Kitabı oku: «The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne», sayfa 11

They were now well on into the afternoon, and the sun was at the zenith. A haze of gold shimmered against the vast blue vault. A wind perfumed with grass and green leaves, brought also the ceaseless roar of the guns, and now and then the bitter taste of burned gunpowder. The faint trembling of the earth, or rather of the air just above it, went on, and John, turning about in his little bower, surveyed the heavens from all quarters.

He saw shapes, faint, dark and floating on every horizon, but none of them came near until a full half-hour had elapsed. Then one shot out of the west, sailed toward the northeast, but curving suddenly, came back in the direction of the tree. As the shape grew larger and more defined John's heart began to throb. He had seen many aeroplanes that day, and most of them had been swift and graceful, but none was as swift and graceful as the one that was now coming.

It was a machine, beautiful in shape, and as lithe and fast as the darting swallow. There could be none other like it in the heavens, and his heart throbbed harder. Intuition, perhaps, was back of knowledge and he never for a moment doubted that it was he for whom they had looked so long.

The aeroplane seemed fairly to shoot out of space. First its outlines became visible, and then the man at the rudder. He came straight toward the tree, dropped low and circled about it, while John rushed from the vines and cried as loud as he could:

"Lannes! Lannes, it's me! John Scott! I've been waiting for you!"

The Arrow dropped further, barely touched the earth, and Lannes, leaning over, shouted to John in tones, tense and sharp with command:

"Give the plane a shove with all your might, and jump in. For God's sake don't linger, man! Jump!"

The impulse communicated by Lannes was so powerful that before he knew what he was doing John pushed the Arrow violently and sprang into the extra seat, just as it was leaving the earth.

Lannes gave the rudder a strong twist and the aeroplane shot up like a mounting bird. John got back his breath and presence of mind.

"Wait, Philip! Wait!" he cried. "We're leaving behind our friend Weber! He's down there, somewhere by the river!"

Lannes made no reply. The Arrow continued its rise, sharp and swift, and John heard a crackling sound below. Little missiles, steel and deadly, shot by them. One passed so close to his face that his breath went again. When he recovered it once more the Arrow, its inmates, unharmed, was far above the range of rifles, flying in a circle.

"Look down, John," said Lannes.

CHAPTER X

OLD FRIENDS

John, obeying Lannes' command, glanced down, as one looks over the side of a ship toward the sea, and he saw many horsemen galloping across the field. He recognized at once the Uhlans, and, for all he knew; they might be von Boehlen's own command.

"Hand me your glasses, will you?" he said.

When Lannes passed them to him he looked long and well, but he did not see any sign of a prisoner among the Prussians. He also searched the woods and other fields near by, but they were empty. The whole Prussian force was gathered beneath them. John breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"It's evident that Weber has escaped," he said. "Doubtless this was the very troop of Uhlans of which the Alsatian had caught a glimpse. He is clever and swift and I've no doubt he found a covert."

"I'm sorry we had to leave him," said Lannes, "but there was no other choice. I came to the tree to examine the flag, and being above I saw the Uhlans nearby before you did. Then I heard your shout and dropped down. But as I knew the Uhlans were coming for us I made you jump almost before you knew it, and we got away by a hair. The Arrow was struck twice, but the bullets glanced off its polished sides. There are two slight scars, but I can have them removed."

John laughed.

"Philip," he said, "I believe you love the Arrow as a fellow loves his best girl."

"Well spoken, Monsieur Jean the Scott, and the Arrow never fails me. And so you've been with Weber?"

"It's a long tale. I was in a boat crossing the Marne. It was sunk by one of the French shells, and I escaped. I reached the deserted cottage of a peasant, and Weber, who was wandering around, happened to come there, too. We've been trying to escape today, and we put that flag up in the tree as a sort of signal, while we hid among the vines below, until you should come, as he believed you would. He was right, but he was unlucky enough to be absent when you arrived." "Maybe it couldn't have happened in a better way. The Arrow can carry only two, and I don't know what we'd have done with him. He's a clever fellow and he'll make his way back to the army."

"I hope so, in fact I feel so. But, Philip, it's glorious to be with you again, and to be up here, where the bullets can't reach you."

"That is, so long as the German flyers don't come near enough to take shots at us."

"I don't see any in sight, and meanwhile I intend to be comfortable. Good old Arrow! The best little rescuer in the world! Lannes, I believe it's a large part of your business to fly about over fields of battle and rescue me."

"You certainly give me plenty of opportunities," laughed Lannes.

"What's been happening? I fancy that a lot of water has flowed under the bridges of the Marne since I left you."

"We continue to gain," replied Lannes, with quiet satisfaction. "We press the German armies back everywhere. Our supreme chief is a silent man, but he has delivered a master stroke. We've emerged from the very gulf of defeat and despair to the heights of victory. We're not only driving the Germans across the Marne, but we're driving them further. Moreover, their armies are cut apart, and one is fighting for its existence, just as the French and English were fighting for theirs in that terrible retreat from Mons and Charleroi."

"It's glorious, but we mustn't be too sanguine, Lannes. The powers that overcome the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires will not forget for a hundred years that they had a war."

"You're not telling me any news, Monsieur Jean the Scott. I've been in Germany often, and like you I've seen what they have and what they are. We're only beginning."

"Where are you going now, Philip?"

"Toward the end of our line. I've some dispatches for the commander of the British force. Your friends, Carstairs and Wharton, are there, and you may see them. But I understand that the Strangers are to remain with the French, so you, Carstairs and Wharton will have to consider yourselves Frenchmen and stay under our banner."

"That's all right. I hope we'll be under the command of General Vaugirard. Do you know anything of him?"

"Not today, but he was alive yesterday. Take the glasses now, John, will you, and be my eyes as you have been before. One needs to watch the heavens all the time."

John took Lannes' powerful glasses, and objects invisible before leaped into view.

"I see two or three rivers, a dozen villages, and troops," he said. "The troops are to the west, and although they are this side of the Marne, I should judge that they are ours."

"Ours undoubtedly," said Lannes, glancing the way John's glasses pointed. "Not less than a hundred thousand of our men have crossed the Marne at that point, and more will soon be coming. It's a part of the great wedge thrust forward by our chief. But keep your eye on the air, John. What do you see there?"

"Nothing that's near. In the east I barely catch seven or eight black dots that I take to be German aeroplanes, but they seem to be content with hovering over their own lines. They don't approach."

"Doubtless they don't, because they're beginning to watch the air over the Marne as a danger zone. That pretty little signal of yours may have scared them."

Lannes laughed. It was evident that he was in a most excellent humor.

"All right, have your fun," said John, showing his own teeth in a smile. "If our flag didn't frighten away the German army it at least achieved what we wanted, that is, it brought you. The whole episode would be perfect if it were not for the fact that we lost sight of Weber."

"I tell you again not to worry about him. That man has shown uncommon ability to take care of himself."

"All right. I'll let him go for the present. Hello, here we are crossing the Marne again, and without getting our feet wet."

"We're a good half mile above it, but we'll cross it once more soon. I'm following the shortest road to the British army and that takes us over a loop of the river."

"Yes, here we are recrossing, and now we're coming to a region of chequered fields, green and brown and yellow. I always like these varied colors of the French country. It's a beautiful land down there, Philip."

"So it is, but see if it isn't defaced by sixty or seventy thousand sunburnt men in khaki, the khaki often stained with blood. The men, too, should be tired to death, but you can't tell that from this height."

"The British army you mean? Yes, by all that's glorious, I see them, or at least a part of them! I see thousands of men lying down in the fields as if they were dead."

"They're not dead, though. They just drop in their tracks and sleep in any position."

"I saw the Germans doing that, too. I suppose we'll land soon, Philip, won't we? They've sighted us and a plane is coming forward to meet us."

"We'll make for the meadow over there just beyond the little stream. I think I can discern the general's marquee, and I must deliver my message as soon as possible. Wave to that fellow that we're friends."

An English aeroplane was now very near them and John, leaning over, made gestures of amity. Although the aviator's head was almost completely enshrouded in a hood, he discerned a typically British face.

"Kings of the air, with dispatches for your general!" John cried. He knew that the man would not hear him, but he was so exultant that he wanted to say something, to shout to him, or in the slang of his own land, to let off steam.

But while the English aviator could not understand the words the gestures were clear to him, and he waved a hand in friendly fashion. Then, wheeling in a fine circle, he came back by their side as an escort.

The Arrow, like a bird, folding its wings, sank gracefully into the meadow, and Lannes, hastily jumping out, asked John to look after the aeroplane. Then he rushed toward a group of officers, among whom he recognized the chief of the army.

John himself disembarked stiffly, and stretched his limbs, while several young Englishmen looked at him curiously. He had learned long since how to deal with Englishmen, that is to take no notice of them until they made their presence known, and then to acquiesce slowly and reluctantly in their existence. So, he took short steps back and forth on the grass, flexing and tensing his muscles, as abstractedly as if he were alone on a desert island.

"I say," said a handsome fair young man at last, "would you mind telling us, old chap, where you come from?"

John continued to stretch his muscles and took several long and deep breaths. After the delay he turned to the fair young man and said:

"Beg pardon, but did you speak to me?"

The Englishman flushed a little and pulled at his yellow mustache. An older man said:

"Don't press His Highness, Lord James. Don't you see that he's an American and therefore privileged?"

"I'm privileged," said John, "because I was with you fellows from Belgium to Paris, and since then I've been away saving you from the Germans."

Lord James laughed. He had a fine face and all embarrassment disappeared from it.

"We want to be friends," he said. "Shake hands."

John shook. He also shook the hand of the older man and several others. Then he explained who he was, and told who had come with him, none less than the famous young French aviator, Philip Lannes.

"Lannes," said Mr. Yellow Mustache, who, John soon learned, was Lord James Ivor. "Why, we've all heard of him. He's come to the chief with messages a half-dozen times since this battle began, and I judge from the way he rushed to him just now that he has another, that can't be delayed."

"I think so, too," said John, "although I don't know anything about it myself. He's a close-mouthed fellow. But do any of you happen to have heard of an Englishman, Carstairs, and an American, Wharton, who belong to a company called the Strangers in the French army, but who must be at present with you—that is, if they're alive?"

John's voice dropped a little, as he added the last words, but Lord James Ivor walked to the brow of a low hill, called to somebody beyond, and then walked back.

"It's a happy chance that I can tell you what you want to know," he said. "Those two men have been serving in my own company, and they're both alive and well. But they were lying on the grass there, dead to the world, that is, sleeping, as if they were two of the original seven sleepers."

Two figures appeared on the brow of the hill, gazed at first in a puzzled manner at John and then, uttering shouts of welcome, rushed toward him. Carstairs seized him by one hand and Wharton by the other.

"Not killed, I see," said Carstairs.

"Nor is he going to be killed," said Wharton.

"Now, where have you been?" asked Carstairs.

"Yes, where have you been?" asked Wharton.

"I've been taking a couple of pleasure trips with my friend, Lannes," replied John. "Between trips I was a prisoner of the Germans, and I've seen a lot of the great battle. Has the British army suffered much?"

A shade flitted over the face of Carstairs as he replied:

"We haven't been shot up so much since Waterloo. It's been appalling. For days and nights we've been fighting and marching. Whenever we stopped even for a moment we fell on the ground and were asleep before we touched it. Half the fellows I knew have been killed. I think as long as I live I'll hear the drumming of those guns in my ears, and, confound 'em, I still hear 'em in reality now. If you turn your attention to it you can hear the confounded business quite plainly! But what I do know, Scott, is that we've been winning! I don't know where I am and I haven't a clear idea of what I've been doing all the time, but as sure as we're in France the victory is ours."

"But won by the French chiefly" John could not keep from saying.

"Quite true. Our own army is not large, but it has done as much per man."

"And the moral support," added John. "The French have felt the presence of a friend, a friend, too, who in six months will be ten times as strong as he is now."

"Where is Lannes?" asked Wharton.

"He's got your job, Wharton," replied John with a smile. "He's Envoy Extraordinary and Bearer of Messages concerning Life and Death between the armies. As soon as he landed he went directly to the British commander, and they're now conferring in a tent. That will never happen to you. You will never be closeted with the leader of a great army."

"I don't know. I may not be able to fly like the Frenchman, but he can't handle the wireless as I can, and he isn't the chain-lightning chauffeur that Carstairs is. Please to remember those facts."

"I do. But here comes Lannes, the man of mystery."

Lannes seemed preoccupied, but he greeted Carstairs and Wharton warmly.

"I'm about to take another flight," he said. "No, thank you so much, but I've time neither to eat nor to drink. I must fly at once, though it's to be a short flight. Take care of my friend, Monsieur Jean the Scott, while I'm gone, won't you? Don't let him wander into German hands again, because I won't have time to go for him once more."

"We won't!" said Carstairs and Wharton with one voice. "Having got him back we're going to keep him."

Lannes smiling sprang into the Arrow. The willing young Englishmen gave it a mighty push, and rising into the blue afternoon sky he sailed away toward the south.

"He'll be back all right," said Carstairs. "I've come to the conclusion that nothing can ever catch that fellow. He's a wonder, he is. One of the most difficult jobs I have, Scott, is to give the French all the credit that's due 'em. I've been trained, as all other Englishmen were, to consider 'em pretty poor stuff that we've licked regularly for a thousand years, and here we suddenly find 'em heroes and brothers-in-arms. It's all the fault of the writers. Was it Shakespeare who said: 'Methinks that five Frenchmen on one pair of English legs did walk?'"

"No," said Lord James Ivor, "It was the other way around. 'Methinks that one Englishman on five pairs of French legs did walk.'"

"I'm not so sure about the number, either," interjected Wharton. "Are you positive it was five?"

"Whatever it was," said Carstairs, "the Frenchman was slandered, and by our own great bard, too. But come and take something with us, if Lord James, our immediate chief, is willing."

"He's willing, and he'll go with you," said Lord James Ivor. "I need a bite myself and in war like this a man can't afford to neglect food and drink, when the chance is offered."

"The habits of you Europeans are strong," said John, whose spirits were still exuberant. "If you didn't have to stop now and then to work or to fight you'd eat all the time. One meal would merge into another, making a beautiful, savory chain linked together. I know the Englishman's heaven perfectly well. It's made of lakes of ale, beer, porter and Scotch highballs, surrounded by high banks of cheese, mutton and roast beef."

"There could be worse heavens," said Carstairs, "and if it should happen that way it wouldn't be long before you Yankees would be trying to break out of your heaven and into ours. But here's a taste of it now, the cheese, for instance, and the beer, although it's in bottles."

A spry Tommy Atkins served them, and John, thankful at heart, ate and drank with the best of them. And while they ate the pulsing waves of air from the battle beat upon their ears. It seemed to these young men to have been beating that way for weeks.

"Lannes will be back soon," said John to Carstairs and Wharton, "and he'll tear you away from your friends here. You think, Carstairs, that you're an Englishman, and you're convinced, Wharton, that you're an American, but you're both wrong. You're Frenchmen, and you're going back to the French army, where you belong. Then Captain Daniel Colton of the Strangers will want to know from you why you haven't returned sooner."

"But how are we to go?" said Carstairs.

"And where are we to go?" said Wharton.

"I'd go in a minute," added Carstairs, "if the German army would let me."

"So would I," said Wharton, "but the Germans fight so hard that we can't get away."

"Lannes will attend to all those matters," said John. "I'll rest until he comes, if I have the chance. Is that your artillery firing?"

"It's our big guns out in front," said Lord James Ivor. "Jove, but what work they've done! A lot of our guns have been smashed, one half of our gunners maybe have been smashed with 'em, but they've never flinched. They covered our retreat from Belgium, and they've been the heralds of our advance here on the Marne! Listen to 'em! How they talk!"

The heavy crash of guns far in front and the thunder of the German guns replying came back to their ears. It was a louder note in the general and ceaseless murmur of the battle, but the young men paid it only a passing moment of attention. Carstairs presently added as an afterthought:

"Unless Lannes returns soon I don't think we'll hear from him. That blaze of the guns in front of us indicates close fighting again, and we'll probably be ordered forward soon."

"I don't think so," said Lord James Ivor. "Our guns and the German guns will talk together for quite a while before the infantry advance. You can spend a good two hours with us yet, and still have time to depart for the French army."

It was evident that Lord James Ivor knew what he was talking about, since, as far as John could see, the khaki army lay outspread on the turf. These men were too much exhausted and too much dulled to danger to stir merely because the cannon were blazing. It took the sharp orders of their officers to move them. Shells from the German guns began to fall along the fringe of the troops, but thousands slept heavily on.

John, after disposing of the excellent rations offered to him, sat down on the grass with Wharton, Carstairs and Lord James Ivor. The sun was now waning, but the western sky was full of gold, and the yellow rays slanting across the hills and fields made them vivid with light. Lord James handed his glasses to John with the remark:

"Would you like to take a look there toward the east, Scott?"

John with the help of the glasses discerned the English batteries in action. He saw the men working about them, the muzzles pointing upward, and then the flash. Some of the guns were completely hidden in foliage, and he could detect their presence only by the heavy detonations coming from such points. Yet, like many of the English soldiers about him, John's mind did not respond to so much battle. He looked at the flashes, and he listened to the reports without emotion. His senses had become dulled by it, and registered no impressions.

"We've masked our batteries as much as possible," said Lord James. "The Germans are great fellows at hiding their big guns. They use every clump of wood, hay stacks, stray stacks and anything else, behind which you could put a piece of artillery. They trained harder before the war, but we'll soon be able to match 'em."

While Lord James was talking, John turned the glasses to the south and watched the sky. He had observed two black dots, both of which grew fast into the shape of aeroplanes. One, he knew, was the Arrow. He had learned to recognize the plane at a vast distance. It was something in the shape or a trick of motion perhaps, almost like that of a human being, with which he had become familiar and which he could not mistake. The other plane, by the side of Lannes' machine, bothered him. It was much larger than the Arrow, but they seemed to be on terms of perfect friendship, each the consort of the other.

"Lannes is coming," announced John. "He's four or five miles to the south and he's about a quarter of a mile up, but he has company. Will you have a look, Lord James?"

Lord James Ivor, taking back his own glasses, studied the two approaching planes.

"The small one looks like your friend's plane," he said, "and the other, although much bigger, has only one man in it too. But they fly along like twins. We'll soon know all about them because they're coming straight to us. They're descending now into this field."

The Arrow slanted gently to the earth and the larger machine descended near by. Lannes stepped out of one, and an older man, whom John recognized as the aviator Caumartin, alighted from the other.

"My friends," said Lannes, cheerily, "here we are again. You see I've brought with me a friend, Monsieur Caumartin, a brave man, and a great aviator."

He paused to introduce Caumartin to Wharton and the Englishmen, and then went on:

"This flying machine in which our friend Caumartin comes is not so swift and so graceful as the Arrow—few aeroplanes are—but it is strong and it has the capacity. It is what you might call an excursion steamer of the air. It can take several people and our good Caumartin has come in it for Lieutenant Wharton and Lieutenant Carstairs. So! he has an order for them written by the brave Captain Colton of the Strangers. Produce the order, Monsieur Caumartin."

The aviator took a note from a pocket in his jacket and handed it to Lord James Ivor, who announced that it was in truth such an order.

"You're to be delivered to the Strangers F.O.B.," said John.

"What's F.O.B.?" exclaimed Carstairs.

"It's a shipping term of my country," replied John. "It means Free on Board, and you'll arrive among the Strangers without charge."

"But," said Carstairs, looking dubiously at the big, ugly machine, "automobiles are my specialty!"

"And the wireless is mine!" said Wharton in the same doubting tone.

"Oh, it's easy," said John lightly. "Easiest thing in the world. You have nothing to do but sit still and look calm and wise. If you're attacked by a Zeppelin, throw bombs—no doubt Caumartin has them on board—but if a flock of Taubes assail you use your automatics. I congratulate you both on making your first flight under such auspices, with two armies of a million men each, more or less, looking at you, and with the chance to dodge the shells from four or five thousand cannon."

"Your trouble, Scott, is talking too much," said Wharton, "because you went up in the air when you had no other way to go, you think you're a bird."

"So I am at times," laughed John. "A bird without the feathers. Come now, brace up! Remember that the solid earth is always below you, a long way below, perhaps, but it's there, and Friend Caumartin is bound to deliver you soon to your rightful master, Captain Daniel Colton, who will talk to you like an affectionate but stern parent."

"For Heaven's sake, let's start and get away from this wild Yankee," said Carstairs.

"But you won't get away from me," rejoined John. "Lannes and I in the Arrow will watch over you all the way, and, if we can, rescue you, should your plane break down."

Caumartin supplied Wharton and Carstairs with suitable coats and caps, and they took their places unflinchingly in the big plane. Their hearts may have been beating hard, but they would not let their hands tremble.

"I suppose the Omnibus starts first, Philip, doesn't it?" asked John.

"Yes," replied Lannes, smiling, "and we can overtake it. Omnibus is a good name for it. We'll call it that. It looks awkward, John, but it's one of the safest machines built."

Plenty of willing hands gave the Omnibus a lift and then did a like service for the Arrow. As they rose, aviators and passengers alike waved a farewell to Lord James Ivor, and he and the Englishmen about him waved back. But the thousands lying on the grass slept heavily on, while the cannon on their utmost fringe thundered and crashed and the German cannon crashed and thundered, replying.

The Arrow kept close to the Omnibus, so close that John could see the white faces of Wharton and Carstairs and their hands clenching the sides. But he remembered his own original experience, and he was not disposed to jest at them now.

"They're air-sick—as I was," he said to Lannes. "Call to them to look westward at the troops," said Lannes. "Great portions of the French and English armies are now visible, and such a sight will make them forget their natural apprehensions."

Lannes was right. When they beheld the magnificent panorama spread out for them the color came back into the faces of Carstairs and Wharton, and their clenched fingers relaxed. The spectacle was indeed grand and gorgeous as they looked up at the sky, down at the earth, and at the line where they met. The sun was now low, but mighty terraces of red and gold rose in the west, making it a blaze of varied colors. In the east the terraces were silver and silver gray, and the light there was softer. The green earth beneath was mottled with the red and silver and gold from the skies.

The German army was yet invisible beyond the hills, although the cannon were flashing there, but to the west they saw vast masses of infantry, some stationary, while others moved slowly forward. Looking upon this wonderful sight, Wharton and Carstairs forgot that they were high in the air. Their hearts beat fast, and their eyes became brilliant with enthusiasm. They waved hands at the Arrow which flew near like a guiding friend.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" shouted John.

"I never expect to see its like again," Carstairs shouted back, and then, lest he should not be true to his faith, he added:

"But I won't desert the automobile. It's my best friend."

"British obstinacy!" shouted John.

Carstairs shouted back something, but the planes were now too far apart for him to hear. John saw that the Omnibus, despite her awkward look, was flying well and he also saw through Lannes' glasses four aeroplanes bearing up from the east. He did not say much until he had examined them well and had concluded that they were Taubes.

"Lannes," he said, "German machines are trespassing on our air, and unless I'm mistaken they're making for us."

"It's likely. Just under the locker there you'll find a rifle, and a belt of cartridges. It's a good weapon, and if the pinch comes you'll have to use it. Are your friends good shots?"

"I think they are, and I know they're as brave as lions."

"Then they'll have a chance to show it. The Omnibus carries several rifles and an abundance of ammunition. She might be called a cargo boat, as there's a lot of room on her. I'm going to bear in close, and you tell Caumartin and the others of the danger."

The Arrow swerved, came near to the Omnibus, and John shouted the warning. Carstairs and Wharton instantly seized rifles and he saw them lay two others loaded at their feet. With the prospect of a battle for life air-sickness disappeared.

"You can rely on them, Philip," said John as the Arrow bore away a little, "but I don't like the looks of one of those German machines."

"What's odd about it?"

"It's bigger than the others. Ah, now I see! It carries a machine gun."

"That's bad. It can send a hail of metal at us. It's lucky that aeroplanes are such unstable gun-platforms. When platforms and targets are alike swerving it's hard to hit anything. We're going to rise and dive, and rise and dive and swerve and swerve, John, so be ready. I'll signal to Caumartin to do the same, and maybe the machine gun won't get us."

John was quite sure that the Arrow could escape by immediate flight, but he knew that Lannes would never desert the Omnibus, and its passengers, and he felt the same way. The subject was not even mentioned by either.

The German machines, approaching rapidly, spread out like a fan, the heavier one with the machine gun in the center. John could see the man at the rapid firer, but he did not yet open with it. The Arrow and the Omnibus were wavering like feathers in a storm and closer range was needed. John sat with his own rifle across his knee and then looked at Wharton in the Omnibus scarcely a hundred yards away. The figure of Wharton was tense and rigid. His rifle was raised and his eyes never left the man at the machine gun.