out of the clouds he came, sweeping, veering, dodging, scattering the ghoulish night birds in his flight, the whir of his propeller heard amid the havoc of wind and storm as he raced with the elements, his soaring wings outlined with a kind of ghostly clearness in the fitful gleams of lightning.
often, as i have lain here in the long monotony of convalescence, i have thought how he first emerged out of the clouds in wind and rain, a hurrying spectre glimpsed in sudden flashes, and of how in the end he disappeared again amid the lashing tempest, up, up, up, into the shadow of the clouds whence he had come—never to be seen alive by mortal man again.
surely, it is not hard to fancy him a kind of spirit of the sky, visiting this war-scourged land of france, and withdrawing to his kindred elements when his tragic work was done.
it seems fitting that this creature of fate should have come and gone in this way; that there should have been no prosy beginning or end to his career. and i am glad, roy, for your sake, and for mine and for his and—yes, for the sake of his sturdy champion, archer—that only a few of his earlier and more conspicuous exploits are known and remembered.
i have it from archer that the night of this first strange thing which i am about to tell was of intense darkness and incessant, wind-blown rain. occasionally, he said, quick, sharp flashes of lightning illumined the sky and at such times he could see the clouds, as he said, “churrned up like clabberred milk.”
it was the terminating storm of a long season of rain which had wrought havoc to the roads and railroad lines—already in sorry plight from overuse and german artillery fire. great dependence, it seemed, was placed upon those sturdy youngsters of the motorcycle corps, particularly just then, when the wires were down, their supporting poles sprawling in mud or flood.
archer told me that on that night they could plainly see from nancy, where he was stationed, the little church in chateau seulans across the lorraine border, and could distinguish pigmy figures of german sentries there, so vivid was the lightning at times.
he says that he had not seen slade for nearly a year, though i hardly think it could have been as long as that. in any case, he had been stationed at nancy for a month or two and his duties in the quiet sector (sleepy hollow, they called it) were hardly more exciting than those of an american letter-carrier. it rained almost unceasingly, the soldiers drilled and played cards, and baled out their trenches, which were “running rriverrs,” to quote my young friend. sometimes fritzie made a night raid and the boys in khaki made a party call for good manners. but there wasn’t much going on.
“what would you do if you had a real job—something urrgent?” archer says one of the boys asked him.
“i’d take carre of it, all right,” he answered.
“you’d need a boat to get from here to chaumont now,” the other fellow said. “did you look into mess dugout 4? it’s nothing but a mudhole.”
“wherre i’m sent, i’ll go,” said archer. “i don’t carre if it’s to berrlin.”
“would you make a try for paris if you had a message for general pershing?” his companion teased.
“no, i’d send worrd to general perrshing to come herre and get it,” archer retorted; which apparently ended the talk.
at last something happened. in the latter part of the afternoon they got a signal from the squint bag[1] and hauled the thing down, the rain pattering upon its taut bulk and streaming off like a waterfall. the occupant of its cosy little car announced that the germans seemed to be massing all the way from frouard to the marne canal, and that barges were moving westward along the canal from la garde. the observer thought they might be bringing troops from the railroad town of berthelingen, or from azoudange, where the prison camp was. it had long been necessary for the germans to rob peter to pay paul and if they were depleting their guard at the great camp it probably meant that some big enterprise was in the air. a flier was promptly sent up to reconnoiter eastward, but the weather was too much for him and he came down like a drowned bat.
by dusk, the wind was blowing a gale out of the southwest, driving the rain in sheets so that the squint bag which had ascended again pulled and strained at its anchorage, dragging sideways and jerking for all the world like some monstrous fish on the line. they soon hauled it down for fear of the cable snapping. a drenched courier arrived from colombey, below toul, with the news that every wire in that section was down and in a hopeless tangle and the rails west of neufchateau were sunken in swamp. when you hear mention of railroads in france you must put out of your thoughts altogether the pennsylvania and the new york central—even the erie, i am tempted to say; for these roads here are mere toy lines with ridiculous puffing slow-poke engines and tracks which disappear on the smallest provocation.
a little before dark, archer tells me, he was summoned before his superiors and asked if he believed he could get as far as brienne, or perhaps troyes, with a message. it was hoped that communication might be open between one or other of those places and paris, where the commander was at the time. he answered that he believed he could reach brienne and was despatched at once with messages for transmission, of which, of course, he did not know the contents more than that they pertained to the enemy’s movements and were urgent in the extreme.
west of vaucouleurs he found the roads all but impassible. the wind was blowing a tempest, driving the rain into his face so that he was reduced to picking his way at a snail’s pace. the darkness was intense, save for the occasional gleams of forked lightning which illumined the sky and gilded the clouds with a frightful, portentous brightness.
“it was the kind of weatherr,” says archer, with characteristic humor, “when folks always say, ‘pity the poorr sailorrs on a night like this.’”
he had passed through gondrescourt inquiring whether communication was open with points west when he heard the sharp report of an aircraft gun, apparently from somewhere in the town, and looked up just as a flash of lightning lit the sky.
his own simple description of what he saw impressed me very much indeed. “the clouds were small and all feathery like, as if they had been pulled aparrt,” he said; “the edges all ragged and very bright, like silverr. it made you feel scarey as if the darrk parrt behind ’em didn’t belong to this worrld at all.”
well, it was just in that quick flash that he saw moving across one of those illumined patches an airplane, its outline as clear as a silhouette.
“forr a minute,” said archer, with a graphic power which surprised me, “it seemed as if it was one of those witches sailing through the sky, and it made me feel creepy, as you might say.”
then, all in a moment, the darkness closed about it, but, listening, he could hear, in the brief intervals of the tumult, the noise of its propeller, and the sound struck terror to his heart, for he knew by the intermittent whir that it was a hun machine. archer tells me that this characteristic of the hun planes makes them always recognizable at night. “theirr hearrt beats different,” as he said.
they must have been a watchful gun crew in the town to spy this vulture of the night, but their shot had done no damage evidently, for the grim thing moved along, visible now and again over the cyclist’s head. when the impediments of marsh and washed-out roads caused him to slacken his speed, the flier did so also, maneuvering apparently, now visible in the quick flashes, now only heard amid the rain and wind.
at aubinal they had a searchlight as well as an aircraft gun and, hearing the flier, they threw a long column about the sky and fixed him in a circle of light. then the sharp report of the gun and the machine dipped, for all the world like a boy dodging a pursuer. twice, thrice, the report rang out, the cyclist pausing among the little group of excited villagers. twice, thrice, the machine dipped, while the watchers held their breath in suspense. but the plane resumed its course, still visible in bold relief in the circle of light.
then suddenly there appeared in the sky another plane (presumably, from somewhere in the neighborhood) rising in pursuit of the enemy craft. so furious was the lashing of the storm that archer was thrilled with admiration at the sight of one of his friends braving the perils of that tempestuous night to bring down an enemy flier, and as he rode on out of the little town, fighting his own way in the blinding storm, he wondered who the bold pursuer could be—whether french or american.
high amid the tumult he could hear shots, which were presently drowned in the turbulence of the storm, and he had no further glimpse of either craft.
“i thought our flierr had hit him and sent him down,” said archer, “and i says to myself, ‘that fellerr is a hero, all right,’ and i hoped he was an amerrican. i wonderred what the hun plane was doing so far behind ourr lines on a night like that, but i didn’t have time to wonderr much. anyways, i was glad it was overr ’cause it made me feel kind of spooky to see that black thing like a ghost or a witch or something following me. i made up my mind i’d ask about who brought it down, so’s i’d know who it was.”
his way now took him through the flat country east of brienne where he hoped that his spooky, drenching journey might end.
the land here was turned into a quagmire, his machine splashing through mud and water so that he must pause now and again to wrench and haul it out of some mushy hollow.
the country thereabouts was quite unpopulated, consisting of vast flat meadows, entirely submerged. the blighting hun line had once embraced the locality, and its refugees had not yet returned to a security so precarious. so there was not even the dim lamplight from a peasant’s cottage to cheer the hapless messenger.
i have not put young archer forward as a hero, and i shall not, for i know in whom you are mainly interested, but i think the courage he showed that night was remarkable. the road, as i understood him, crossed a veritable inland sea on an embankment about a foot submerged and had he verged from the invisible causeway he and his machine would have been plunged into a considerable depth of water. he was guided by his instinct and such of the fallen poles as had not been washed away.
but it was all quite hopeless, as he realized before he was a quarter of the way across the flooded area. his wheels, sunk in mud, were all but inextricable, and he finally realized, or acknowledged, the terrible predicament he was in. there he was, the plaything of a lashing tempest, marooned upon a sunken road, wrenching and tugging at his wheel as it settled lower and lower in the mud. above him the thunder crashed, now and again the lightning rent the sky showing the heavens thick with those little restless, feathery clouds. his face felt hot and sore from the beating of the rain against it. i suspect that his nerve was wavering and little wonder.
then he heard amid the uproar the whirring of an airplane and he stood stark still listening. perhaps his distracted mind made him susceptible to vague imaginings, and he experienced a feeling of horror at the thought of this uncanny creature of the night hovering in the clouds above him, until he realized that it was probably the friendly plane which, having brought down the enemy machine, was on its way with messages to paris. the thought afforded him a measure of relief and reconciled him to his own desperate plight. what matter, so long as the urgent news were carried? and what an airman he must be who could fly through this inferno, braving thunder, lightning and storm....
i must tell you this in archer’s own words.
“i was tugging at my machine, trying to haul it out of the mud, but everry jerrk i gave it i went deeperr in the mud myself. i rememberr how i wrenched on the front wheel, this way and that, so my headlight pointed every which way and i could see the waterr all around—as much as half a mile on both sides of me, i should think. be-forre that i didn’t know how much of the country was flooded. i seemed to be in the middle of the ocean, as you might say, only in places there were little islands, like, where the water didn’t quite cover the fields. i knew i couldn’t get my machine out of the mud and i thought i’d be betterr off if i left it and waded over to one of those islands because the road i was on was underr waterr and was washing away, sorrt of.
“so i turrned my handle-barr so’s to throw the searrchlight around overr that flooded space and try to decide which way to go. i thought maybe i could get across it quickerr that way; and then run to the nearest town. all of a sudden, while i was throwing my light like that, i hearrd the buzz of an airrplane verry nearr and a very loud whistlin’ sound like this (he simulated a loud, shrill whistling) and then i hearrd a splash quite a long way off and then more splashing not so loud.
“i turrned my light in that direction and saw a big airrplane comin’ to a standstill in the waterr and the rain was pourin’ down off its planes just like a waterrfall. i thought it must be the flierr that brought down the hun machine, and i thought he must be wrecked and was dead, maybe.
“forr a minute i held my handle-barr so’s the light was right on the plane and then i had a good scarre, you can bet, forr i could see plain as day on the body of it and on the rudderr the black cross with a white borrderr like they have on hun machines!”
the dramatic descent of this apparition through that tempestuous storm, and its clear outline as it stood focussed in the circle of brightness thrown by archer’s headlight, must have been quite enough to disconcert him. for a moment, he says, he stood there trembling, the wind howling about him, the rain beating on his face, the heavy darkness shutting out everything save that meteor-like thing out of the troubled heavens.
then a figure emerged from under its dripping plane and called to him. in the high wind he could not hear what this apparition said, the voice seeming thin and spent in contrast with the tumult, or, as archer said, “as if it came from a ghost.” then he caught the words “landing” and “guide.”
he was not greatly surprised at that, for it was not uncommon to find germans speaking english. for a moment he hesitated, then, drawing his side arm, he stepped forward through the water, toward the strange visitor. again the man spoke, but the wind was away from him and archer could not hear what he said. he confessed that he was not accustomed to encounters with the enemy, but he knew what to do and called, “hold up your hands if you surrenderr; if you don’t, i’ll shoot”; all the while wading through the flooded meadow.
“hold up your hands; if you don’t, i’ll shoot.”
the stranger, so he says, raised his hands very leisurely and lifted his goggles up on his forehead, for all the world like some dear old grandma, which tickled archer’s funny bone. this finicky little act seemed odd in one of those adventurous denizens of the sky, and i have heard others besides archer speak of it. then the stranger, standing there amid the screaming wind and blinding storm, raised his hands as if to surrender. but archer was not unfamiliar with the “kamarad” game, and he advanced cautiously. the screaming of the wind through the wiring of the machine was terrific but through it, as he stumbled along, he fancied (i quote his own words) that he could “hearr the worrd ‘souveneerrr’ as if it was in the airrr, sorrt of.”
then suddenly he stopped amazed to hear these words uttered in plain english:
“i suppose you’re after a piece of this airplane for a souvenir. how is it you ain’t chewin’ an apple?”
he stood where he was, too dumbfounded to speak, and looked at the drenched figure in dismay.
“can i take my hands down now?” the flier said in a familiar, dull voice, but smiling.
as you probably have guessed, it was none other than archer’s former comrade, tom slade, who stood facing him.
“’till i hearrd that about souveneerrrs i neverr thought anything about it,” archer said, as a sort of climax to this extraordinary episode, and raising his knees high up in the bed as was his custom; “but as soon as he reminded me of it i made up my mind i’d get a piece of that bloomin’ machine to take home—by christopherrr!”
that seemed to be the main consideration with him.
“do you think you are fonder of souvenirs than of apples?” i inquired slyly, for his narrative was interrupted by the nurse’s bringing him one from a box of them which i understood had made a long and patriotic pilgrimage from the catskills.
“therre’s only one thing about apples i like,” he observed, as he took an enormous bite, “and that’s the taste of ’em. slady used to always kid me about apples—but you can bet yourr life i got three tacks out of the leatherr seat of that gol-bloomin’ hun machine!”
1. observation balloon.
