Tam O' The Scoots - Edgar Wallace (best ereader for pdf and epub txt) 📗

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He was so silent the next morning, when he joined the big squadron that was assembling on the flying field, that Blackie did not know he was there.

"Where's Tam? Oh, here you are. You know your position in the formation? Right point to cover the right of the American bombing squad. Mr. Sutton before you and Mr. Benson behind. You will get turning signals from me. Altitude twelve thousand--that will be two thousand feet above the bombers--no need to tell you anything. The objective is Bapaume and Achiet junctions--"

Tam answered shortly and climbed into his fuselage.

The squadron went up in twos, the fighting machines first, the heavier bombing airplanes last. For twenty minutes they maneuvered for position, and presently the leader's machine spluttered little balls of colored lights and the squadron moved eastward--a great diamond-shaped flock, filling the air and the earth with a tremulous roar of sound.

They reached their objectives without effective opposition. First, the junction to the north of Bapaume, then the web of sidings at Achiet smoked and flamed under the heavy bombardment. Quick splashes of light where the bombs exploded, great columns of gray smoke mushrooming up to the sky, then feeble licks of flame growing in intensity of brightness where the incendiary bombs, taking hold of stores and hutments, advertised the success of the raid.

The squadron swung for home.

Tam with one eye for his leader and one for the possible dangers on his flank, was a mere automaton. There was no opportunity for displaying initiative--he was a cog in the wheel.

Suddenly a new signal glowed from the leading machine and Tam threw a quick glance left and right and began to climb. The other fighters were rising steeply, though not at such an angle that they could not see their leader, who was a little higher than they. Another signal and they flattened, and Tam saw all that he had guessed.

"Ma guidness!" said Tam, "the sky's stiff wi' 'busses!"

There must have been forty enemy machines between the squadron and home. So far as Tam could see there were eight separate formations and they were converging from three points of the compass.

The safety of the squadron depended upon the individual genius of the fighters. Tam swerved to the right and dipped to the attack, his machine-guns spraying his nearest opponent. Sutton, ahead of him, was already engaged, and he guessed that Benson, in his rear, had his hands full.

Tam's nearest opponent went down sideways, his second funked the encounter and careered wildly away to his left and immediately lost position to attack, for when two forces are approaching one another at eighty miles an hour, failure to seize the psychological moment for striking your blow leaves you in one minute exactly three miles to the rear of your opponent. The first shock was over in exactly thirty-five seconds, and beneath the spot where the squadron had passed seven machines were diving or circling earthward, the majority of these in flames.

The second shock came three minutes later and again the squadron triumphed.

Then Tam, looking down, saw one of the bombing machines turn out of the line, and at the same time Blackie signaled, "Cover stragglers."

The squadron was now well behind the British lines, but they were south of the aerodrome, having changed direction to meet the attacks. Tam with a little leap of heart recognized in the distance a familiar triangular field of unsullied snow, searched for and found the rectangular block of tiny huts which formed No. 131 General Hospital and turned out of the line with a wild sense of exhilaration.

"She'll no' see me eat," he said, "but she shall see a graund ficht."

The bomber was swerving and dipping like a helpless wild duck seeking to shake off the three hawks that were now hovering over her.

"Let you be Laramore's machine, O Lord!" prayed Tam, and he prayed with the assurance that his prayer was already answered.

He came at the leading German and for a second the two machines streamed nickel at one another. Tam felt the wind of the bullets and knew his machine was struck. Then his enemy crumpled and fell. He did not wait to investigate. The bomber was firing up at his nearest opponent when Tam took the third in enfilade and saw the pilot's head disappear behind the protective armoring.

He swung round and saw the bombing machine diving straight for the earth with the German scout on his tail. Tam followed in a dizzy drop. Three thousand feet from earth the bombing machine turned a complete somersault and Tam's heart leaped into his mouth.

He banked over to follow the pursuing German and in the brief space of time which intervened before his enemy could adjust his direction to cover pilot and gunner, Tam had both in line. His two guns trembled and flamed for four seconds and then the German dropped straight for earth and crashed in a flurry of smoke and flying debris.

Tam looked backward. The bomber had pancaked and was drifting to a landing; the squadron was out of sight. Tam glided to the broad field before the hospital.

"I knew it was you--I knew it was you!"

He looked down from the fuselage at the bright upturned face.

"Oh, aye, it was me," he admitted, "an' A'm michty glad ye was lookin', for A' was throwin' stunts for ye."

He was on the ground now, loosening the collar of his leather jacket. He stepped clear of the obstructing planes of his machine and looked anxiously toward the gentle slopes of the ridge on which the bomber had landed.

"Thank the guid Lord," he said and sighed his relief.

He was making a careful inspection of his own machine preparatory to returning to the aerodrome when the girl came running across the field to say good-by.

"I can't tell you just how I feel--how grateful I am. My brother says you saved his life. He was in that other machine, you know."

"A' knew it," said Tam. "'Twas a graund adventure, like you read aboot in books--'twas ma low, theatrical mind that wanted it so. Good-by, young lady."

"Till to-morrow--don't forget you're lunching with me at the Cafe St. Pierre."

Tam smiled gravely. "A'm afraid ye'll have to postpone that lunch," he said, "till--"

"Till to-morrow," she interrupted firmly, and Tam flew back to the aerodrome without explaining.

He was feeling the reaction of the morning's thrill, and when he landed he had no answer to make to the congratulations which were poured upon him.

He made his way to his hut. His batman was cleaning a pair of boots and stood stiffly as Tam entered.

"That'll do, Angus, ye may go," he said, and then saw the folded coat upon his bed. "Ah, ye got it back, did ye--well, A'll no' be needin' it."

He picked up the coat and frowned.

"This is no' mine, Angus."

"Your tunic is in the box, sir--this is the one the officers had made for you. They wanted your other tunic for the measurements."

Tam looked at the man.

"Yon's an officer's tunic, Angus," he said; "an' why do ye say 'sir' to me?"

Angus beamed and saluted with a flourish.

"It's in General Orders this morning, sir--you've got a commission, an' Mr. Brandspeth says that the mess will be expectin' you to lunch at one-thirty."

Tam sat down on the bed, biting his lip.

"Get oot, Angus," he said huskily, "an'--stay you! Ye'll find a seegair in the box under the bed--an', Angus, A'm lunchin' oot to-morrow."


CHAPTER IX

A REPRISAL RAID


There are certain animals famous to every member of the British Expeditionary Force.

There is a Welsh regiment's goat which ate up the plan of attack issued by a brigadier-general, who bore a striking resemblance to somebody who was not Napoleon, thus saving the Welsh regiment from annihilation and reproach. There is the dog of the Middlesex regiment, who always bit staff-officers and was fourteen times condemned to death by elderly and irascible colonels, and fourteen times rescued by his devoted comrades. There is the Canadians' tame chicken, who sat waiting for nine-inch shells to fall, and then scratched over the ground they had disturbed; and there is last, but not least, that famous mascot of General Hospital One-Three-One, Hector O'Brien.

Hector O'Brien was born in the deeps of a Congo forest. Of his early life little is known, but as far as can be gathered, he made his way to France by way of Egypt and Gallipoli and was presented by a grateful patient to the nursing sisters and ambulance staff of One-Three-One, and by them was adopted with enthusiasm.

Hector O'Brien did precious little to earn either fame or notoriety until one memorable day. He used to sit in the surgery, before a large packing-case, wistfully watching the skies and scratching himself in an absent-minded manner. A chimpanzee may not cogitate very profoundly, and the statement that he is a deep thinker though an indifferent conversationalist has yet to be proved; but it is certain that Hector O'Brien was a student of medicine, and that he did, on this memorable day to which reference has been made, perambulate the wards of that hospital from bed to bed, feeling pulses and shaking his head in a sort of melancholy helplessness which brought joy to the heart of eight hundred patients, some hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies, and did not in any way disturb the melancholy principal medical officer, who was wholly unconscious of Hector's impertinent imitations.

Second-Lieutenant Tam, who was a frequent visitor at One-Three-One, had at an early stage struck up a friendship with Hector and had, I believe, taken him on patrol duty, Hector strapped tightly to the seat, holding with a grip of iron to the fuselage and chattering excitedly.

Thereafter, upon the little uniform jacket which Hector wore on state occasions was stitched the wings of a trained pilot. It is necessary to explain Hector's association with the R. F. C. in order that the significance of the subsequent adventure may be thoroughly appreciated.

Tam was "up" one day and on a particular mission. He looked down upon a big and irregular checker-board covered with numbers of mad white lines, which radiated from a white center and seemed to run frantically in all directions save one. Across that course, and running parallel beneath three of them was a straight silver thread. At the edge of his vision and beyond the place where the white lines ended abruptly, there were two irregular zigzags of yellow running roughly parallel. Behind each of these were thousands of little yellow splotches.

Tam banked over and came round on a hairpin turn, with his eyes searching the heavens above and below. A thousand feet beneath him was a straggling wisp of cloud, so tenuous that you saw the earth through its bulk. Above was a smaller cloud, not so transparent, but too thin to afford a lurking place for his enemy.

Tam was waiting for that famous gentleman, the "Sausage-Killer," the sworn foe of all "O. B.'s."

He paid little attention to the flaming lines because the "Sausage-Killer" never came direct from his aerodrome. You would see him streaking across the sky, apparently on his urgent way to the sea bases and oblivious of the existence of Observation Balloons.

Then he would turn, as though he had