CHAPTER XXII

THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME

Within the next two minutes Jimmy reversed his opinion that the end had come. True, they were still dropping, but at the instigation of a master hand on the controls, the Voisin was once more obeying its pilot and volplaning easily earthward.

Now they were not more than two hundred feet from the ground and hanging over a ruined farmhouse. Some distance behind it stood a dilapidated barn. A little below the barn was an orchard of apple trees which sloped gradually down to open meadow land.

At a point in the meadow close to the orchard, the plane finally made harbor. As it touched ground Jimmy peered anxiously about for signs of human beings. German soldiers could not be far away. Behind the German lines, as they were, they could not hope to escape being seen and fired upon.

Strangely enough, no shots were fired as the plane made a landing. Over all hung the mystery of dawn, broken only by the pounding of the guns on the battle lines. Jimmy had fully expected to fight for his life the instant he reached terra firma. It dazed him to find himself behind the German lines, for even a moment, unmolested.

"We are in a most dangerous locality, _mon cher_ Blaise." Voissard had already left the machine and was circling it, making a hasty examination as he went. "We must leave here at once!" he continued. "It was either this or perhaps a fall when over the Boche lines. I knew not the extent of damage done by that Archie. It has lost me my good Gaston. That is, indeed, a loss. I am deeply grieved. Yet this is not the occasion for the grief. A moment and I shall know how quickly we may ascend. I knew this spot and determined thus to take the risk of one little moment's landing."

"Is there anything I can do, sir?" Jimmy eagerly offered. "Perhaps I can help----"

"Wait."

Voissard dived into the car, returning with a pair of revolvers and a box of cartridges.

"Take these and stand guard," he ordered, offering one of the revolvers to Jimmy. "Should a Boche soldier appear, shoot him on sight. It is yet early and we are some distance from the enemy trenches. Still there is always the outpost guard or the patrol to reckon with. Again, this is of a truth a fitting spot for an early morning execution."

Obediently mounting guard, Jimmy stood at alert while the aviator busied himself with his machine. For twenty minutes he remained thus, his ears cocked for the slightest hostile sound, his eyes keeping a bright lookout.

"It is well!" the aviator at length exclaimed, raising up from the engine. "The damage to the plane has been, after all, small. We shall regain our lines easily, provided we can escape enemy planes on our way. We cannot fight as we have no Gaston. The enemy guns we may escape by flying high. Come; into the seat, my boy. We must lose no time. Do not fail to strap yourself in."

Motioning him into the observer's seat, Voissard turned sorrowfully to the crumpled form of the bomber. It had slid well down into the seat Gaston had been occupying when killed. Strapping the body securely, so that it could not tumble out, the aviator sighed:

"_Mon pauvre ami_," he mourned. "It is the best I can do for you until we have reached our station."

Very grimly he strode to the propeller. Starting the engine he leaped into the pilot's seat. The engine responding with a deafening roar, the plane began to roll over the soft ground.

His revolver in readiness, Jimmy kept his eyes trained earthward as they left the meadow and took to the air. Again they passed over the orchard and were on the point of spiraling upward when a shout issued from Jimmy's lips that Voissard heard even above the noise of the engine.

Simultaneous with it a revolver spoke. Instantly Cousin Emile looked down and understood. Shutting off the motor, he volplaned and made skilful landing on an open space between the barn and the orchard. Before the plane touched earth, the revolver had spoken again.

"Oh, the brutes! The dirty, yellow brutes! Thank God, I've done for two of 'em!"

Another shot accompanied Jimmy's hoarse exclamation, shouted in a perfect frenzy of loathing. Out there in the stillness of the morning, Jimmy had come upon the thing which will forever brand the Germans as fiends incarnate. Half a dozen Boches were about to crucify an American soldier.

Looking down, his eyes had come to rest on the barn. Grouped about the closed door were half a dozen German soldiers. He caught a glimpse of a hatless, olive-drab figure, spread-eagled against the door. He saw the gleam of bayonets--then he shouted and in the same instant fired his revolver.

Intent on their fiendish work, the crucifiers had paid no attention to the purr of the aeroplane's engine. They were not looking for an enemy plane so far behind their own lines.

At Jimmy's first shot a Boche threw up his arms and dropped. Instantly the other five whirled and left their victim, whose outspread arms were bound to two staples hastily driven into the door. Then another Hun clutched his breast and pitched forward. A third fell, shot through the head.

Always cowardly when cornered, two of the remaining trio took one look at the plane and ran. Only one stood his ground. Bayonet discarded, he pulled an automatic pistol and opened fire on Jimmy.

A shot from Voissard's revolver pierced the Hun's left arm. Jimmy fired again. He thought he had missed his man, and was about to try again when he saw the Boche sway, take a tottering step forward, and collapse forward in a heap on the ground.

The plane having rolled along a few yards and come to a standstill, Jimmy and the aviator leaped out of it and ran to the rescue of the trussed Sammy.

"My poor fellow----"

Sheer amazement checked the expression of sympathy that welled to Cousin Emile's lips. His young friend Blaise was laughing and crying and hugging the man fastened to the door as though quite bereft of his senses.

"Oh, Schnitz! _Oh, Schnitz!_" Jimmy sobbed out wildly.

"Blazes, my--bunkie!" Down Schnitzel's wan cheeks the tears were streaming.

Then Voissard knew and his own eyes blurred. For a moment he stood back, saying nothing. Realization of their peril made not only speech but prompt action necessary. Whipping a clasp knife from a coat pocket he opened it and proceeded to cut Schnitzel loose from the door. This done he offered his hand to the German-American, saying simply: "Thanks to _le bon Dieu_, we arrived in time. Now we must leave here instantly. Two of the beasts have escaped. They will give the alarm and a patrol will be sent out against us. We must make haste or perhaps all suffer the fate intended for you. The Boches will be much enraged over the loss of these _canaille_."

Voissard scornfully indicated the four dead Boches, sprawling hideously on the ground, the result of Jimmy's ability to shoot to kill.

"I'd forgotten the dogs for the moment." Turning from Schnitzel, Jimmy's face registered the utmost loathing as his eyes took in the ugly but satisfactory sight.

"Just a second and then we'll beat it. Come here, Blazes."

Schnitzel strode over to one of the dead, lying face downward in the mud. Grasping the body by the shoulders, he turned it viciously on its back. It was clothed in the uniform of a Boche captain.

Jimmy peered down at the ghastly, black-bearded face. The dead man's eyes, wide open, stared malignantly up at him.

"The tiger man!" burst from his amazed lips.

At the cry, Voissard sprang to his side. Together the three men stood looking down for an instant at that glassy-eyed, wicked face.

"And _I_ got him!"

Jimmy spoke in awed, unbelieving tones.

"Come," Voissard warned sharply. "To the plane. The explanation of this must wait. I doubt not that it must be of a truth amazing."

"It is," Schnitzel grimly assured.

With one accord the three turned and hurried to the spot where the aeroplane stood. Turning his revolver over to Schnitzel, the aviator ordered them into the plane, provided Schnitzel with an extra coat and cap which had belonged to Gaston, and made hurried preparations to rise. The open space between the barn and orchard was large and level enough to permit of an easy get-away.

Hardly had the plane left the ground when the dreaded patrol appeared. It was composed of at least a dozen Boches. They charged through the orchard, shooting as they came. Bullets whistled past the plane, but failed to touch it.

Spiraling on upward, the plane drew away from the orchard and beyond range of Boche rifles. Higher and higher it flew and found protection above a long gray cloud-bank. The morning sky heavily overcast, Cousin Emile looked to the friendly clouds to shield them in their flight over the German lines.

Once well above the clouds, Schnitzel had laid aside his revolver and turned his attention to the machine gun. Finding a fresh belt of cartridges close beside it, he removed the spent belt, which Gaston had used up in the attack on the Aviatik, and loaded the gun for ready use.

Traveling at high speed half an hour's run would see them clear of the German lines. As they continued the flight the clouds began to scatter and the sun came out. Above No Man's Land they broke from the clouds and in the same instant encountered a foe. Not far ahead and above them flew an Aviatik on its way back to the German lines. It had also been taking advantage of the cloud curtain.

Each pilot saw his enemy in the same moment. Without a gunner, Voissard realized that in flight lay the only chance of safety. He must dash straight on under the Aviatik and win clear of it if he could. Its speed being greater than that of his own plane, he already regarded himself as doomed.

As the plane darted on in a swift, level course, Voissard's ears caught a dim rattling sound that briefly startled him. Had Gaston come to life? A flashing glance over his shoulder revealed not Gaston, but Schnitzel, at the machine gun. Schnitzel had acted with lightning swiftness. His carefully gathered knowledge of guns and aircraft now saved the day.

Behind the Aviatik and on an even keel under it, he knew their position to be ideal for hitting the Boche plane. Having made ready for any emergency, he had opened fire at the right moment. A rain of bullets hit the Aviatik squarely. One of them toppled the pilot over. Others must have struck a vital point of the machine, for it began to stagger. Fairly riddled by bullets, the doomed plane lurched wildly, turned half over, and began a last tumultuous, uncontrolled descent to earth. Schnitzel had indeed made good as a gunner.

The Aviatik done to death, the flight was swiftly continued. Now over the American lines the danger momentarily lessened. In the distance they saw three French planes chasing a Boche Albatross that was making a desperate effort to get away from its pursuers.

They came at last to the aviation station and were received jubilantly by a group of shouting aviators who had run out to meet them. It had been feared by those who had taken part in the bombing expedition that Voissard had made his last flight.

Clambering out of the aeroplane, it seemed to Jimmy Blaise as though he was returning to reality from a strange dream. Only the living, breathing presence of Schnitz, his bunkie, standing beside him, assured him that he had not dreamed. His "hunch" that Schnitz and he would meet again had not been an idle one. Out of the very jaws of death, Schnitz had come back.