Straightway the biplane, with the body of Stanley still nestling in the bottom of the observer"s, manhole, was shooting downward in a gradual slant towards the two trains. One of these was filled with soldiers, at least a brigade, for the train was a long one. The one ahead seemed to be loaded with munitions and with artillery on the rear cars.

Swooping down closer, Blaine laid his plan. When within three hundred feet he saw some Archies posted at a crossroads who at once began firing. In his present mood he would have cared little for any obstacle as yet untried.

Above the noise of his propellers he detected something behind, and, turning, what was his amazement to see Stanley"s ashen gray face peering up over the observer"s seat. Blaine was startled, as if he looked at a ghost.

"Get down, boy!" he adjured. "You ain"t strong enough. Get down!

I"ve got a stiff job just ahead. Give me time and room."

Whether Stanley understood or not Blaine was not certain. But just then the stricken man crumpled back again into his former nest at the bottom of the manhole. A slow groan came up.

"Poor chap! He"s in misery, no doubt. But I"ve just got to try this job --"

Just then the Archies began to cut loose, but Blaine went to zigzagging, at the same time increasing his speed, swooping still lower -- lower. At last directly over the front train, with machine guns, Archies, and rifles peppering away at him, he let go with one side of his bomb rack. With the sound of the resultant explosion he wheeled and let go the other.

Both racks landed directly upon the leading train loaded, as Blaine suspected, with all sorts of ammunition.

Instantly he pressed the upward controls and his machine darted on towards the rear just in time to escape the tremendous blaze and roar as that string of loaded cars began to explode one after another. The noise, flames and confusion were indescribable. Regardless of the still up flying shrapnel and shot, the daring man turned loose the controls and instantly whipped into place another rack or two of bombs.

By this time he was directly in the path and, right over the long troop train already slowing down to avoid collision with the exploding ammunition train. This in itself was almost impossible, so closely had one train followed the other, a most incautious thing to do.

He felt that his big spread of wings offered too great a bombarding surface to the forces at the crossroads below, but he was bound to finish the job so well begun, no matter what resulted to himself and Stanley.

Still further down he went, and at the pivotal instant began again with the first rack of bombs. Down they flow, crashing upon car after car.

Though half conscious of something at his rear and left, he did not dream the cause until, turning, he saw Stanley"s pallid face contracting with pain. The observer was shoving forward the second rack into the essential groove for firing. Blaine in his baste had missed fixing it in the notch necessary for accurate discharge. At untold bodily cost to himself Stanley had again risen and completed the task, just in time for the second rack to fall along the rear half of the train, the last bombs crashing into the rear engine pushing the heavy train from behind.

So far as could be seen from above the wrecking of the two trains was complete. Amid the din of exploding munitions rose the cries of hundreds of wounded, dying men, while the debris of the burning wreckage was strewn up and down the single track for a mile or more.

As Stanley sank back again, more deathlike than ever, Blaine put on all his power and strove to rise. Still roared the anti-aircraft guns, the machine guns and the rest of the snipers below; that is, all that were still on the job after the terrifying disaster so deftly accomplished by Blaine.

The biplane would not rise to any great degree. But it would travel at a gentle upward trend and as rapidly as ever.

Off he flew, more than anxious to get out of; range from the vengeful fire that pursued him.

Another groan from Stanley. Blaine, looking back, saw the lad crumpling up with a new red stain trickling down his scalp.

"How I would like to help him!" thought the pilot. "But the only chance for either of us is to keep on and get out of this h.e.l.l."

For a wonder there did not appear any more Boche fliers, and as soon as he was outside the immediate range of the Archies, Blaine found that he was sailing northeastward over an opaquely indistinct expanse of country which he felt in his bones must be that of the foe.

CHAPTER XVII

BUCK AND THE BOCHE ALOFT

Meanwhile what had become of Buck Bangs, whom we left following the Boche flier that had first a.s.saulted him, but who soon seemed to have enough of the game?

The truth was that Buck, who was plucky to the core, did not want to give up and return to the home base any more than did Blaine. Both were fighters and loath to abandon what looked like success as long as there seemed a chance to win out.

As he had told the Walsen girl once, when she remonstrated with him upon his temerity in the face of what more than once looked like certain death:

"Reckon I don"t know that, miss? You bet I do! But, somehow, death don"t come just then and -- and I keep on riskin" some more. I - I guess I"m jest built that way."

The German, who was rather clumsy, kept on along his eastward flight, with Buck in hot pursuit. Getting closer, Bangs again opened up with his Lewis. What was his surprise to see the clumsy German crumple up in his seat and fall forward, his hands and part of his arms out of sight, as well as the other could see in the starlit night.

"I believe I got him at last," thought Buck, maneuvering to a closer position. "I"ll fill him and his tank full of holes, then see what has happened."

But just before Buck came into position, the German"s plane suddenly veered athwart the nose of the other and deftly dove almost directly downward. The turn was a surprise. But Buck instantly knew that no machine, unless some one was handling the controls, would do a thing like that. Instantly he knew that the clumsiness of that Boche must have been a.s.sumed for the purpose of inducing Bangs to follow, thus leading the two planes away from the Allied squadron.

"Fritzy is sharper than I gave him credit for being," thought Buck.

"But he"ll not get under me in that way without doing more stunts yet."

Instantly the nimble scout machine darted upward, at the same time turning on its tail in such a way as to bring both opponents side by side with Buck now still higher up. By the time the German had gotten into a firing position Buck had his Nieuport slanted nose downward and pointing straight at the enemy. But scarcely had this been done, before the German was veering off to the left and sliding down, down with scarcely conceivable rapidity.

Instantly Buck was after him, and for several minutes the two spiraled, twisted, dove, looped and performed other aerial feats accomplished only by expert fliers. By this time both were undeceived as to the skill of their opponents. Each knew that his adversary was worthy of all the dexterity and strategy the other might employ.

And all this in the dark, as it were. That is, in the dark as darkness is in the upper air, a sort of transparent twilight, when the mists are either absent or the light haze is as a gauze curtain stretched between our eyes and an upper light beyond.

At length the German, no longer clumsy, but most expert, seemed to be waving something that looked white. Then came a low megaphone call that made Bangs wonder if his ears were all right. It came in good United States English.

"Hullo, you!" it began. "Let"s rest a bit and have a pow-wow!"

Buck could still hardly believe that he really heard, and he hesitated.

Finally he returned:

"Don"t know you! You talk like us, but you act like a Hun. Can"t trust you Huns further than you"d -"

"Aw-come on down! I"m tired of fightin" a will-o"-the-wisp like you.

Been in Akron lately?"

"Don"t know the burg. Montana"s my stampin" ground -- when I"m home."

"I used to live in Akron -- worked in the rubber factories. Come on down. I know a good place. We can yarn there -- mebbe have a zwie-bier."

The two machines were now hardly fifty yards apart, with the German rather lower down than Buck.

"Not much, old man! I don"t know you, I say. Now -- you watch out!

I"m --"

But Buck never finished that sentence. The German, having consumed as much time as he thought proper with his hyperbolical peace propaganda, suddenly dove sideways, executing what is now known as the Emmelin turn, that would bring him, nose up, somewhat below and on the other side of Bangs.

But Buck was not to be caught napping by any Hun making seemingly friendly proposals. Before the German had more than half executed the maneuver, Bangs was already shooting upwards in a zigzag course and by the time the other had gotten into position, Buck was swinging round far above, from whence, to outdo the other, he pointed his Nieuport downward pointblank at the fuselage of the German"s Taube.

Swiftly he came, apparently reckless of consequences. It so turned out that the Boche did exactly what Bangs thought he would do: tried to avoid the descending avalanche. His machine swung to the right, yet not enough to clear the other. Full tilt the Nieuport struck the nearly motionless Taube near the center of the fuselage. Nieuports are strong and sharp in their prow, and the metal edge clove through the side of the German machine not unlike one destroyer ramming another.

At the same instant Bangs, pointing his Lewis gun obliquely downward, sent a spatter of bullets full into his opponent just before the collision occurred.

Smash went in the side of the Taube. An instant before, the shower of bullets had penetrated not only the petrol tank but also the body of the too plausible German. Antic.i.p.ating what might happen, Buck clapped down upon his rudder, reversing his engine, and drew back from the shattered enemy just in time to escape the burst of flame that almost at once enveloped both man and machine.