CHAPTER VIII In it

Ploof! Ploof! Bang! P-ssst, wam! Zing, zing, zing! T-r-r-r-r-r—rip! Ploooof! Something of this nature, if it can at all be conveyed by words, came in waves, roars and spasms of sound to the ears of Don and Billy, as their ambulance truck traversed part of the five or six miles of cross-road between the evacuation hospitals near the Amiens road, not twenty miles south of that shell-torn town, and the front line of the Allied army where American troops, newly arrived from training camps, were brigaded with the French soldiers; that is, a number of regiments of one nation were included with those of the other in the same sector, sometimes companies, even platoons, of Americans and French fighting side by side against the savage attacks of an enemy far superior in numbers.

“We’ve just sent a dozen or more to your people down there—nearly all light cases—but there’s been some sort of a scrap over toward the southeast. You can’t find a road, for the enemy holds that, but you can turn in across the fields to your right, or follow an old farm road; one of our men did so yesterday. It is just beyond, where some reserves are digging in by the edge of a ruined farm; both the house and barn have been struck by shells or sky bombs. If you can go any farther from there you’ll have to ask your way, but probably the P. C. beyond won’t let you go on. There are two dressing stations to the west of some woods on a low hill; that will be still farther to your right as you follow the new trail. Go to it!”

This was the all-too-brief order Don received from Major Little, the hospital-chief when the lads reached the broad tents on the cross-road early one morning. Without further words Don leaped into his car and glided on along the narrow road for about two miles; then he began dodging shell holes, one here that involved half of the wheel tracks, another, farther on, which took in all of the road and had been partly filled and partly bridged with timbers from an old building near. Beyond this, small shell-holes had torn up the once smooth surface here and there. After the ambulance had traversed another mile, at the best speed possible over such a highway, it overtook a string of ammunition trucks going into position, ready for progress or retreat. Dodging around these and avoiding other shell-holes was difficult for the half mile on to where the artillery had debouched. Once, not two hundred feet ahead, a big shell came over with a swish and snarl and landed in the field near the road, sending up a cloud of sod, dirt and stones and sprinkling the ambulance and its drivers with bits of gravel. One sizable stone landed on the hood with a whang and bounced against the windshield just hard enough to crack it, exactly in line with Billy Mearns’ face.

“Pal, we seem to be under fire,” remarked Don, and Billy, with a grunt of relief, replied:

“Yes, and if that glass hadn’t been there I’d have bitten that stone in half to show I didn’t care whether it came this way or not. But say, if we’d been just where that shell landed we would have had to sing Tosti’s ‘Good-bye.’ They’re rude things, aren’t they, the way they mess up the landscape?”

Don glanced at his smiling companion. A fellow who could take such matters so calmly, and jest over them, was a lad after his own heart.

The sound of fighting came to the boys now with increasing fury. They were not experienced enough to tell whether it was a regular battle, or merely a skirmish. Anyway, it was lively enough for an introduction to green hands far from home.

They came to where the reserve regiment was digging in. Some of them camped in the open, with a few little canopy tents spread. A few fires were burning. A few officers stood or squatted around talking and laughing. Sentries were pacing up and down. A sentinel stood in the road and faced about toward them, but when he saw the Red Cross on the front and side of the car and had scanned the faces of the drivers he asked no questions but let them pass. Don slowed up enough to hear him say:

“All right. Go find ’em, bo! There’s some down there.”

“Going to give your friends, the Limburgers, a warm reception after while?” Billy called back and the soldier nodded briskly, smiling and waving his hand.

Turning sharply and dashing along the old farm road between greening fields, the little car gained a slight crest and, uncertain for the moment which way to turn, Don stopped her. Billy leaned out and looked around.

“Over there are the woods the Major spoke about,” he said.

“Sure is. We can cross this meadow, I guess.”

“Ooh! Hold on a bit, and look up, Don!”

Two airplanes were circling overhead. The boys could see a black Maltese cross on the under side and near the end of each wing of one plane; the other bore a broad tri-colored circle in similar positions. The two soaring, roaring, vulture-like things were approaching each other, suddenly little jets of white smoke burst from each and long streaks of pale light, like miniature lightning, shot from each flying-machine to the other.

“A Hun plane and a Britisher! It’s a fight!” Don remarked excitedly. “See, they’re the illuminated bullets to tell just where they’re shooting, like squirting a hose. Watch ’em, Billy; watch ’em! Oh, by cracky!”

“Watch them? Do you think I’m taking a nap? Oooh! Look at that gasoline swallow dive! And bring up, too!” The German plane had done this to try to get around under the tail of its opponent before the other could turn, but its calculation went amiss. The Englishman instantly made a quick swerve around and then dived straight at his enemy, sending a stream of bullets ahead, and as the boche had by this time turned around and was coming back toward him, it looked terribly like there would be a collision.

But not so. The superior maneuvering of the Britisher was too much for his antagonist—the Hun plane swerved to the left, went on straight for a moment, then began to tilt a little sidewise and to spin slowly. As it sank it pitched from side to side, following a spiral course, thus imitating perfectly the fall of a dead leaf; so perfectly, indeed, that as it neared the earth and was not checked nor righted it became evident that the engine had stopped and that the airman could not control the plane. Then, when not more than fifty feet above the ground it suddenly tilted over forward and crashed to the ground in the field, about an eighth of a mile beyond the boys.

Looking aloft, then, Don and Billy saw the victorious English plane going straight away at high speed toward the enemy’s lines and rising higher in air at every second.

“Work cut out for us right ahead there,” Don remarked, as he settled back in his seat and began to speed up his motor. “We didn’t think that our first ‘blessé’ would be a Hun, did we?”

“No. What’s a ‘blessé’?”

“Why, I think that’s what the French call a wounded man. I hear them using it that way.”

“I know a little French, but very little; I hadn’t heard that expression before. Many of these war-time French words bother me muchly. Look out; another shell-hole! Say, this must be a regular farm.”

They saw the house standing in a clump of trees. The roadway led straight past it; with increased speed the ambulance flew by and in a little while came to the fallen airplane.

The winged intruder, ‘winged’ also as a flying game bird is by the accurate fire of a sportsman, lay twisted, beyond repair, its wings, uprights and stays crushed and broken. Almost beneath the flattened wheels on the other side, crumpled up on the ground, lay the unconscious airman. He had either leaped at the last moment, landing almost where the airplane had, or he had been jarred from his seat by the impact.

The boys were out of the car and beside him at once. Observing that he still breathed, they gently turned him over, trying to find where he was injured; then they saw a mass of clotted blood on his shoulder and discovered the bullet hole.

First Aid was in order. Don ran to the ambulance and returned with a kit. Billy followed to unfasten a stretcher and a blanket. With utmost care, yet moving swiftly, though both lads were admittedly nervous over their first case, they got him on the stretcher, removed his upper garments, bathed the wound, plugged it with antiseptic gauze and then, covering him with the blanket, slid the stretcher into the car.

What next to do? There was room for two or three more; why return with but one? And just beyond here lay the dressing stations, which they could reach in less than two minutes. Don made up his mind quickly and drove the car farther down the narrow farm road and over another field—a pasture. Half way across and toward them, four men were walking in single file. The boys had just made out that these were stretcher-bearers when suddenly the men stopped, ducked down and the foremost one raised his arm signaling for the car to stop. The next instant they were hidden from view by a fountain of earth between them and the ambulance and not over seventy-five feet from the car. The earth shook with the tremendous concussion of the explosion. It was one of the largest shells. The ambulance was stopped as though it had butted into a stone wall; Don felt a mass of glass fly against him and the car lifted partly up and swung aside. When he regained his senses and could see about him through the settling cloud of dust, he discovered that the car had been flung crosswise, that the windshield was smashed, and that the top was bent back, and very much askew. Billy, not having a grip on a steering wheel, as Don had, and having partly risen, was now on his back on the bottom of the car, behind the seat, his long legs sticking out over the back. He regained his normal position only by turning a back somersault and climbing forward. That the lads were not hurt was almost a miracle.

The Ambulance was Stopped as though it had Butted into a Stone Wall.

But strangest of all was the fact that the tail doors had been blown open, the stretcher lifted out on the ground as neatly as though human hands had done it and looking back Don saw the German airman, shocked into consciousness, sitting up and gazing at him.