Tam O' The Scoots, Edgar Wallace [highly recommended books TXT] 📗

smooth floor of the aerodrome and dived upward in a wide circle.

"She's all right," said Thornycroft, shading his eyes; "what's wrong with Tam, I wonder?"

"Tam doesn't funk a thing," protested Blackie, "I've never known him--my God!"

Apparently nothing happened--only the machine without warning buckled up and broke two thousand feet in the air, a wing dropped off and a crumpled thing, which bore no resemblance to an airplane, dropped straight as a plummet to earth.

It fell less than a hundred yards from the aerodrome and Mr. Theodore Mann was dead when they pulled him from the wreckage.

Blackie directed the salvage work and returned a very thoughtful man. When Tam returned from his tour he sent for him.

"You have heard the news, I suppose?"

Tam nodded gravely.

"Now, tell me, Tam," said Blackie, "did you feel anything wrong with the machine--why did you bring her down?"

"Sir-r," said Tam, "I'll no' romance an' A'm tellin' ye Flyin'-Coor truth. I saw nothin' an' felt nothin'--the engines were guid an' sweet an' she swung like a leddy, but--"

"But?"

"Weel, what would ye say if ye were zoomin' up an' of a sudden, for no reason, yeer hair stood up an' yeer flesh went creepy an' yeer mouth grew as dry as Sunday morning? An' there was a cauld, cauld sensation under yeer belt an' the skin aboot yeer eyes was all strained and ye smelt things an' tasted things sharper, as if all yeer senses was racin' like the propeller of a boat when her bow goes under water?"

Blackie shivered. "That's how you felt, eh?" he asked. "Well, you needn't explain further, Tam."

"'Tis the airman's sixty-sixth sense," said Tam. "If he's worried or sad that sixty-sixth sense gets thrown up and becomes more veevid, if ye'll understand me."

"Worried? Sad?" said Blackie quickly. "What's worrying you, Tam? Haven't you had your pay this month?"

Tam smiled slowly. "What that young fellow, Cox, is doing wi' ma fortune doesna keep me awake at nights," he said; "the MacTavishes are feckless, extravagant bodies and it no' concairns me whether ma balance is one poond or two."

"What is worrying you?" asked Blackie.

"Weel," said Tam slowly, "A'm just a wee bit grieved. A frien' o' mine is leaving France."

"Friend of yours?" said Blackie. "Who is your friend?"

"He is a braw big fellow about six foot high wi' muscular arms and curly hair," said Tam. "His name's Jamie Macfarlane, and his mither's a leddy in her own right."

Thus embarked upon his career of mendacity the artist in Tam compelled him to complete the picture.

"We were at school together, Angus and A'."

"You said Jamie just now, Tam," reproved Blackie.

"Angus is his second name," said the glib Tam; "we were brought up in the same village, the village of Glascae, and tramped off to the same college at six every morning when the bummer went. There'd we sit, me and Alec."

"Angus," suggested Blackie.

"Me and Alec Angus Jamie Macfarlane," said the undisturbed Tam, "listenin' wi' eager ears to the discoorses of Professor Ferguson who took the Chair in Rivets at the Govan Iron Works Seminary, drinkin' out of the same mug--"

"Tam, you're lying," said Blackie; "what is really worrying you and who's your friend?"

Tam heaved a sigh. "Ah, weel," he said, "A' shall be wanting to go into Amiens, to-night, Captain Blackie, sir-r, and A've a graund poem at the back of me heid that A'd like to be writing. You'll no' be wanting me?"

"Not till four," said Captain Blackie; "I want you to stand by then in case Fritz tries something funny. The circus paid a visit to 89 yesterday evening and it may be our turn to-night."

Tam closed and locked the door of his room, produced a large pad of writing-paper, an ink-well, and fitted his pen with a new nib before he began his valedictory poem.

Never had a poem been more difficult to write to this ready versifier. He crossed out and rewrote, he destroyed sheet after sheet before the rough work of his hands was ready for polishing.

"How may a puir wee airman fly
When ye have carried off his sky?"

the verse began, and perhaps those were the two most extravagant lines in the farewell verse.

He wrote a fair copy, folded it carefully, inserted it into an envelope and slipped it into his breast pocket. He was to see Vera that night and had no other feeling but one of blank helplessness, for he had neither the right nor the desire to reveal by one word his closely guarded secret, a secret which he fondly believed was shared by none.

His plan was to give her the envelope on the promise that it should not be opened and read until she had reached America. He had invented and carefully rehearsed certain cautious words of farewell, so designed that she might accept them on the spot as conventional expressions of his regret at her leaving, but pondering them afterward, could discover in these simple phrases a hint of his true sentiment.

Such was the difficulty of composition that he was late for parade. All the squadron which was not actually engaged in routine duty was present. Ordinarily they would have been dismissed after the briefest wait, but to-day Blackie kept gunners, observers and pilots standing by their machines.

At half-past four Blackie hurried across from his office. "There's a general alarm," he said. "Everybody is to go up. Tam, take number six and patrol the area."

As the machines rose a big motor-car came flying on to the ground and two staff officers alighted.

Blackie turned and saluted his brigadier. "We only just got the message through, sir," he said.

The general nodded. "It was signalled to me on the road," he said; "I expected it. Who is in charge of that flight?"

"Mr. MacTavish, sir."

"Tam, eh?" The general nodded his approval. "The circus is getting big and bold," he said; "Fritz has a new machine and he is making the most of it. There they come, the beauties!"

He slipped his field-glasses from the case at his belt and focused them upon the sky. The enemy came, a graceful V-shaped flight of monstrous geese, throbbing and humming, and the wandering patrols above changed direction and flew to meet them.

As at a signal the V parted at the fork, each angle divided and subdivided into two, so that where one broad arrow-head had been, were four diamonds. The anti-aircraft guns were staining the evening skies brown and white till the attacking squadrons came gliding like tiny flies into the disturbed area, when the gun-fire ceased.

And now friend and enemy were so mixed that it needed an expert eye to distinguish them. They circled, climbed, dived, looped over and about one another, and it seemed as if the tendency of the oncoming wave was to retire.

"They're going. They've had enough," said the general.

Two machines were wobbling to earth, one in a blaze, whilst a third planed down toward the enemy's lines. The fighters were going farther and farther away, all except three machines that seemed engaged in weaving an invisible thread one about the other.

Under and over, round, up, down, and all the time the ceaseless chatter of machine-guns.

Then one side-slipped, recovered and dropped on his tail to earth. The fight was now between two machines, the maneuvers were repeated, the same knitting of some queer design until--

"Got him!" yelled the general.

The German plane fell in that slow spiral which told its own tale to the expert watchers. Then suddenly his nose went down and he crashed.

"Who's the man? Tam, for a ducat!"

Blackie nodded.

Tam's machine was planing down to earth.

"He'll miss the aerodrome," said the general.

"That's not Tam's way of returning at all," said Blackie with knitted brows.

The machine dropped in the very field where the "Sausage-Killer" had been brought down a week before. It did not skim down but landed awkwardly, swaying from side to side until it came to a stand-still.

Blackie was racing across the field. He reached the machine and took one glance at the pilot. Then he turned to the mechanic who followed at his heels.

"'Phone an ambulance," he said; "they've got Tam at last."

For Tam sat limply in his seat, his chin on his breast, his hand still clasped about the bloody grip of his machine-gun.

* * * * *

The matron beckoned Vera.

"Here's your last job, Vera," she said with a smile. "Take your car to the aerodrome. One of the pilots has been killed."

Vera stared. "At the aerodrome?"

Control it as she might, her voice shook.

"Yes--didn't you see the fight in the air?"

"I came out as it was finishing--oh, may I take the ambulance?"

The matron looked at her in wonder. "Yes, child, take the Stafford car," she nodded to an ambulance which waited on the broad drive.

Without another word Vera ran to the car and cranked it up. As she climbed into the driver's seat she felt her knees trembling.

"Please God, it isn't Tam!" she prayed as she drove the little car along the aerodrome road; "not Tam, dear Lord--not Tam!"

And yet, by the very panic within her she knew it was Tam and none other.

"To the left, I think."

She looked round in affright.

She had been oblivious to the fact that a doctor had taken his seat by her side--it was as though he had emerged from nothingness and had assumed shape and substance as he spoke.

She turned her wheel mechanically, bumped across a little ditch and passed through a broken fence to where a knot of men were regarding something on the ground.

She hardly stopped the ambulance before she leapt out and pushed her way through the group.

"Tam!" she whispered and at that moment Tam opened his eyes. He looked in wonder from face to face, then his eyes rested on the girl.

She was down on her knees by his side in a second and her hand was under his head.

"Tam!" she whispered and thrilled at the look which came into his blue eyes.

Then before them all she bent her head and kissed him.

"From which moment," said Blackie afterward, "Tam began one of the most remarkable recoveries medical science has ever recorded. He had three bullets through his chest, one through his shoulder-blade, and two of his ribs were broken."

Tam closed his eyes. "Vera," he murmured.

She looked up, self-possessed, and eyed Blackie steadily as the doctor stooped over the stricken man on the other side and gingerly felt for the wounds.

"Tam is going to live, Captain Blackie," she said, "because he knows I want him to--don't you, dear?"

"Aye--lassie," said Tam faintly.

"Because--because," she said, "we are going to be married, aren't we, Tam?"

He nodded and she stooped to listen. "Say it--in--Scotch."

She said it--in his ear, her eyes bright and shining, her face as pink as the sunset flooding the scene and then she got