Читать книгу The Trail of Death: War Adventures of the Flying Beetle - George E. Rochester - Страница 4

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“Four o’clock, sir!”

Captain Harry Davies, of Three Hundred and Five Squadron, operating from Duville, was awake in an instant.

“Oh, hallo, Bates!” he grunted. “What kind of a morning is it?”

“Clear and fine, sir!” replied the batman.

“Righto!” exclaimed Davies. “Stand by outside with the canvas bucket, Bates, and I’ll have a cold sluice!”

Five minutes later, clad in his oil-stained khaki uniform with its pilot’s wings and row of medal ribbons on the left breast of the tunic, Davies crossed to the mess, his short leather flying jacket over his arm.

Dew sparkled on the grass and the cloudless sky gave promise of a glorious day to come. But from eastwards came the eternal rumble of heavy gunfire, grim token that the dawn “strafe” had already commenced in earnest.

Gulping down a cup of steaming hot coffee, Davies made his way towards the hangars where the mechanics were wheeling out his fast little Camel fighting scout.

Painted on the fuselage of the scout was a black replica of a flying beetle, and it was as the Flying Beetle that this grim-faced lad with thirty-four German machines to his credit was known the whole length of the battle-line, from the Swiss frontier to the sea.

A sergeant mechanic swung himself up to the snug little cockpit as Davies appeared, and as he switched on, another mechanic swung the propeller.

The engine picked up with a shattering roar, and after running it up to full revolutions on brief but searching test, the sergeant throttled down.

Leaving the propeller ticking quietly over, he clambered out of the cockpit and dropped to the ground.

“Okay, sergeant?” asked the Flying Beetle.

“Yes, sir!” replied the sergeant.

“Giving her revs.?”

“Yes, sir, she’s fine!”

The Flying Beetle nodded.

“I’m off towards Metz on offensive patrol,” he remarked, buttoning his flying coat; then added with a tinge of regret: “I suppose it’s a bit too early in the day for our friend, von Platz, to be astir!”

The sergeant’s lips twitched in a smile. Every flying man on that part of the line knew of the Hauptmann Gerhard von Platz, one of the most brilliant of Germany’s great war aces whose bag of Allied machines already totalled sixty-four.

The machine he flew was a black Fokker scout, with a grinning skull painted in white on its beautifully-streamlined fuselage. As a fighter he was fearless and merciless, showing no quarter nor expecting any to be shown him.

“I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky that I haven’t met him yet,” said the Flying Beetle, turning towards the cockpit of his Camel.

“Lucky, sir?” repeated the sergeant questioningly.

“Yes,” replied the other, “for when we do meet only one of us will live to return and I don’t think that one will be me!”

“You’re as good a fighter as he is, sir,” asserted the sergeant stoutly. “Better, if you don’t mind my saying so. You only have to meet him in the air to prove it!”

“Ah, but we don’t seem fated to meet, he and I,” laughed the lad, swinging himself up into the cockpit.

He ran his engine up to satisfy himself that it was giving full revolutions, then snapping down his goggles, he opened up the throttle.

The roar of the engine rose to a high, pulsating, thunderous rhythm, and as the little fighting scout quivered madly against the chocks the pilot’s gloved hand whipped up.

In response to the signal the waiting mechanics yanked away the chocks from in front of the tyred wheels of the undercarriage, and, like a greyhound from the slips, the fighting scout shot forward.

The tail came up, and as the Flying Beetle inched back the control stick, the Camel took the air in a steep upward climb.

Circling once over the hangars, the Flying Beetle pushed forward the control stick and dived on the banked-up firing range at the far side of the aerodrome. Above the thunder of his engine sounded the staccato rattle of exploding cartridges as he fired a test burst from his synchronized gun.

Then back came the stick again and the scout went up and up into the blue in an almost perpendicular zoom, to level up and swing eastwards towards the line, climbing as it flew.

And back at the hangars far below, the sergeant turned to the watching mechanics.

“I’ll bet a month’s pay,” he said with slow determination, “that if ever the Flying Beetle meets von Platz on either side of the line there’ll be one Boche pilot the less operating over this sector!”

At fifteen thousand feet, the Flying Beetle passed over the trenches and headed eastwards into Germany. He was tensed in his seat, his ever-watchful eyes continually scanning the sky ahead, to port and to starboard.

More than once, also, he turned to sweep with his eyes the sky behind, for he knew the peril of being caught napping by some enemy aircraft coming hurtling down on his tail from out of the blue.

Far below, on the ground, grey-clad columns of German infantry were moving up towards the line. Anti-aircraft guns, busy with the shelling of British R.E.8’s carrying out artillery observation, had little time for the one lone scout so high in the morning sky.

The Fokkers or the guns farther eastwards would attend to him!

On and on roared the Camel, climbing now to eighteen thousand feet. Visibility was excellent, the sky cloudless. Away to starboard something like a ball of cotton-wool came suddenly into being, then dissolved into thin and drifting wraith-like smoke. Another and another appeared, closer now. It was shrapnel.

The pilot saw it and smiled grimly. The German gunners had not got his range yet and he would be past before they could do so. They’d be waiting for him coming back, of course, but a lot might happen before the Camel came winging its homeward way.

Suddenly the pilot stiffened in his seat. Instinctively his hand moved towards the trigger of his synchronized gun. Far ahead, high in the blue, were ten machines heading towards him.

They were mere specks in the sky as yet, but by the time the Flying Beetle had lifted the Camel another thousand feet in a thundering climb, the oncoming machines were near enough to be identified.

They were Fokker scouts!

It was already very evident that they had sighted the Flying Beetle and were roaring on to the attack. But advantage of height lay with the lad and he continued to climb.

Remorselessly, in fighting formation, the Fokkers came thundering on towards the lone Camel. What did it matter to them that the Englander had the momentary advantage of height? Were they not ten to one? The chances were that the Camel would turn and run rather than face certain death by showing fight.

But the Flying Beetle did not turn and run. Steadily he kept on, the nose of his machine up, until the Fokkers were within a quarter of a mile of him and two thousand feet below.

Then forward went his control stick and his gloved finger curled round the trigger of his synchronized gun. With engine thundering at full revolutions he tore down on the Fokker formation, wind shrieking madly through his flying wires and struts, the death snarl of his blazing gun audible above the high-pitched scream of his engine.

Right through the formation he went, and as he pulled back his control stick to go up and up in a wild, soaring zoom, one Fokker went spinning earthwards in flames, its pilot sprawled lifelessly across the controls, his spine shattered by a burst of bullets.

But the nine remaining Fokkers had broken formation, and with black-encased guns viciously ablaze, were driving in at the pilot from every angle.

Bullets tore and whined through the fabric of the Camel’s fuselage and wings, and splintering white wood showed vividly beneath the varnish of riven struts.

Throwing the Camel over in a roll, the Flying Beetle kicked on rudder, and whipping the control stick diagonally across, drove down on the nearest Fokker.

He had a momentary vision of the haggard-faced German crouched over his controls, then in that instant of time when it seemed as though the two machines must smash into each other, the Fokker pilot leapt to his feet, his hands clutching at his torn and lacerated throat.

The control stick of the Fokker jerked forward of its own accord, and as the machine went thundering earthwards in the death plunge with engine racing at full revolutions, the pilot slumped heavily forward and slithered to the floor of the cockpit, shot through the throat.

But there were eight of his companions left to avenge him. Twisting, diving, looping, rolling, the Flying Beetle fought desperately against the overwhelming odds. His left arm was hanging limp and useless and the shoulder of his flying coat was wet with blood. Hemmed in as he was by lurid, flaming guns, he knew that the end was inevitable. Already his fighting scout was lurching drunkenly and his rudder control wires were hanging by strands only.

But if he himself was sorely damaged, the Fokkers themselves had been desperately harried by this grim-faced lad, and two more German scouts went plunging earthwards in the death spin, their pilots limp across the controls, before the end came for the Flying Beetle.

The German leader had pulled out of the fight, manœuvring for position, and now he came thundering down on the Camel’s tail, the cartridge belt whirling madly through the chamber of his Krupp gun.

The Flying Beetle whirled to meet this deadly attack, but as he kicked on rudder, the control wire snapped and the rudder bar swung loosely beneath his booted foot.

In that same moment he felt a searing, agonizing pain across his scalp. His world went black about him, and, as he slumped forward in his seat, the Camel went plunging earthwards out of control.

At five thousand feet the rush of cold air served momentarily to revive the lad and sweep the deadly nausea from his bemused mind. Weakly he hauled himself back off the controls, his gloved fingers groping instinctively for the switch.

The Fokkers, following him down, saw the Camel crash heavily on buckling port wings, then because the ground was rough and wooded, the triumphant leader wheeled the remnants of his formation and drew off in search of a landing place where he could plant his Fokker down without fear of a buckled undercarriage.