Part 2

Tex searched the sky with his eyes, climbed the Nieuport. He saw no other planes. The American ship had reached an altitude of twelve thousand feet; he guessed that the other two planes were flying just beneath the clouds, at about fifteen thousand. There was no sun, and darkness was not far away.

At thirteen thousand feet he leveled off. The two ships heading toward the Allied lines had suddenly piqued; they were diving at his ship but then he saw that he was mistaken. Across the lines, winging back toward the Allied side, was a tiny plane. She was flying with a wing droop and it was upon her that the two other planes were dropping!

Tex dove the Nieuport. She slanted down across the lines, her nose pointed toward German territory. He could distinguish the other two diving ships now. They were both Fokkers of the fighting type. The plane below, he guessed, was an Allied ship--trying to get back across the lines.

That ship was almost over the lines, and the German pilots had stretched their drive, thus allowing Tex to gain on them. He was within a hundred yards of the nearest enemy ship before the pilot saw him. Instantly the enemy zoomed.

Tex, lips pressed tightly together, pulled back slightly on the stick. The Fokker’s zoom failed. A long burst of lead from Tex’s Browning streamed down into the cockpit of the enemy plane. As Tex pulled all the way back on the stick, zooming and then going over on a wing, he saw the second Fokker cease to dive on the ship below.

He pulled the Nieuport around in a vertical bank, stared over the side. The Fokker on which he had come down was dropping in an uncontrolled spin. The pilot had been hit! The other Fokker was trying to get altitude, but her pilot had been forced to pull her over level, after her first zoom.

* * * * *

Tex leveled out of the bank, dove on her with engine half on. She dove instantly and he saw that she was going down after the wingdrooping plane below. That plane, he saw now, was a Nieuport! And a Sixteenth Squadron Nieuport!

The Fokker gained rapidly on the crippled American plane. Tex dove with engine power adding speed. The Fokker swept down behind and slightly below the Nieuport then zoomed, leaving a tracer stream in the sky, slanting back of the wing-drooping ship. Again her pilot had missed by a narrow margin.

But this time the German pilot pulled his ship up and over, and at the peak of the zoom, as she was on her back, he did a nice Immelman. In a flash the Fokker had righted herself. Less than fifty yards of air separated her from Tex’s Nieuport now, Both guns spat streams of lead at the same second.

The German pilot’s lead was low. It passed beneath the under-gear of the Nieuport. Tex zoomed as the enemy shape flashed close. Flames were shooting up from the engine of the German ship. But she zoomed, too. The Nieuport jerked sickeningly. The controls were loose in Tex’s grip! The Fokker pilot, knowing he was finished, had rammed the Nieuport from below, striking the tail assembly with a wing-tip!

Tex Langdon felt the Nieuport go into a side slip. He tried to get her out of it, failed. She was slipping off on her right wing, toward the brown-grey line of the earth, almost a thousand feet below!

He jerked his head. The second Fokker was going down in a straight nose dive, flames shooting back from her. And toward the ground fog to the westward winged the crippled Nieuport that he had saved from the two enemy planes.

* * * * *

Wind tore at Tex Langdon’s helmet. He moved the stick to the right, expecting to feel no pressure, believing that the tail assembly had been carried away in the crash. But there was pressure. He kicked right rudder. The slip ceased but the Nieuport was now diving at terrific speed, less than five hundred feet from the earth!

Slowly he pulled back on the stick. He cut the throttle speed down, held his breath. And slowly the nose of the Nieuport came up. The tail assembly was still sticking in place, although the ship answered sluggishly.

He advanced the throttle to three-quarter speed. The plane was headed toward the Squadron. She was flying less than three hundred feet above the earth, and there could be no maneuvering now. The Nieuport would have to be flown level, carefully. The slightest piece of overcontrolling might rip the damaged tail assembly from the fuselage.

Tex Langdon stared ahead, down. He groaned. He had forgotten the ground fog. It was spread over the earth, in the direction of the Squadron, like a grey-white blanket. Even below the ship now, the first wisps of it were drifting. And far ahead was the wing-drooping Nieuport, vanishing from sight into the grey stuff.

Tex stiffened in the cockpit. Lieutenant Adams, once more winging away from his plane in the fog! He couldn’t be sure of it but he could guess. He had saved Adams from going down with Boche lead in his plane and body and the lieutenant again was winging in to leave him alone. Even with a drooping wing, he might have waited. Lieutenant Harrington _would_ have waited. It was Adams, all right.

He reached for the throttle, but then he muttered to himself suddenly. The Nieuport that had vanished into the fog was in sight again! She was banking around, coming back!

Tex held the little combat ship in level flight. He watched the other plane come on, his eyes wide. Her left wing drooped badly; she had banked around to the right. He caught sight of a helmeted head, an arm held out in the prop wash. The two ships rushed past each other. Tex stared back. Once again the Nieuport was banking to the right. She came around sluggishly, gained slowly on the throttled down sister plane.

* * * * *

Side by side, with less than twenty feet of grey air between the wing-tips, they flew now. And Tex recognized Lieutenant Adams. That officer was pointing toward his left wing-tip, which was in tatters toward the trailing edge, with one strut twisting back in the wind. The officer got a hand out in the prop wash, tilted it downward in a mild degree. Tex nodded. He pointed back toward his ship’s tail assembly, saw Lieutenant Adams twist his head, stare back.

And then the veteran lieutenant nodded his head and banked slightly to the southward. Tex banked, too, very gently. The other Nieuport was nosing downward now and Tex moved the stick forward a bit. The movements of his plane were very sluggish, uncertain.

Fog swept over both planes. Tex flew with his head half turned, watching the wing-tips of the other ship. Several times they were lost from sight, but each time he picked them up again. Both ships were flying throttled down. Seconds passed and they seemed hours. The fog was growing thicker.

And then, very suddenly, the fog cleared. A slope seemed to rise out of it. Lieutenant Adams banked sharply away from Tex’s Nieuport. His plane’s nose came down. Tex banked his plane, cut the throttle. Below was a fairly level field with very little fog on it. Even as the Nieuport glided downward, he saw the wheels and tail-skid of the other officer’s ship strike.

And then he was stalling the tail-damaged ship. He was within ten feet of the earth when something snapped under the strain. The nose whipped downward. There was a grinding crash as the prop splintered into the earth. Tex tried to protect his head but failed. Something battered him backward. There was a flash of yellow light and then everything went black.

* * * * *

Tex Langdon recovered consciousness slowly. His head ached; he raised a hand to bandages wound about it. Slowly he blinked the dizziness away from his eyes, wet his oil-stained lips with the tip of his tongue. He looked around.

He was propped up against the wreckage of a plane. There were khaki-clad figures moving in the mud of a field, against a back-ground of drifting fog. He turned his head slightly. The eyes of Lieutenant Adames smiled at him.

“Feel rotten, ’eh? But you _do_ feel! That’s something.”

Lieutenant Tex Langdon managed a painful grin. It was _more than_ something, he thought, It was everything. His blue eyes narrowed on Lieutenant Adams’ dark ones.

“You--came back--” he muttered thickly. “You got--me--down here--”

Adams grunted. “Didn’t quite do that Tex,” he stated grimly. “That tail-assembly of yours collapsed before you set her down. Figured this lope would have less fog and headed for it.”

“You came back--” Tex persisted. “After you winged into the white stuff.”

Lieutenant Adams swore softly. “You and I, Lieutenant--we’ve been acting up,” he said slowly. “You may crack up your own ships, but you cracked up two other ships, today! And you saved my neck. I couldn’t wing out on you, Tex. Figured I might be able to bank around, without the droop getting me into a slip. It was pretty rotten--winging out on you. Didn’t know, though, that you had a crippled ship.”

Tex grinned feebly. “It was damn white--after what I’ve said to you, Adams--” he said slowly. “We’ve both been--pretty thick.”

He fumbled for a cigaret, found two. Adams lighted them up. They inhaled appreciatively.

“Pretty thick--” Lieutenant Adams was agreeing. “Sort of like--”

He stopped, grinned broadly. Tex nodded. He raised his eyes slightly.

“Like the ground fog, Adams,” he muttered. He closed his eyes. “But we--got out of it.”

And Lieutenant Adams, smiling grimly, nodded his head.

“We cleared up, Tex,” he muttered, “just about in time!”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January, 1929 issue of Triple-X Magazine.]