1. — THE CASE OF LASKY
2. — PUPPIES OF THE PACK
3. — THE COMING OF MÜLLER
4. — THE STRAFING OF MÜLLER
5. — ANNIE—THE GUN
6. — THE LAW-BREAKER AND FRIGHTFULNESS
7. — THE MAN BEHIND THE CIRCUS
8. — A QUESTION OF RANK
9. — A REPRISAL RAID
10. — THE LAST LOAD
1. — THE CASE OF LASKY
LIEUTENANT BRIDGEMAN went
out over the German line and "strafed" a depot. He stayed a
while to locate a new gun position and was caught between three
strong batteries of Archies.
"Reports?" said
the wing commander. "Well, Bridgeman isn't back and Tam said he
saw him nose-dive behind the German trenches."
So the report was made to
Headquarters and Headquarters sent forward a long account of air
flights for publication in the day's communiqué, adding, "One
of our machines did not return."
"But, A' doot if he's
killit," said Tam; "he flattened oot before he reached
airth an' flew aroond a bit. Wi' ye no ask Mr. Lasky, sir-r, he's
just in?"
Mr. Lasky was a
bright-faced lad who, in ordinary circumstances, might have been
looking forward to his leaving-book from Eton, but now had to his
credit divers bombed dumps and three enemy airmen.
He met the brown-faced,
red-haired, awkwardly built youth whom all the Flying Corps called
"Tam."
"Ah, Tam," said
Lasky reproachfully, "I was looking for you—I wanted you
badly."
Tam chuckled.
"A' thocht so,"
he said, "but A' wis not so far frae the aerodrome when yon
feller chased you—"
"I was chasing him!"
said the indignant Lasky.
"Oh, ay?"
replied the other skeptically. "An' was ye wantin' the Scoot to
help ye chase ain puir wee Hoon? Sir-r, A' think shame on ye for
misusin' the puir laddie."
"There were four,"
protested Lasky.
"And yeer gun jammed,
A'm thinkin', so wi' rair presence o' mind, ye stood oop in the
fuselage an' hit the nairest representative of the Imperial Gairman
Air Sairvice a crack over the heid wi' a spanner."
A little group began to
form at the door of the mess-room, for the news that Tam the Scoot
was "up" was always sufficient to attract an audience. As
for the victim of Tam's irony, his eyes were dancing with glee.
"Dismayed or
frichtened by this apparition of the supermon i' the air-r,"
continued Tam in the monotonous tone he adopted when he was evolving
one of his romances, "the enemy fled, emittin' spairks an'
vapair to hide them from the veegilant ee o' young Mr. Lasky, the Boy
Avenger, oor the Terror o' the Fairmament. They darted heether and
theether wi' their remorseless pairsuer on their heels an' the
seenister sound of his bullets whistlin' in their lugs. Ain by ain
the enemy is defeated, fa'ing like Lucifer in a flamin' shrood.
Soodenly Mr. Lasky turns verra pale. Heavens! A thocht has strook
him. Where is Tam the Scoot? The horror o' the thocht leaves him
braithless; an' back he tairns an' like a hawk deeps sweeftly but
gracefully into the aerodrome— saved!"
"Bravo, Tam!"
They gave him his due reward with great handclapping and Tam bowed
left and right, his forage cap in his hand.
"Folks," he
said, "ma next pairformance will be duly annoonced."
Tam came from the Clyde.
He was not a ship-builder, but was the assistant of a man who ran a
garage and did small repairs. Nor was he, in the accepted sense of
the word, a patriot, because he did not enlist at the beginning of
the war. His boss suggested he should, but Tam apparently held other
views, went into a shipyard and was "badged and reserved."
They combed him out of
that, and he went to another factory, making a false statement to
secure the substitution of the badge he had lost. He was unmarried
and had none dependent on him, and his landlord, who had two sons
fighting, suggested to Tam that though he'd hate to lose a good
lodger, he didn't think the country ought to lose a good soldier.
Tam changed his lodgings.
He moved to Glasgow and
was insulted by a fellow workman with the name of coward. Tam
hammered his fellow workman insensible and was fired forthwith from
his job.
Every subterfuge, every
trick, every evasion and excuse he could invent to avoid service in
the army, he invented. He simply did not want to be a soldier. He
believed most passionately that the war had been started with the
sole object of affording his enemies opportunities for annoying him.
Then one day he was sent
on a job to an aerodrome workshop. He was a clever mechanic and he
had mastered the intricacies of the engine which he was to repair, in
less than a day.
He went back to his work
very thoughtfully, and the next Sunday he bicycled to the aerodrome
in his best clothes and renewed his acquaintance with the mechanics.
Within a week, he was
wearing the double-breasted tunic of the Higher Life. He was not a
good or a tractable recruit. He hated discipline and regarded his
superiors as less than equals—but he was an enthusiast.
When Pangate, which is in
the south of England, sent for pilots and mechanics, he accompanied
his officer and flew for the first time in his life.
In the old days he could
not look out of a fourth-floor window without feeling giddy. Now he
flew over England at a height of six thousand feet, and was sorry
when the journey came to an end. In a few months he was a qualified
pilot, and might have received a commission had he so desired.
"Thank ye, sir-r,"
he said to the commandant, "but ye ken weel A'm no gentry. M'
fairther was no believer in education, an' whilst ither laddies were
livin' on meal at the University A' was airning ma' salt at the Govan
Iron Wairks. A'm no' a society mon ye ken—A'd be usin' the wrong
knife to eat wi' an' that would bring the coorp into disrepute."
His education had, as a
matter of fact, been a remarkable one. From the time he could read,
he had absorbed every boy's book that he could buy or borrow. He told
a friend of mine that when he enlisted he handed to the care of an
acquaintance over six hundred paper-covered volumes which surveyed
the world of adventure, from the Nevada of Deadwood Dick to the
Australia of Jack Harkaway. He knew the stories by heart, their
phraseology and their construction, and was wont at times, half in
earnest, half in dour fun (at his own expense), to satirize every-day
adventures in the romantic language of his favorite authors.
He was regarded as the
safest, the most daring, the most venomous of the scouts—those
swift-flying spitfires of the clouds—and enjoyed a fame among the
German airmen which was at once flattering and ominous. Once they
dropped a message into the aerodrome. It was short and humorous, but
there was enough truth in the message to give it a bite:
Let us know when Tam is
buried, we would a wreath subscribe.
Officers, German Imperial
Air Service. Section—
Nothing ever pleased Tam
so much as this unsolicited testimonial to his prowess.
He purred for a week. Then
he learned from a German prisoner that the author of the note was the
flyer of a big Aviatic, and went and killed him in fair fight at a
height of twelve thousand feet.
"It was an engrossin'
an' thrillin' fight," explained Tam; "the bluid was
coorsin' in ma veins, ma hairt was palpitatin' wi' suppressed
emotion. Roond an' roond ain another the dauntless airmen caircled,
the noo above, the noo below the ither. Wi' supairb resolution Tam o'
the Scoots nose-dived for the wee feller's tail, loosin' a drum at
the puir body as he endeavoured to escape the lichtenin' swoop o' the
intrepid Scotsman. Wi' matchless skeel, Tam o' the Scoots banked over
an' brocht the gallant miscreant to terra firma —puir laddie! If
he'd kept ben the hoose he'd no' be lyin' deid the nicht. God rest
him!"
You might see Tam in the
early morning, when the world was dark and only the flashes of guns
revealed the rival positions, poised in the early sun, fourteen
thousand feet in the air, a tiny spangle of white, smaller in
magnitude than the fading stars. He seems motionless, though you know
that he is traveling in big circles at seventy miles an hour.
He is above the German
lines and the fleecy bursts of shrapnel and the darker patches where
high explosive shells are bursting beneath him, advertise alike his
temerity and the indignation of the enemy.
What is Tam doing there so
early?
There has been a big raid
in the dark hours; a dozen bombing machines have gone buzzing
eastward to a certain railway station where the German troops waited
in readiness to reinforce either A or B fronts. If you look long, you
see the machines returning, a group of black specks in the morning
sky. The Boches' scouts are up to attack—the raiders go serenely
onward, leaving the exciting business of duel to the nippy fighting machines which fly above
each flank. One such fighter throws himself at three of the enemy,
diving, banking, climbing, circling and all the time firing
"" through his
propellers.
The fight is going badly
for the bold fighting machine, when suddenly like a hawk, Tam o' the
Scoots sweeps upon his prey. One of the enemy side-slips, dives and
streaks to the earth, leaving a cloud of smoke to mark his
unsubstantial path. As for the others, they bank over and go home.
One falls in spirals within the enemy's lines. Rescuer and rescued
land together. The fighting-machine pilot is Lieutenant Burnley; the
observer, shot through the hand, but cheerful, is Captain Forsyn.
"Did ye no' feel a
sense o' gratitude to the Almighty when you kent it were Tam sittin'
aloft like a wee angel?"
"I thought it was a
bombing machine that had come back," said Burnley untruthfully.
"Did ye hear that,
sir-rs?" asked Tam wrathfully. "For a grown officer an'
gentleman haulding the certeeficate of the Royal Flying Coorp, to
think ma machine were a bomber! Did ye no' look oop an' see me? Did
ye no' look thankfully at yeer obsairvor, when, wi' a hooricane roar,
the Terror of the Air-r hurtled across the sky—'Saved!' ye said to
yersel'; 'saved — an' by Tam! What can I do to shaw ma appreciation
of the hero's devotion? Why!' ye said to yersel', soodenly, 'Why!
A'll gi' him a box o' seegairs sent to me by ma rich uncle fra'
Glasgae—!'"
"You can have two
cigars, Tam—I'll see you to the devil before I give you any more—I
only had fifty in the first place."
"Two's no' many,"
said Tam calmly, "but A've na doot A'll enjoy them wi' ma
educated palate better than you, sir-r—seegairs are for men an' no'
for bairns, an' ye'd save yersel' an awfu' feelin' o' seekness if ye
gave me a'."
Tam lived with the men—he
had the rank of sergeant, but he was as much Tam to the private
mechanic as he was to the officers. His pay was good and sufficient.
He had shocked that section of the Corps Comforts Committee which
devoted its energies to the collection and dispatch of literature, by
requesting that a special effort be made to keep him supplied "wi'
th' latest bluids." A member of the Committee with a sneaking
regard for this type of literature took it upon himself to ransack
London for penny dreadfuls, and Tam received a generous stock with
regularity.
"A'm no' so fond o'
th' new style," he said; "the detective stoory is verra
guid in its way for hame consumption, but A' prefair the mair
preemative discreeptions, of how that grand mon, Deadwood Dick,
foiled the machinations of Black Peter, the Scoorge of Hell Cañon.
A've no soort o' use for the new kind o' stoory—the love-stoories
aboot mooney. Ye ken the soort: Harild is feelin' fine an' anxious
aboot Lady Gwendoline's bairthmark: is she the rechtfu' heir? Oh,
Heaven help me to solve the meestry! (To be continued in oor next.)
A'm all for bluid an' fine laddies wi' a six-shooter in every hand
an' a bowie-knife in their teeth—it's no' so intellectual, but,
mon, it's mair human!"
Tam was out one fine
spring afternoon in a one-seater Morane. He was on guard watching
over the welfare of two "spotters" who were correcting the
fire of a "grandmother" battery. There was a fair breeze
blowing from the east, and it was bitterly cold, but Tam in his
leather jacket, muffled to the eyes, and with his hands in fur-lined
gloves and with the warmth from his engine, was comfortable without
being cozy.
Far away on the eastern
horizon he saw a great cloud. It was a detached and imperial cumulus,
a great frothy pyramid that sailed in majestic splendor. Tam judged
it to be a mile across at its base and calculated its height, from
its broad base to its feathery spirelike apex, at another mile.
"There's an awfu' lot
of room in ye," he thought.
It was moving slowly
toward him and would pass him at such a level that did he explore it,
he would enter half-way between its air foundation and its peak.
He signaled with his
wireless, "Am going to explore cloud," and sent his Morane
climbing.
He reached the misty
outskirts of the mass and began its encirclement, drawing a little
nearer to its center with every circuit. Now he was in a white fog
which afforded him only an occasional glimpse of the earth. The fog
grew thicker and darker and he returned again to the outer edge
because there would be no danger in the center. Gently he declined
his elevator and sank to a lower level. Then suddenly, beneath him, a
short shape loomed through the mist and vanished in a flash. Tam had
a tray of bombs under the fuselage— something in destructive
quality between a Mills grenade and a three-inch shell.
He waited...
Presently—swish! They
were circling in the opposite direction to Tam, which meant that the
object passed him at the rate of one hundred and forty miles an hour.
But he had seen the German coming... Something dropped from the
fuselage, there was the rending crash of an explosion and Tam dropped
a little, swerved to the left and was out in clear daylight in a
second.
Back he streaked to the
British lines, his wireless working frantically.
"Enemy raiding
squadron in cloud—take the edge a quarter up."
He received the
acknowledgment and brought his machine around to face the lordly bulk
of the cumulus.
Then the British Archies
began their good work.
Shrapnel and high
explosives burst in a storm about the cloud. Looking down he saw
fifty stabbing pencils of flame flickering from fifty A-A guns. Every
available piece of anti-aircraft artillery was turned upon the fleecy
mass.
As Tam circled he saw
white specks rising swiftly from the direction of the aerodrome and
knew that the fighting squadron, full of fury, was on its way up. It
had come to be a tradition in the wing that Tam had the right of
initiating all attack, and it was a right of which he was especially
jealous. Now, with the great cloud disgorging its shadowy guests, he
gave a glance at his Lewis gun and drove straight for his enemies. A
bullet struck the fuselage and ricocheted past his ear; another
ripped a hole in the canvas of his wing. He looked up. High above
him, and evidently a fighting machine that had been hidden in the
upper banks of the cloud, was a stiffly built Fokker.
"Noo, lassie!"
said Tam and nose-dived.
Something flashed past his
tail, and Tam's machine rocked like a ship at sea. He flattened out
and climbed. The British Archies had ceased fire and the fight was
between machine and machine, for the squadron was now in position.
Tam saw Lasky die and glimpsed the flaming wreck of the boy's machine
as it fell, then he found himself attacked on two sides. But he was
the swifter climber—the faster mover. He shot impartially left and
right and below —there was nothing above him after the first
surprise. Then something went wrong with his engines—they missed,
started, missed again, went on —then stopped.
He had turned his head for
home and begun his glide to earth.
He landed near a road by
the side of which a Highland battalion was resting and came to ground
without mishap. He unstrapped himself and descended from the fuselage
slowly, stripped off his gloves and walked to where the interested
infantry were watching him.
"Where are ye gaun?"
he asked, for Tam's besetting vice was an unquenchable curiosity.
"To the trenches
afore Masille, sir-r," said the man he addressed.
"Ye'll no' be callin'
me 'sir-r,'" reproved Tam. "A'm a s-arrgent. Hoo lang will
ye stay in the trenches up yon?"
"Foor days,
Sergeant," said the man.
"Foor days—guid
Lord!" answered Tam. "A' wouldn't do that wairk for a
thoosand poonds a week."
"It's no' so bad,"
said half-a-dozen voices.
"Ut's verra, verra
dangerous," said Tam, shaking his head. "A'm thankitfu' A'm
no' a soldier—they tried haird to make me ain, but A' said, 'Noo,
laddie—gie me a job—'"
A roar like the rush of an
express train through a junction, and Tam looked around in alarm. The
enemy's heavy shell struck the ground midway between him and his
machine and threw up a great column of mud.
"Mon!" said Tam
in alarm. "A' thocht it were goin' straicht for ma wee machine."
"What happened to
you, Tam?" asked the wing commander.
Tam cleared his throat.
"Patrollin' by order
the morn," he said, "ma suspeecions were aroused by the
erratic movements of a graund clood. To think, wi' Tam the Scoot, was
to act. Wi'oot a thocht for his ain parrsonal safety, the gallant
laddie brocht his machine to the clood i' question, caircling through
its oombrageous depths. It was a fine gay sicht—aloon i' th' sky,
he ventured into the air-r-lions' den. What did he see? The clood was
a nest o' wee horrnets! Slippin' a bomb he dashed madly back to the
ooter air-r sendin' his S. O. S. wi' baith hands—thanks to his—"
He stopped and bit his lip
thoughtfully.
"Come, Tam!"
smiled the officer, "that's a lame story for you."
"Oh, ay," said
Tam. "A'm no' in the recht speerit—Hoo mony did we lose?"
"Mr. Lasky and Mr.
Brand," said the wing commander quietly.
"Puir laddies,"
said Tam. He sniffed. "Mr. Lasky was a bonnie lad — A'll ask
ye to excuse me, Captain Thompson, sir-r. A'm no feelin' verra weel
the day—ye've no a seegair aboot ye that ye wilna be wantin'?"