Alec Walker the Middle Seas sprint champion – dived from a height of 200 feet into the water. He was two seconds in the air and thrilled the spectators with his exploit."
"Good Lord!" said the Boy helplessly.
"Thrilled the spectators," repeated Dixie. "Thrilled … well, if that doesn't take it."
The young pilot was laughing again, long and immoderately, and some of the others, looking at the two observers' faces, had to join him.
"Sixty thousand, you said," the Boy was beginning, when he was interrupted by a distant boom – boom – boom.
"Huns bombing Blanqueville again," said the young pilot. "More women and kid casualties, I suppose."
Dixie was cursing, low but very intensely. "If those spectators are out for thrills – " he said, and looked to where a red glow was beginning to rise in the sky over Blanqueville.