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CHAPTER XII
A LEAP FROM THE SKIES

GRACE HARLOWE regarded him calmly, rather to the surprise of the balloonist, for he had feared a different attitude.

“What are the probabilities, sir?” she asked.

“Oh, we are certain to get down, Mrs. Gray.”

“But – ” She smiled doubtfully.

“We are getting higher all the time, and I am in hopes that we shall run into a counter-current that will drive us back over our own lines. Once there we can come down with nothing more than a shaking up. We can do that anyway if we do not become mixed up with more currents.”

“But, sir, I do not see how getting back to our own lines is going to be of much assistance to us. Granting that we reach a current of air that will take us over our lines, haven’t we got to pass through the present level to get down, and will not that level blow us toward the Rhine again? We might keep on seesawing indefinitely, it appears to me.”

“You surely have a head on your shoulders, young woman,” answered the major laughingly. “This being the case I’ll tell you the truth. We are in a fix. The best we can do at the moment is to let the bag drift where it will, hoping for the best. Provided it doesn’t carry us too far away, the wind probably will at least moderate by sundown, then I shall liberate some gas and we will make a landing. To try it in this wind would mean that the ship surely would be torn to pieces and that quite probably we would share a similar fate.”

“How long can the balloon be depended upon to stay up?”

“Until sometime to-morrow morning. Of course if it takes a great altitude it is liable to burst, but I shall try not to let it get up that high.”

“It is a cheerful outlook, Major. I thank you for your frankness, just the same. It is considerable satisfaction to know just what the probabilities are.”

As she was speaking, the officer, with glasses to his eyes, was studying the terrain ahead of them. Grace applied her own glasses to her eyes and gazed off to the eastward. She could make out the narrow ribbon of water, a crooked ribbon it was, that marked the course of the Rhine. Beyond it were rugged, terraced hills which she knew were vineyards, here and there the towers of a castle relieving the monotony of the hills. She was interrupted by a shout from the pilot.

“Here we go back,” he cried. “In another level now. That’s good.”

It was not long before they had swept over the marching American army, now so far below them that it could be made out only with the binoculars. The major liberated a little gas, whereupon the big bag was caught in a blast and driven to the eastward again. This time he let the ship go. There was no other safe course to follow. As it swept through the air it gained in altitude again, but did not go so high as before. Soon the earth was blotted out by a sea of clouds, which only now and then broke sufficiently to give the aviators a view of what lay beneath the cloud-sea.

“We must go lower,” the pilot told her, opening the gas valve ever so little, whereupon the balloon slowly sank through the clouds and the earth grew into their vision.

Something pinged through the air close at hand. Grace Harlowe had heard that sound many times since she arrived on the western front, and so had the major. It was a bullet, probably a rifle bullet. She flashed a significant glance at her companion and he nodded.

Ping! Another bullet had flung itself up from the earth.

The major threw over some ballast, which in this instance proved to be one of his sailing instruments.

“Sorry, but I had to do it,” he explained in answer to her look of inquiry. “Of course I might throw myself out, but that would be too much ballast and you never would stop going heavenward until the outfit blew up.”

Grace laughed and the officer joined in the laugh. The balloon had quickly shot through the clouds and was sailing along, the basket just grazing the tops of them. It was a wonderful spectacle, which the Overton girl, despite her serious situation, found time to gaze upon, and marvel at the beauties of cloudland.

All at once the clouds broke up into huge banks of black and white vapor, and looking down the officer saw that they had been swept back some little distance to the westward. He reasoned that they were about over the spot where the shots had been fired, which proved to be the range of terraced hills on the eastern side of the river.

“I told you we would reach the Rhine before the army did,” he chuckled.

Ping!

A little chip of wicker was neatly snipped from one corner of the basket. Grace Harlowe regarded it questioningly, and grinned.

“I thought you said the war was ended, sir,” she said, glancing over at him.

“Huns!” he replied explosively. “What can one expect?”

“What I am concerned about principally, sir, is what would happen to us if the gas bag were hit by a rifle bullet. Would it be a serious matter for us?”

He nodded.

“We would be obliged to give up our joy ride and go home.”

Ping! Pock!

“Hit!” exclaimed the major, glancing up apprehensively at the bag.

“I heard it, sir. Are we losing altitude?”

“Not much, but we shall be soon. Yes, she’s settling a little now. Look up.”

Grace did so and observed a fold in the bag that had not been there before, showing that some gas had escaped.

“How long will it take to let us down?”

“About twenty minutes. We shall go down faster after a little. Look over your harness and make certain that the lines are not fouled,” he directed, taking his own advice. “Just in case of emergency,” he nodded.

“They seem to be all right, sir,” Grace informed him. “You do not think we shall have to use them, do you?”

Major Colt shook his head.

“Not at this rate of descent.”

Ping! Pock!

They had been hit again. Grace found herself admiring the shooting, for it really was excellent work, probably done with an automatic rifle in the hands of a former enemy sharpshooter.

The major cast an anxious glance up at the swaying bag, then down at that which was slowly assuming the appearance of Mother Earth. He was disturbed, not for himself but because of his passenger. Grace observed his distress.

“Don’t worry, Major. You know you said that nothing serious possibly could happen on this voyage, now that the war is over.”

“I take it back. The war isn’t over. It will be over mighty quickly, though, if I get my hands on the miserable Boche who is trying to shoot us down.”

“Trying to? He already has,” corrected the Overton girl.

There were now several folds in the big envelope, the sides of which seemed to be respirating like those of some huge animal, and they were falling altogether too rapidly to leave much hope for what was to come.

“We shall be down in a heap soon,” announced the officer calmly. “Mrs. Gray, are you in full possession of your nerve?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Because you’ve got to jump.”

“Oh!” “Captain” Grace could feel a cold sweat breaking out all over her. “Ho – ow – ho – ow high are we?”

“About a mile.”

She looked over the side into the abyss, and Grace Harlowe was convinced that were she to try that jump her heart would stop beating forever long before she reached the earth. Still, she showed none of her real feelings when she looked up at her companion.

“I am ready whenever you give the word, sir. You must tell me just what to do and when to do it. You know it will have been the first time that I ever fell out of the skies. I’ll be a real shooting star, won’t I?”

“You will do,” grinned the balloonist. “Get ready. We have no time to lose.”

“How about yourself, sir?”

“As soon as you are well started I will follow, and being heavier I probably shall catch up with you. Make certain that you are clear before you get out of the basket. Then climb out, hanging on to the edge of the basket, looking about you once more to be on the safe side. Understand?”

Grace nodded.

“Then what, sir?”

“Let go! Your part of the operation will not have been completed until you reach the ground. The instant you feel your feet touching earth, cut yourself clear. Here is a knife. Hang it about your neck. Hurry now. We are losing rapidly.” The pilot cast another anxious glance over the big bag, then down at the earth.

“Are you clear?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Climb out! Take it easy. I knew an absent-minded pilot who climbed out with great deliberateness and let go and was dashed to his death because he had forgotten to hook up his harness. He thought he had it in order, but he had not. Out now. I will give you a hand.”

The basket tipped perilously when she threw a leg over the edge of it. The other leg seemed to weigh tons. It simply would not go over, and the major had to assist her. Grace’s body finally slipped over, she clinging desperately to the basket’s edge as she straightened out. It was the most awful moment of her life.

“Let go!” bellowed the major.

Grace shut her eyes and held them shut with all her might. Her fingers slowly relaxed their grip on the basket and her body shot downward.

CHAPTER XIII
“CAPTAIN” GRACE INVADES GERMANY

A JOLT followed, then a series of them, and the Overton girl felt herself going down and down and down. After a little she summoned the courage to open her eyes and look down, but only for a second, then she pinched them shut.

“Shake yourself!” bellowed a voice above her.

Grace wondered at this marvel, for it was the voice of Major Colt. Once more she opened her eyes and, tilting back her head, looked up. She saw the pilot jumping up and down in the basket of the balloon only a few feet above her. Grace was going down only as fast as the rapidly collapsing balloon itself. The silk had fouled the long handling guys of the balloon and hung there, leaving the Overton girl suspended between sky and earth a little more than five thousand feet in the air.

Grace groaned when she discovered her predicament, but even then she did not lose possession of her faculties. It was characteristic of Grace to think calmly and clearly when facing an emergency. She did so now, but that clear thinking did not get her out of her terrible predicament.

“What shall I do?” she cried.

“Wiggle, woman, wiggle! Shake yourself loose and fall. You will be killed where you are, and so shall I if I don’t quickly get away.” He began jumping up and down again to assist in the operation of shaking her loose.

Obedient to his command Grace began to wiggle and twist, raising her arms and bringing them smartly down with a violent jerk, apparently as calm and collected as if she were standing on the ground.

“Great work!” approved the anxious watcher. “You’re getting loose. Keep it up.”

“There you go!” he yelled as the silk of the parachute released itself. Grace Harlowe shot downward half lying on her side, a black streak in the air. Almost at the same instant, Major Colt climbed over the edge of the basket, took a quick glance first up at the big gas bag, then at his lines, and let go.

This was no new operation for him. On several occasions he had been obliged to go home in this manner, but this time his mind had assumed a burden greater than any that had been on it in his previous experiences – he had the responsibility of a woman’s life. That is, he had had that responsibility. Just now Grace Harlowe was on her own responsibility, beyond the hope of assistance from any human being.

She seemed to have fallen miles and miles, when finally she sensed a gradual slackening of her speed. Grace had, on account of her light weight, taken a terrific plunge, but the parachute at last began to open. It did not bring her up with a jerk, but gradually, until her downward motion was reduced to about four hundred feet a minute, fast enough for a human being to fall.

Opening her eyes, Grace looked up and she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the glistening silk of the huge parachute spread out high above her, slender lines running down from it, all centering in two ropes that looked reasonably safe. Up above, the lines looked cobwebby, too delicate for the purpose they were serving. Grace looked down, but raised her eyes quickly. The awful distance between her and the earth was too much for her ordinarily steady nerves to stand when she visualized it.

As she raised her eyes something suddenly floated into the range of her vision. It was a parachute and was coming down rather close to her.

“The major!” gasped the Overton girl. Then Grace Harlowe laughed. It was a hollow sort of a laugh, and sounded weak in her ears. The major’s arms and legs were sprawling as he leaned a little forward, and he looked for all the world like a great spider dangling from the end of a string, which so appealed to Grace Harlowe’s sense of humor that she forgot herself and laughed. Being much heavier than she he was rapidly gaining on her and would soon pass her at his present falling speed.

Grace, observing the ludicrousness of his position, quickly wrapped her ankles about each other, not desiring to make such a spectacle of herself as the balloon officer was doing.

Now they were abreast of each other and could look into each others’ faces. The Overton girl had been preparing herself for this very moment and at the instant the major came near enough to catch the full import of it, Grace smiled, and waved at him what ordinarily might have passed for a joyous hand.

The major waved back and shouted something at her, but she was unable to understand it. Voices up there sounded hollow, weak and far away. A few moments later she was looking down on the top of his swaying parachute, then Grace untangled herself and permitted her body to hang limply, which she found much easier than keeping herself under a strong physical strain.

“Hippy Wingate wouldn’t let me land his airplane. I wonder what he would say were he to see me making a landing in Germany from a parachute?” murmured the girl.

By this time objects began to grow out of the landscape in more or less detail. Houses appeared; the Rhine shimmered in the sunlight that had broken through the clouds, and here and there she thought she saw human beings, though she could not be positive as to this. Several villages came within her range of vision. Remarkable as it seemed to her, Grace realized that she had lost all fear. She was beginning to feel a great confidence in that filmy silk umbrella-shaped affair that was swaying far above her, that confidence having been born when she saw how easily it supported the major’s bulky figure.

“If the thing only will let me out without cutting up, I shall be well pleased,” Grace told herself. “I wonder what has become of the major?” He had passed out of her sight. Had the Overton girl looked for him further to the westward, she might have discovered the silk parachute settling down on the Rhine and, soon afterwards, the doughty major floundering in its waters.

His weight had carried him down in nearly a straight line, while Grace, being light, had drifted down the wind and was headed for a vineyard. She eyed the terraced hillside dubiously.

“If I land there they surely will have to replant their vineyard. I shall certainly leave a trail of devastation,” she chuckled. “In any event it will have been accomplishing something to lay waste even a small patch of enemy territory. Let me see, what am I to do? Oh, yes, I am to cut the strings the instant I feel my feet touching the ground.”

Grace removed the knife-lanyard from her neck and gripped the handle of the knife. Glancing up she fixed upon a point for cutting the rope, and even reached up to it with the knife hand.

“I wish Elfreda might see me now,” she chuckled. “Instead of a ‘balloonatic’ she would call me a ‘parachutic.’ I never heard of such an animal, but I must be it. Get ready, Grace Harlowe, and watch your step,” she reminded herself. “Upon second thought I think I am just as well satisfied that J. Elfreda is not to be a spectator of my landing. I have a growing suspicion that I am about to make an exhibition of myself. My, but that earth does look good!”

She could see human beings running up the terraces toward the point at which she might confidently be expected to alight. Grace did not approve of this, and wished they would all go away about their business. Among them she discovered some men in German uniforms. Her eyes narrowed.

“Boches! Too bad they couldn’t have had this opportunity of catching me a few weeks ago. Here we are. I am now about to show the natives what an American girl can do in piloting a parachute to earth.”

What the Overton girl had not taken into her reckoning was a tree that stood directly in her downward path. She went through its outer branches, but the parachute, relieved of a little of its weight, swayed forward and missed the tree, straightening up as her weight was once more thrown on the ropes.

The wind filled the parachute again, and it began to drift on, parallel with the rows of terraces. In going through the tree, Grace had lost the knife, but she did not miss it as yet, being concerned with her landing and the raking that the branches of the tree had given her. She discovered the loss when, upon reaching up to cut the rope, she found she had nothing with which to cut.

It was at that instant that her feet touched the ground. Up to this time the parachute had behaved very well indeed. As she already had expressed it to herself, the animal proved to be “thoroughly halter-broken.” However, the instant it felt that it was free, the thing began to cut up. It lurched and bucked and Grace went through half a dozen rows of vines, boring a path for herself with her head, bowling over two women and a boy in her mad drive.

“Catch me!” she gasped, but if her plea was heard it was not heeded. None of the spectators appeared to be eager to get within striking distance of the bird-woman who was first being whipped in the air, then on the vines of the Rhine vineyard. Her feet were in the air about as much as they were on the ground, for the parachute had now changed its course and was headed for the Rhine.

Ahead of her Grace espied a stone wall, and an idea came to her, for her mind was working even if, up to that point, her body had been unable to perform any functions of self-preservation.

“If I can get my feet against that wall as we go over, I may be able to brace myself for a few seconds until something rips. Surely the silk ought to tear in those circumstances.”

Her monologue was cut short by a dive into a thick hedge that divided two vineyards. It seemed to Grace as if the raking she got was literally tearing her to pieces. Her clothing, when she came through, was in tatters, her body bore many deep scratches and cuts, and blood from a scalp wound was trickling down her face. There was one side of Grace Harlowe, though, that no amount of mauling could subdue – her spirit of pluck.

“I’ll win yet,” she gritted, coming to her feet, which were jerked from the ground, while she kept her gaze fastened on the stone fence at the bottom of the rows of terraces.

There was, of course, the possibility of bumping her head against the stone wall, as the major had once done, instead of striking it feet first. If the former were her luck the result would be serious, so the Overton girl tried to jockey the parachute, but with little more success than had she been trying the same tactics on an outlaw mustang.

The wind down between the hills in the Rhine Valley was a variable wind, that hurled her first in one direction, then in another. Just now she was headed for the river – and the stone wall.

Grace met the wall feet first, as she had hoped to do. The shock to her nervous system was terrific, and it seemed to the girl as if her limbs were being driven up through her body. The parachute merely hesitated. It took a mighty lunge with the assistance of a favoring blast of wind, and jumped up a few feet into the air, taking Grace Harlowe with it, then dived for the railroad tracks at the base of the bluff.

Grace went down the bank on her stomach, keeping her head up as well as she could. She was suddenly yanked to her feet and slammed viciously down on the roadbed, while the parachute wrapped itself about a telegraph pole and went to sleep, a heap of torn silk, fit only for souvenir neckties.