Horace Porter

“ As the biplane swept into the breeze current, trending to the river, which then was running brimful, and in many places overflowing its banks between the two armies, Colonel Muller advised Billy to keep the machine climbing for the time being, as a terrific fusillade was in progress in the distance of the next two miles, the shells hurtling through the air like lighted express trains. In the three steep-sided ravines that deeply notched the plateau on the east French troopers swarmed like bees, and at this cover the big German guns were blindly banging. ”

“ Though completing a continuous flight of seven hours, the aviators were there offered no temptation to alight. Hovering over the banks of the Bzura they saw a German cavalry detachment all but totally destroyed by the exploding of a Russian mine, and in turn the big guns of the Germans cut wide swathes in the Muscovite ranks.
Schneider cheered or groaned as the tide of battle swept forward and back, when victory favored or defeat menaced his comrades in the fray. The firebrand, in every quivering fiber, madly craved the chance to brave the shot and shell on the blackened battlefield. ”

“ To be rudely routed out of a snug nest in a feather bed at 3 o'clock in the morning—a morning with a real chill in it—is not a desirable experience for the average house-bred boy, and even such seasoned campaigners as Billy Barry and Henri Trouville were inclined to grumble when the giant Zorn yanked the covers from their downy couch and gruffly ordered them to get up and dress, and to make haste about it. ”

“ Now there was something tangible in the anticipation that Schneider might stalk and shoot a rabbit, and so hearten the weakened wayfarers to renew the battle for existence. They were beginning to lag with every additional mile traversed.
"Here is a good place to rest," announced Henri, whose sharp eyes had marked the mouth of a cave among the bushes covering the sides of the ridge, along which line the footsore travelers had been continuously plodding for an hour or more.
"We can't stop too quick to suit me," said Schneider, easing his living burden to the ground. ”

“ Stumbling along, careless now of bumps and bruises, the lads so often raised their voices to high pitch that they were hoarse from the effort.
Rounding a huge boulder that blocked their path, Billy, who was in the lead, suddenly started back with a cry of alarm, and Henri instinctively threw his arms about the waist of his chum.
Lucky move, this, for the Bangor boy was in the closest kind of way connected with a mass of crumbling earth that swept with a slight rumble into the darksome depths of Uzsok pass. ”

“ In the meantime, the fog-ridden atmosphere was riven by blazes of powder from the shore guns, trained upward, and the air squadron, Zeppelins and naval seaplanes, were leaping skyward to meet their kind in aërial battle.
Roque charged madly into the air station, dragging the boys after him.
A seaplane was balanced on the polished ways for the sweeping plunge.
"In the name of the Emperor!" he shouted, shouldering aside the men holding the poised craft. The same fierce whisper in the ear of the aviation lieutenant had effect identical with that upon the marine at the docks. ”

“ The biplanes floated in a tarnished silver sky, which, pressing down, seemed hardly higher than a gray ceiling. The aviators landed on the clay bank of the winding yellow river, the Bzura, within 400 paces of the German trenches. Gun answered gun across the golden stream, shell on shell spattered into the soft earth, and rifles rattled unceasingly.
Schneider sniffed the powder smoke like a seasoned warhorse. "It's the life!" he exclaimed.
"And the death," added Roque. ”

“ In the moment of excitement no thought had been given by the defenders to the rear of the house, and before Schneider could even turn on his heel, a half-dozen lance points threatened him, front and back.
The fallen peasant was on his feet in a flash, and it was a mighty ugly look that he fixed on Billy.
"You will go to the cellar now, because I say it, and will come out again if I will it."
The sign of leadership was on the man, for none of the strange soldiery about him ventured to speak even a word in his presence. ”

“ The same problem was here, however—what are they going to do?
"There they go again," cried Henri, referring to renewed outbreak from the long gray noses sticking out over the top of a brown gun emplacement—belching cones of death, and shooting red flare into the gray-white atmosphere. Then another noise out of the winter-worn copse of trees—pop, pop, pop, the notes of rifle fire, all raising a queer mist over the plain. With all this racketing no soldier could be seen at the point of fire. ”

“ The aviators in the party of Roten were all for sailing, post-haste, to the slope where the mysterious climbers had been sighted, and very shortly the little fleet was in the air, headed that way.
Flying low, the observers kept a sharp lookout for the near appearance of the man with the burden and the "shorter fellow."
Roque caught the first glimpse, and called to his pilot to risk a look for himself. Billy had only a side glance, as the machine rounded the summit, but that was enough for him.
"It's Henri and Schneider, or their ghosts!" he shouted. ”

“ Retreat had begun, and immediately Roque emerged from the ruck.
"This isn't our day," was the news he brought; "get under way or you will get under foot."
It was a stirring scene that spread under the rising biplanes, the massed formation attacks of the Austrians hurled back again and again by the sheer weight of the Russians, pouring men forward in seemingly unending numbers.
"They're thicker than flies in Egypt," growled Schneider, when his soldierly eye perceived that the Austrians could no longer stand the pressure of the numbers arrayed against them, and that the day was lost. ”

“ As the machine took the uplift, Billy and Henri were so close, and the fire-flow so vivid, that they plainly saw the faces of both the saver and the saved.
The man who had jumped into the machine was Anglin; the aviator was Gilbert Le Fane, the noted airman of Rouen, whom our boys had once followed in flight from Havre to Paris.
From the fire zone there was coming a hurrying body of men, and rifles began to spit lead at the swiftly rising aircraft. Too late, though, to reach the height attained by the biplane. ”

“ The secret agent dismissed suspicion as to the active participants in the conference, and as to the loyalty of Spitznagle he had not the slightest doubt. The trial horses must needs be two pale-faced boys backed up against a window-sill.
Roque, with his hands deep in his pockets, a habit he had when stalking a suspect, walked around the foot of the table and stood directly in front of the pair, fixing on them that gimlet gaze he used to terrorize.
Billy and Henri, when at bay, were the most keenly alive; their nerve always served them most in the supreme test. ”

“ Four military biplanes twelve hours hence lay in readiness to start for the Cossack roundup. The Austrians in the party carried a supply of bombs for emergency work, but the most elaborately armed of all was Schneider, in the rôle of chief challenger. He bristled with revolvers, a shoulder-hung carbine and a heavy cavalry saber.
"If you should have a fall, old fellow," laughed Stanislaws, "it would sound like a barrel of tinware rolling down a mountain." ”

“ Billy Barry and Henri Trouville, the Boy Aviators, were in the act of climbing into a superb military biplane on the great parade ground at Hamburg when thus hailed by a mild looking man in citizen's attire, with face half-hidden by a slouch hat and a pair of huge, horn-rimmed spectacles. ”

“ Schneider had additional assurance of capacity when he was advised that both of the lads carried Roque's indorsement of efficiency.
It was a bitter struggle that the Aëroplane Scouts were to witness at Soissons, and six days of it had already passed. The earth was still dropping on [85] many graves of the German fallen, and yet, sprawling in attitudes along the heights, in the deep-cut gorges of the plateau, and across the flat valley bed were French infantrymen in their far-to-be-seen red-and-blue uniforms, swarthy-faced Turcos, colonials, Alpine riflemen, and bearded territorials. ”

“ Every stranger must give an account of himself, and even some individuals here and there who were not newcomers.
Billy and Henri could see no opening where two full length military biplanes could alight without notice, and not a morsel of encouragement to try for negotiation on the quiet with the disguised secret agent who had summoned them.
But the aviators hung about, not knowing what else to do for the present, thinking that Roque would make a showing of some sort, as he usually did in tight places. ”

“ The man nervously fingered the folds of his rusty green tunic as he obeyed the fiercely given command, and as he stood nearest to Billy the latter was inclined to keep at least the corner of his eye peeled on the suspect. It was well for Schneider that the boy was watchful, for when the supposed farmer stealthily lowered his hand it grasped the bone haft of a dagger.
The Cossacks outside vigorously pounded the door with lance butt and sword hilt, and receiving no response to their peremptory summons, set powerful shoulders to work. But they could not budge or even shake the solid barrier. ”

“ They were seeing plenty to keep them interested, the arrival of sleeping-car trains bringing the wounded to the capital, the movement of troops bound for the Polish or Galician front, the daily sights of the Ring and the Kartnerstrasse.
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Roque, as usual, was up to his eyes in war business, ever behind the scenes but ever moving, for there is close military coöperation between Germany and Austria-Hungary. All interests related to the war have been pooled—one empire gives to the other what can be spared. ”

“ Seventy miles an hour was the clip of the fleeing biplanes, and no less speedy the onrush of the aircraft from the slopes.
"Steady, and a little to the right," Renos instructed Henri.
The observer was resting the rifle barrel on the rigging, awaiting a broadside target.
Sping! One of the attacking aviators was first with his rifle, and the bullet nicked the armored side of the German craft. Sput! Henri heard an angry exclamation behind him, and shifted an eye long enough to see that Renos was nursing a bloody wrist on his knee.
"How hard are you hit?" ”

“ Billy was content for the time being to be allied with power.
Among the many who answered the summons of Roque in the intelligence bureau, the young aviators were most interested in a score of blond, blue-eyed, well-set-up Saxons, renowned as Zeppelin navigators, who were destined to guide the "terrors of the air" in furtherance of another raiding plan taking form in the fertile brain of the eminent promoter of trouble for the enemy. ”

“ Long enough, indeed, for the boys to torment themselves with the reflection that if they did not appear at the appointed hour Roque and Schneider would curse their perfidy, and if they did betray the confidence of the aviation chief in this camp he would pay the penalty.
"It will be no trick at all to take the biplanes for an evening spin; we have done it before without question."
"That's the trouble, Henri", lamented Billy, "it's too easy. If we had to steal the machines, risk our lives before the guns of the sentries, and all that sort of thing, it wouldn't seem such a trial of conscience. ”

“ The Russians back-tracked for a time, finding a better range to fire at the defenders on the mountainside, and such was the fusillade that Schneider and Henri were compelled to stay in cover to save their skins.
"They can't work that game, though, to support a scaling force," said Schneider, "for the same fire would catch the scalers. If they come any nearer we can fix them, all right. But what a mercy it is that they haven't a field gun with them."
"As it is, we can't stave them off very long," added Henri. "When it gets dark the stone-rolling game won't work." ”

“ Billy gave Henri a kick on the foot. Roque was approaching with a sheaf of telegraph messages in his hand.
"What are you boys jabbering about? I want you to go down to the wharf with Albert and get the seaplane in trim. I'll join you in half an hour."
Albert, a strapping youth, with the breezy way of a sailor, guided the boys across the grounds to the hangar, and watched with interest the making ready of the airship.
"That's not my kind of a boat," he briskly stated, "but I'll be bound if this kind of craft didn't give us submarine workers a Christmas surprise. Ever travel in a submarine?" ”

“ No, sir, the rest cure wouldn't have been the right prescription for us. Eh, Henri?"
"He's as right as a trivet, Mr. Roque; we took the proper tonic," assured Henri.
"A man's size swallow for all that," was Schneider's amen. ”

“ That word was spoken, and others in faltering train.
"He says his name is Schwimmer, Johann Schwimmer—captain."
"A captain without a regiment," was Schneider's sad comment, his eyes bending further afield, where corpses in blue, in heaps and singly, marked the path of deadly artillery practice.
"It does look as if we are caring for the only survivor," said Henri, realizing that Schneider's mournful observation was founded upon fact. ”

“ That reminded Billy of a decided vacancy under his belt, but the glad sight of the colonel was the best tonic for a drooping spirit.
"We will wheel this airship out of the way for a spell and have a bite to eat in the trenches."
Concealing the biplane behind a clump of bushes the colonel gave Billy a hand-up, and the horse cantered away with its double burden in the direction of the slopes. ”

“ Schneider, remembering the vocal effort in the cellar, came back with the expression of hope that the telephone invention would not serve to that extent.
"Oh, but you are a jealous cuss," declared the boy, as he guided the machine upward, in compliance with the signal given to all by Roque.
"We have all the advantage this time,"'phoned Billy to Roque, when the flight was well under way; [160] "if the outfit below is too heavy for us we can stay out of reach; if we feel that we can lick them, a dive will settle the question—our choice both ways." ”

“ The talk was in rapid German, but Henri caught the drift of the conversation without difficulty.
"By George," he whispered to his chum, "Cuxhaven is the place mentioned in Anglin's message."
"You mean Ardelle's message," corrected Billy.
"That's right," chuckled Henri. "I forgot that Anglin had become the big noise. Yes, it's the very place," he continued, "and it's a great naval base."
"It's a safe bet that Roque never hits a trail that isn't warm. Take it from me," and Billy was in great earnest when he said it, "there is going to be something doing." ”

“ You can't fall in that country now without bumping a Russian."
"I'll back my boys to make the riffle," confidently asserted Roque.
"They'll need the keen eye every inch of the way," persisted Roten.
"We came out safely, and I guess we can repeat," declared the secret agent.
"Well, good-bye, sir, and look out for the big guns at Malkovista; the Russians are there now, and it's only three miles from Przemysl."
"We've come into our own again." Billy and Henri were standing together, viewing with satisfaction the graceful lines of the No. 3's, every part adjusted to a nicety. ”