Air Service Boys Flying for France/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
HOVERING OVER VERDUN
Days passed, and each brought new inspiration to the two chums, as they saw how those valiant members of the American squadron carried out their part in whatever was going on.
Through his excellent glasses Tom watched many fights aloft. It was a good education for the boys, since by this means they learned just how the proficient pilots manoeuvred under attack and in defence. They also had abundant opportunities of seeing this or that aviator excecute the "grille" when threatened by a number of enemy planes that had fallen on him from the clouds overhead.
Each plane belonging to the Lafayette formation had an Indian head painted on the side. There was also the name of the pilot, or something to designate his identity, so that others in swift passing might know who handled the machine, for once in their "fighting togs" the men looked very much alike.
The French fighting planes on the other hand had red, white, and blue circles under the wings, and a distinctive insignia of the pilot on the sides.
The camp was many miles behind the battle line, but not so far as to entirely shut out the almost incessant roar that was taking place all day long. This consisted first of the explosion of great shells that threw up the earth like a geyser in Yellowstone Park does water and steam. Then came the steady rattle of the French 75's, for all the world like a snare-drum when mellowed in part by distance. Finally the deep-throated boom of the monster guns would cause the earth to quiver.
By degrees both of the boys were becoming accustomed to various things that in the beginning had filled them with awe. They could even witness a savage fight up in the air, and figure on what the two pilots would be apt to do next; for it was always a part of their education to put themselves in the place of the one who represented their side.
Then came the day when Tom was told to accompany the grizzled French sergeant up in a double-seated plane, to send back or relay information coming from some more advanced pilot who soared high above the German lines.
Both boys had been found very clever at signal work, and just then it chanced there was a shortage of observers and signal men, owing to an unusual number of accidents. Jack was sent up with another member of the French escadrille. It would be serving two purposes, since not only would the lack of observers be made good, but the experience would be of considerable value to the newcomers.
Jack was greatly excited at the prospect of at last flying for France, and also of looking down on the trenches of the Germans for the first time. Tom warned him to curb his enthusiasm lest it unfit him for the important work which he had undertaken to perform.
"You'll need your head every minute of the time, remember, Jack, if it's up to you to relay signals. Don't forget their importance. A mistake would cost the French dear, as an attack might be ordered on false information that would break down, and mean the loss of many brave men."
That sobered Jack.
"I guess you're right there, Tom," he remarked, as he completed his dressing for work, even to the muffler about his neck; for with winter still holding on to some extent, it would be bitterly cold far up toward the clouds.
All around them there was a deafening roar as motors were being tested, and machine-guns fired in trying them out, so as to make sure they were in perfect condition for instantaneous use. Since the life of the pilot often depends on the excellence of his artillery it is of the utmost importance that the mitrailleuse is kept in order.
"Oil and gas!" they heard being bawled at many a mechanician by the eager pilots; the mechanics adjusting the gasolene and air throttles while the pilot gripped the propeller.
"Contact!" shrieked an attendant close to Tom, and the word was echoed by his pilot, who snapped on the switch, as the man spun the propeller. The motor took, the machine started forward out of line with the many others, raced more rapidly over the ground, and then took the air like a great bird. Jack had gone off with the Frenchman whom he was to accompany aloft.
There was no time to think of anything that had to do with sentiment. If fortune were kind the two chums expected to meet again later in the day, to compare notes as to their various experiences.
Now Tom's sergeant signaled to him to get seated, while he himself looked to the few last things that were necessary. In another three minutes he had given his mechanician the word, and Tom had followed Jack into the air.
The ascent was easily accomplished, and Tom Raymond quickly saw that there was a master hand at the wheel. The veteran pilot had been almost constantly at the work of handling a heavy machine since the first year of the great war. He had had many narrow escapes from death, but for all that he never took unnecessary chances under the conviction that he bore a charmed life.
Circling upward they finally reached an altitude of about five thousand feet. Tom knew this partly from intuition, and then again he could see the face of the altimeter used to register height. After that for ten minutes they flew almost directly north.
Then the sergeant throttled down to await the coming of other machines that were expected to take some part in the venture. Tom busied himself in looking down upon the region of Verdun—a name ever to be inscribed on the pages of French history as commemorating deeds of unequaled valor on the part of her heroic sons.
The country could not be distinguished in detail from such a height. It presented a flat surface of varicolored figures. The woods were irregular blocks, dun-colored, with patches of dark green where evergreen trees grew; the roads could be traced running this way and that in white lines, often crossing. Fields were in geometric squares, and at another season of the year might have looked green.
Over beyond lay the Meuse, sparkling in the sunlight. Far below hung a double line of the irregular sausage-shaped observation balloons, each secured by rope to a giant windlass by means of which they were raised and lowered readily.
Verdun lay just beyond, with its many red-tiled houses; though here and there could be seen an appalling gap, indicating where a great shell had caused devastation in the midst of the buildings.
Using his powerful binoculars Tom was able to note a multitude of what seemed tiny pockmarks dotting the landscape all around Verdun. These he knew must be what they called "shellcraters," being the vast excavations caused by the explosion of shells hurled from the monster guns of the Germans, placed, it may have been, twenty miles distant at the time.
Once across the Meuse, Tom saw a broad brown band running from the Woevre plain westward to the "S" bend of the river; and on the left bank of the Meuse it kept on until it reached the Argonne Forest.
Well he knew that many months back that country had been made up of a myriad of peaceful farms and villages. Now it was a blackened waste, a sinister belt that as one writer describes it "seems like a strip of murdered Nature, and to belong to another world."
"Why, even the roads have all been obliterated," Tom was telling himself, as he looked, overcome with a feeling of horror.
Every sign of humanity had been swept away; roads and woods were gone utterly; and where the restful French villages once nestled, nothing could be seen but gray smears where stone walls had tumbled together.
Still further along he discerned Fort Vaux and Fort Douaumont, scenes of desperate fighting when the great German forward movement had reached this pinnacle, but not fated to remain always in the hands of the invaders—not while Frenchmen lived to clutch their weapons and say: "They shall not pass!"
Still further they sailed.
Now Tom could see the uneven lines that marked the trenches of the enemy, though as a rule these were so well hidden under "camouflage" that it required a practiced eye to pick their location out.
Columns of muddy smoke spurting up here and there told where high explosives were still tearing further into this area. All this and much more Tom saw on that first visit of his to the upper currents above the long fiercely contested field of Verdun where the German Crown Prince had seemed ready to sacrifice a million men if necessary, in order to attain the object he had in view.
Then from the actions of his pilot, Tom knew they had reached their station, so that from that time forth they must occupy themselves strictly with the business, for the carrying out of which they had been sent forward.
"I've got to do my part now," thought Tom, grimly. "If I don't my flying for France will be a failure."