it was indeed a severe test of billy barry’s nerve that was put upon him in this trying moment. to let go of the controllers of the a?roplane would mean the finish; to neglect for an instant his comrade, whom he believed to be bleeding to death, was agony. almost blindly he set the planes for a nearly vertical descent from a dizzy height of three thousand feet which the machine had attained before[43] billy had fully realized that he was holding across his knees the inert body of his beloved chum. like a plummet the aircraft dropped eastward. with rare presence of mind billy shifted for a rise when close to the ground, and managed to land without wrecking the machine. a scant ten feet, though, to the right, and the a?roplane would have crashed into a cow-shed and all would have been over.
an old woman, digging potatoes nearby, was so frightened when this winged bolt came down from the sky that she gave a squawk and fell backward into the big basket behind her.
when billy had tenderly lifted out and laid henri upon the turf, he ran to the well in front of the neat farmhouse, filled his leather cap with water, and hastened back to bathe the deathly pale face and throbbing temples of his wounded chum. with the cooling application henri opened his eyes and smiled at the wild-eyed lad working with all his soul to win him back to life.
“i am not done for yet, old scout,” he faintly murmured.
billy gulped down a sob.
“you’re coming around all right, buddy, cried billy, holding a wet and loving hand upon henri’s forehead.
“the pain is in my right shoulder,” advised[44] henri; “i have just begun to feel it. guess that is where the bullet went in.”
“let me see it.” billy assumed a severe professional manner. the attempt, however, to remove the jacket sleeve from the injured arm brought forth such a cry of pain from henri that billy drew back in alarm.
“ask the woman for a pair of shears,” suggested henri, “and cut away the sleeve.”
“hi, there!” called billy to the old woman, who had risen from the basket seat, but still all of a tremble.
“get her here,” urged henri. “i can make her understand.”
billy, bowing and beckoning, induced the woman to approach.
henri, politely:
“madame, j’ai ete blesse. est-ce que nous restons ici?” (madam, i have been wounded. can we rest here?)
“je n’ecoute pas bien. j’appelerai, marie.” (i do not hear good. i will call marie.)
with that the old woman hobbled away, and quickly reappeared with “marie,” a kindly-eyed, fine type of a girl, of quite superior manner.
henri questioned: “vous parlez le fran?ais?” (you speak french?)
[45]
“oui, monsieur; j’ai demeure en le sud-est.” (yes, monsieur; i have lived in the southeast.)
the girl quickly added, with a smiling display of a fine row of teeth: “and i speak the english, too. i have nursed the sick in london.”
“glory be!” billy using his favorite expression. “get busy!”
marie “got busy” with little pocket scissors, cut the jacket and shirt free of the wound, washed away the clotted blood and soon brightly announced:
“no bullet here; it went right through the flesh, high up; much blood, but no harm to last.”
cutting up a linen hand-towel, marie skillfully bandaged the wound, and, later, as neatly mended the slashes she had made in henri’s jacket and shirt.
for ten days the boys rested at the farmhouse, henri rapidly recovering strength.
they learned much about belgium from marie. she laughingly told henri that his french talk was good to carry him anywhere among the walloons in the southeastern half of belgium, but in the northwestern half he would not meet many of the flemings who could understand him. “you would have one hard time to speak flemish,” she assured him.
henri confided to marie that they were bound for the valley of the meuse.
“la la,” cried the girl, “but you are taking the[46] long way. yet,” she continued, “you missed some fighting by coming the way you did from bruges.”
on the eleventh morning henri told billy at breakfast that he (henri) was again as “fit as a fiddle.” “let’s be moving,” he urged.
“all right.” billy himself was getting restless. they had been absolutely without adventure for ten long days.
but, when henri returned from a visit to the a?roplane, he wore a long face.
“there’s no more ‘ammunition’ in the tanks,” he wailed. “there isn’t as much as two miles left.”
“that means some hiking on the ground.” with this remark billy made a critical survey of his shoes. “guess they’ll hold out if the walking is good.” henri, however, was not in a humor to be amused.
“i say, billy, what’s the matter with making a try for roulers? trouble or no trouble, we’ll not be standing around like we were hitched. it would be mighty easy if we could take the air. no use crying, though, about spilt milk.”
marie, who had been an attentive listener, putting on an air of mystery, called the attention of the boys to a certain spot on the cleanly scrubbed floor, over which was laid a small rug of home weaving. the girl pushed aside the rug and underneath was shown the lines of a trap-door, into which marie inserted a chisel point. the opening below disclosed[47] a short flight of steps leading down to an underground room, where candle light further revealed, among other household treasures, such as a collection of antique silver and the like, two modern bicycles.
“the boys who rode those,” said marie, pointing to the cycles, “may never use them again. they were at liège when it fell, and never a word from them since. on good roads and in a flat country you can travel far on these wheels. take them, and welcome, if you have to go.”
in an hour the boys were on the road. they left two gold-pieces under the tablecloth and a first-class a?roplane as evidence of good faith.
