by W E Johns
‘You artful swipe!’ rasped Biggles, flinging the F. E. round in such a steep turn that Mark nearly went overboard.
‘Sorry!’ Biggles’ lips formed the words, but he was pointing at the Hun, who had climbed up out of range, but was now coming down again like a thunderbolt, guns spurting long streams of flame. Mark was shooting, too, their bullets seeming to meet between the two machines. The Albatros came so close that Biggles could distinctly see the tappets of the other’s engine working, and the pilot’s face peering at them over the side of his cockpit. Then he swerved, and Biggles breathed a sigh of relief.
But he was congratulating himself too soon. The Albatros twisted like a hawk, dived, turned as he dived, and then came up at them like a rocket. To Biggles this manoeuvre was so unexpected, so seemingly impossible, that he could hardly believe it, and he experienced a real spasm of fright. He no longer thought of the battery below; he knew he was fighting the battle of his life, his first real duel against a man who knew his job thoroughly.
During the next five minutes he learnt many things, things that were to stand him in good stead later on, and the fact that he escaped was due, not to his ability, but to a circumstance for which he was duly grateful. Twice he had made a break, in the hope of reaching the Lines. For during the combat, as was so often the case, the wind had blown them steadily over enemy country, but each time the enemy was there first, cutting off his escape. Mark had not been idle, but the wily German seldom gave him a fair chance for even a fleeting shot, much less a ‘sitterfn1’.
The Hun seemed to attack from all points of the compass at once. Biggles turned to face his aggressor in a new quarter – the fellow was always in the most unexpected quarter – and dived furiously at him; too furiously. He overshot, and, before he could turn, the Hun was behind him, pouring hot lead into his engine.
He knew that he was lost. Something grazed his arm, and with horror he saw blood running down Mark’s face. He crouched low as he tried to turn out of the hail of lead. The bullets stopped abruptly as he came round, glaring wildly. The Hun had gone. Presently Biggles made him out, dropping like a stone towards the safety of his own territory. He could hardly believe his eyes. He had been cold meatfn2 for the enemy pilot, and he knew it. Why, then—But Mark was pointing upwards, grinning.
Biggles’ eyes followed the outstretched finger, and he saw a formation of nine Sopwith Pups sweeping across the sky five thousand feet above them. He grinned back, trembling slightly from reaction.
‘By gosh, that was a close one! I’ll remember that piece of silver-and-red furniture, and keep out of his way!’ he vowed, inwardly marvelling, and wondering how the Boche pilot had been able to concentrate his attack on him in the way that he had, and yet watch the surrounding sky for possible danger. He knew that if there had been a thousand machines in the sky he would not have seen them, yet the Hun had not failed to see the approaching Pups when they were miles away. ‘Pretty good!’ he muttered admiringly. ‘I’ll remember that!’
And he did. It was his first real lesson in the art of air combat. His pride suffered when he thought of the way the Hun had ‘made rings round him’, and he was not quite as confident of himself as he had been, yet he knew that the experience was worth all the anxiety it had caused him.
But what about the enemy battery? He looked down, and saw that he had drifted miles away from it.
He snorted his disgust at the archie that opened up on him the instant the Hun had departed, and made his way back to his original rendezvous. The calico ‘L’ was still lying on the ground near the battery. Although he did not know it, the gunners had watched the combat with the greatest interest, and were agreeably surprised to see him returning so soon after the attack.
G – G – G, he buzzed. The gun flashed, and the F. E. rocked suddenly, almost as if it had been shaken by an invisible hand.
Biggles started, and looked at his altimeter. In the fight he had, as usual, lost height, and he was now below three thousand feet. He knew that the great howitzer shell had passed close to him, so he started climbing as quickly as possible to get above its culminating point. The archie smoke was so thick that he had great difficulty in seeing the shell burst. It was a good five hundred yards short. F6 – F6 – F6 he signalled; and then, after a brief interval: G – G – G. He watched with interest for the next shell to burst, but it was farther from the mark than the first one had been.
‘If they don’t improve faster than that we shall still be here when the bugles blow “Cease fire!” ’, he muttered in disgust.
The next shot was better, but it was a good four hundred yards beyond the mark and slightly to the right. Dl – DI – Dl he tapped out as he turned in a wide circle and then back again towards the target on a course which, had he been a sky-writer, would have traced a large figure eight – the usual method of the artillery spotting ’plane, which allowed the pilot to see both his own battery and the target in turn. It also kept the archie gunners guessing which way he was going next.
An hour later Biggles was still at it, and the first gun had got no closer than two hundred yards to its mark. The fascination of the pastime was beginning to wear off; indeed it was already bordering on the monotonous. ‘This is a nice game played slow,’ he shouted. ‘Why don’t those fellows learn to shoot?’
He was falling into a sort of reverie, sending his signals automatically, when he was again brought back to realities by a yell from Mark. He looked round sharply, and fixed his eyes on a small, straight-winged machine that was climbing up towards them from the east. The German anti-aircraft gunners must have seen it, too, for the archie died away abruptly as they ceased fire rather than take the risk of hitting their own man. There was no mistaking the machine. It was the red-and-silver Albatros:
Biggles was not to be caught napping twice. He turned his nose towards home and dived, only pulling out when he felt he was a safe distance over the Lines. He turned in time to see his late adversary gliding away into a haze that was forming over the other side of the Lines.
Once more he returned to his post, and signalled to the gunners to fire, but even as the gun flashed, he heard the rat-tat-tat-tat of a machine-gun, and the disconcerting flac-flac-flac of bullets ripping through his wings.
‘You cunning hound!’ he grated, seething with rage as he caught a glimpse of the red-and-silver wings of his old adversary as it darted in from the edge of the haze in which it had taken cover. It was another tip in the art of stalking that he did not forget. At the moment he was concerned only with the destruction of his persistent tormentor, and he attacked with a fury that he had never felt before. He wanted to see the Albatros crash – he wanted to see that more than he had ever wanted to see anything in his life. Completely mastered by his anger, he made no attempt to escape, but positively flung the F. E. at the black-crossed machine. This was evidently something the Hun did not expect, and he was nearly caught napping.
Mark got in a good burst before the Hun swerved out of his line of fire. Biggles yanked the F. E. round in a turn that might have torn its wings off, and plunged down on the tail of the Albatros. He saw the pilot look back over his shoulder, and felt a curious intuition as to which way he would turn. He saw the Hun’s rudder start to move, which confirmed it, and, without waiting for the Albatros actually to answer to its controls, he whipped the F. E. round in a vertical bank.
The Hun had turned the same way, as he knew he must, and he was still on its tail, less than fifty yards away. It was a brilliant move, although at the time he did not know it; it showed anticipation in the moves of the games that marked the expert in air combat. He thrust the stick forward with both hands until he could see the dark gases flowing out of his enemy’s exhaust pipe; saw the pilot’s blond moustache, saw the goggled eyes staring at him, and saw Mark’s bullets sewing a leaden seam across his fuselage.
The Hun turned over onto its back and then spun, Biggles watching it with savage satisfaction that turned to chagrin when, a thousand feet from the gr
ound, the red-and-silver machine levelled out and sped towards home. The pilot had deliberately thrown his machine out of control in order to mislead his enemy – another trick Biggles never forgot.
‘We’ve given the blighter something to think about, at any rate!’ he thought moodily, as he turned to the battery.
The gunners were waiting for him, but, to his annoyance and disgust, the first shot went wide; it was, in fact, farther away from the target than the first one had been.
‘This is a game for mugs!’ he snarled. ‘As far as I can see, there’s nothing to prevent this going on for ever. Don’t those fellows ever hit what they shoot at?’
He was getting tired, for they had now been in the air for more than three hours, and, as far as he could see, they were no nearer the end than when they started. The archie was getting troublesome again, and he was almost in despair when an idea struck him.
‘H.Q. want that Hun battery blown up, do they?’ he thought. ‘All right, they shall have it blown up – but I know a quicker way of doing it than this.’ He turned suddenly and raced back towards his aerodrome, sending the CHI signal as he went. CHI in the code meant ‘I am going home.’ He landed and taxied up to the hangars.
‘Fill her up with petrol and hang two 112-pounder bombs on the racks – and make it snappy!’ he told the flight-sergeant. Then he hurried down to the mess and called up on the telephone the battery for which he had been acting.
‘Look here,’ he began hotly, ‘I’m getting tired, trying to put you ham-fisted—What’s that? Colonel? Sorry, sir!’ He collected himself quickly, realizing that he had made a bad break. The brigade colonel was on the other end of the wire. ‘Well, the fact is, sir,’ he went on, ‘I’ve just thought of an idea that may speed things up a bit. The target is a bit too low for you to see, I think, and – well, if I laid an egg on that spot it would show your gun-layers just where the target is. What’s that, sir? Unusual? Yes, I know it is, but if it comes off it will save a lot of time and ammunition. If it fails I’ll go on with the shoot again in the ordinary way. Yes, sir – very good, sir – l’ll be over in about a quarter of an hour.’
He put the receiver down, and, ignoring Toddy’s cry of protest, hurried back to the sheds. Mark looked at him in astonishment when he climbed back into his seat. ‘Haven’t you had enough of it, or have you got a rush of blood to the brain?’ he asked coldly.
‘Brain, my foot!’ snapped Biggles. ‘I’m going to give those Huns a rush of something. I’ve done figures of eight until I’m dizzy. Round and round the blinking mulberry-bush, with every archie battery for miles practising on me. I’m going to liven things up a bit. You coming, or are you going to stay at home? Things are likely to get warmish.’
‘Of course I’m coming!’
‘Well, come on, let’s get on with it.’
He took off, and climbed back to the old position between the batteries, but he sent no signal. He did not even let his aerial out. He began to circle as if he was going to continue the ‘shoot’, but then, turning suddenly, he jammed his joystick forward with both hands and tore down at the German gunpits. For a few moments he left the storm of archie far behind, but as the gunners perceived his intention, it broke out again with renewed intensity, and the sky around him became an inferno of smoke and fire.
Crouching low in his cockpit, his lips pressed in a straight line, he did not swerve an inch. It was neck or nothing now, and he knew it. His only hope of success lay in speed. Any delay could only make his task more perilous, for already the artillery observers on the ground would be ringing up the Jagdstaffeln (German fighter squadrons), calling on them to deal with this Englander who must either be mad or intoxicated.
He could see his objective clearly, and he made for it by the shortest possible course. Twice shells flamed so close to him that he felt certain the machine must fall in pieces out of his hands. The wind screamed in his wires and struts and plucked at his face and shoulders. A flying wire trailed uselessly from the root of an inter-plane strut, cut through as clean as a carrot by shrapnel, beating a wild tattoo on the fabric.
Mark was crouching low in the front cockpit, blood oozing from a flesh wound in his forehead, caused by flying glass.
It is difficult to keep track of time in such moments. The period from the start of his dive until he actually reached the objective was probably not more than three minutes – four at the most – but to Biggles it seemed an eternity. Time seemed to stand still; trifling incidents assumed enormous proportions, occurring as they did with slow deliberation. Thus, he saw a mobile archie battery, the gun mounted on a motor-lorry, tearing along the road. He saw it stop, and the well-trained team leap to their allotted stations; saw the long barrel swing round towards him, and the first flash of flame from its muzzle. He felt certain the shot would hit him, and wondered vaguely what the fellows at the squadron would say about his crazy exploit when he did not return.
The shell burst fifty feet in front of him, an orange spurt of flame that was instantly engulfed in a whirling ball of black smoke. He went straight through it, his propeller churning the smoke to the four winds, and he gasped as the acrid fumes bit into his lungs.
He saw the gun fire again, and felt the plunging machine lurch as the projectile passed desperately close. He did not look back, but he knew his track must be marked by a solid-looking plume of black smoke visible for miles. He wondered grimly what the colonel to whom he had spoken on the telephone was thinking about it, for he would be watching the proceedings.
Down – down – down, but there was no sensation of falling. The machine seemed to be stationary, with the earth rushing up to meet him. At five hundred feet the enemy gun-crew, who could not resist the temptation of watching him, bolted for their dug-outs like rabbits when a fox-terrier appears. Perhaps they had thought it impossible for the British machine to survive such a maelstrom of fire. Anyway, they left it rather late.
Not until he was within a hundred feet of the ground did Biggles start to pull the machine out of its dive, slowly, in case he stripped his wings off as they encountered the resistance of the air. Mark’s gun was stuttering, bullets kicking up the earth about the gunpits in case one of the German gunners, bolder than the rest, decided to try his luck with a rifle or machine-gun.
The end came suddenly. Biggles saw the target leap towards him, and at what must have been less than fifty feet, he pulled his bomb toggle, letting both bombs go together. Then he zoomed high.
Such was his speed that he was back at a thousand feet when the two bombs burst simultaneously; but the blast of air lifted the F. E. like a piece of tissue paper. He fought the machine back under control, and, without waiting to see the result of the explosion, tore in a zigzag course towards his own battery.
At three thousand feet he levelled out and looked back. He had succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, and knew that he must have hit the enemy ammunition dump. Flames were still leaping skyward in a dense pall of black smoke.
With a feeling of satisfaction, he lowered his aerial. His fingers sought the buzzer key and tapped out the letters G – G – G. The British gun flashed instantly. The gun-layer was no longer firing blind, and the shot landed in the middle of the smoking mass.
O.K. – O.K. – O.K. tapped Biggles exultantly.
The second gun of the battery sent its projectile hurtling towards the Boche gunpits. It was less than one hundred yards short, but with visible target to shoot at it required only two or three minutes to get it ranged on the target. The others followed.
G – D – O, G – D – O, G – D – O, tapped Biggles enthusiastically, for G – D – O was the signal to the gunners to begin firing in their own time. The four guns were ranged on the target, and they no longer needed his assistance. With salvo after salvo they pounded the enemy gunpits out of existence, Biggles and Mark watching the work of destruction with the satisfaction of knowing their job had been well done.
Then they looked at each other, and a slow smile spread over Bigg
les’s face. CHI, CHI, CHI (I am going home), he tapped, and turned towards the aerodrome. Instantly his smile gave way to a frown of annoyance. What were the fools doing? A cloud of white archie smoke had appeared just in front of him. White archie!
Only British archie was white! Why were they shooting at him? The answer struck him at the same moment that Mark yelled and pointed. He lifted up his eyes. Straight across their front, in the direction they must go, but two thousand feet above them, a long line of white archie bursts trailed across the sky. In front of them, always it seemed just out of their reach, sped a small, straight-winged plane; its top wings were slightly longer than the lower ones.
Two thoughts rushed into Biggles’ mind at once. The first was that the gunners on the ground had fired the burst close to him to warn him of his danger, and the second was that the German machine was an Albatros. There was no mistaking the shark-like fuselage. Something, an instinct which he could not have explained, told him it was their old red-and-silver enemy. He was right – it was. At that moment it turned, and the sun revealed its colours. It dived towards the British machine, and the archie gunners were compelled to cease fire for fear of hitting the F. E.
There was no escape. Biggles would have avoided combat had it been possible, for he was rather worried about the damage the F. E. might have suffered during its dive. Mark glowered as he turned his gun towards the persistent enemy, and then crouched low, waiting for it come into effective range.
But the Hun had no intention of making things so easy. His machine had already been badly knocked about in the last effort, an insult which he was probably anxious to avenge, and intended to see that no such thing occurred again. At two hundred feet he started shooting; and Biggles pulled his nose up to meet him. From that position he would not swerve, for it was a point of honour in the R. F. C. never to turn away from a frontal attack, even though the result was a collision.