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

assoomed names."

"You're a humbug--but here's the kit. Is that of use?"

"Aye."

Tam gathered the garments under his arm and took a solemn farewell.

"Ye'll be meetin' Rabbie again--A' means Angus, Mr. Galbraith--but A'd be glad if ye'd no mention to him that he's weerin' yeer claes."

He went to a distant store and for the rest of the day, with the assistance of a mechanic, he was busy creating the newest recruit to the Royal Flying Corps. Tam was thorough and inventive. He must not only stuff the old suit with wood shavings and straw, but he must unstuff it again, so that he might thread a coil of pliable wire to give the figure the necessary stiffness.

"Ye maun hae a backbone if ye're to be an obsairver, ma mannie," said Tam, "an' noo for yeer bonnie face--Horace, will ye pass me the plaister o' Paris an' A'll gi' ye an eemitation o' Michael Angy-low, the celebrated face-maker."

His work was interluded with comments on men and affairs--the very nature of his task brought into play that sense of humor and that stimulation of fancy to which he responded with such readiness.

"A' doot whither A'll gi'e ye a moostache," said Tam, surveying his handiwork, "it's no necessairy to a fleein'-mon, but it's awfu' temptin' to an airtist."

He scratched his head thoughtfully.

"Ye should be more tanned, Angus," he said and took up the varnish brush.

At last the great work was finished. The dummy was lifelike even outside of the setting which Tam had planned. From the cap (fastened to the plaster head by tacks) to the gloved hands, the figure was all that an officer of the R. F. C. might be, supposing he were pigeon-toed and limp of leg.

* * * * *

The next morning Tam called on Blackie in his office and asked to be allowed to take certain liberties with his machine, a permission which, when it was explained, was readily granted. He went up in the afternoon and headed straight for the enemy's lines. He was flying at a considerable height, and Captain Mueller, who had been on a joy ride to another sector of the line and had descended to his aerodrome, was informed that a very high-flying spotter was treating Archie fire with contempt and had, moreover, dropped random bombs which, by the greatest luck in the world, had blown up a munition reserve.

"I'll go up and scare him off," said Captain Mueller. He focussed a telescope upon the tiny spotter.

"It looks more like a fast scout than a spotter," he said, "yet there are obviously two men in her."

He went up in a steep climb, his powerful engines roaring savagely. It took him longer to reach his altitude than he had anticipated. He was still below the alleged spotter with its straw-stuffed observer when Tam dived for him.

All that the nursing of a highly trained mechanic could give to an engine, all of precision that a cold blue eye and a steady hand could lend to a machine-gun, all that an unfearing heart could throw into that one wild, superlative fling, Tam gave. The engine pulled to its last ounce, the wings and stays held to the ultimate stress.

"Tam!" said Mueller to himself and smiled, for he knew that death had come.

He fired upward and banked over--then he waved his hand in blind salute, though he had a bullet in his heart and was one with the nothingness about him.

Tam swung round and stared fiercely as Mueller's machine fell. He saw it strike the earth, crumple and smoke.

"Almichty God," said the lips of Tam, "look after that yin! He wis a bonnie fichter an' had a gay hairt, an' he knaws richt weel A' had no malice agin him--Amen!"


CHAPTER V

ANNIE--THE GUN


"A've noticed," said Tam, "a deesposition in writin' classes to omit the necessary bits of scenery that throw up the odious villainy of the factor, or the lonely vairtue of the Mill Girl. A forest maiden wi'oot the forest or a hard-workin' factory lass wi'oot a chimney-stalk, is no more convincin' than a seegair band wi'oot the seegair, or an empty pay envelope."

"Why this disquisition on the arts, Tam?" asked Captain Blackie testily.

Three o'clock in the morning, and freezing at that, a dark aerodrome and the ceaseless drum of guns--neither the time, the place nor the ideal accompaniment to philosophy, you might think. Blackie was as nervous as a squadron commander may well be who has sent a party on a midnight stunt, and finds three o'clock marked on the phosphorescent dial of his watch and not so much as a single machine in sight.

"Literature," said Tam easily, "is a science or a disease very much like airmanship. 'Tis all notes of excl'mation an' question mairks, with one full stop an' several semi-comatose crashes--!"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, shut up, Tam!" said Blackie savagely. "Haven't you a cigar to fill that gap in your face?"

"Aye," said Tam calmly, "did ye no' smell it? It's one o' young Master Taunton's Lubricatos an' A'm smokin' it for an endurance test--they're no' so bad, remembering the inexperience an' youth o' ma wee frien'--"

Blackie turned.

"Tam," he said shortly, "I'm just worried sick about those fellows and I wish--"

"Oh, them," said Tam in an extravagant tone of surprise, "they're comin' back, Captain Blackie, sir-r--a' five, one with an engine that's runnin' no' so sweet--that'll be Mister Gordon's, A'm thinkin'."

Captain Blackie turned to the other incredulously.

"You can hear them?" he asked. "I hear nothing."

"It's the smell of Master Taunton's seegair in your ears," said Tam. "For the past five minutes A've been listenin' to the gay music of their tractors, bummin' like the mill hooter on a foggy morn--there they are!"

High in the dark heavens a tiny speck of red light glowed, lingered a moment and vanished. Then another, then a green that faded to white.

"Thank the Lord!" breathed Blackie. "Light up!"

"There's time," said Tam, "yon 'buses are fifteen thoosand up."

They came roaring and stuttering to earth, five monstrous shapes, and passed to the hands of their mechanics.

"Tam heard you," said Blackie to the young leader, stripping his gloves thoughtfully by the side of his machine. "Who had the engine trouble?"

"Gordon," chuckled the youth. "That 'bus is a--"

"Hec, sir!" said Tam and put his hands to his ears.

They had walked across to the commander's office.

"Well--what luck had you?" asked Blackie.

Lieutenant Taunton made a very wry face.

"I rather fancy we got the aerodrome--we saw something burning beautifully as we turned for home, but Fritz has a new searchlight installation _and_ something fierce in the way of Archies. There's a new battery and unless I'm mistaken a new kind of gun--that's why we climbed. They angled the lights and got our range in two calendar seconds and they never left us alone. There was one gun in particular that was almost undodgable. I stalled and side-slipped, climbed and nose-dived, but the devil was always on the spot."

"Hum," said Blackie thoughtfully, "did you mark the new battery?"

"X B 84 as far as I could judge," said the other and indicated a tiny square on the big map which covered the side of the office; "it wasn't worth while locating, for I fancy that my particular friend was mobile--Tam, look out for the Demon Gunner of Bocheville."

"It is computed by state--by state--by fellers that coont," said Tam, "that it takes seven thoosand shells to hit a flyin'-man--by my own elaborate system of calculation, A' reckon that A've five thoosand shells to see before A' get the one that's marked wi' ma name an' address."

And he summarily dismissed the matter from his mind for the night. Forty-eight hours later he found the question of A-A gunnery a problem which was not susceptible to such cavalier treatment.

He came back to the aerodrome this afternoon, shooting down from a great height in one steep run, and found the whole of the squadron waiting for him. Tam descended from the fuselage very solemnly, affecting not to notice the waiting audience, and with a little salute, which was half a friendly nod, he would have made his way to squadron headquarters had not Blackie hailed him.

"Come on, Tam," he smiled. "Why this modesty?"

"Sir-r?" said Tam with well-simulated surprise.

"Let us hear about the gun."

"Ah, the gun," said Tam as though it were some small matter which he had overlooked in the greater business of the day. "Well, now, sir-r, that is _some_ gun, and after A've had a sup o' tea A'll tell you the story of ma reckless exploits."

He walked slowly over to his mess, followed by the badinage of his superiors.

"You saw it, Austin, didn't you?" Blackie turned to the young airman.

"Oh, yes, sir. I was spotting for a howitzer battery and they were firing like a gas-pipe, by the way, right outside the clock--I can't make up my mind what is the matter with that battery."

"Never mind about the battery," interrupted Blackie; "tell us about Tam."

"I didn't see it all," said Austin, "and I didn't know it was Tam until later. The first thing I saw was one of our fellows 'zooming' up at a rare bat all on his lonely. I didn't take much notice of that. I thought it was one of our fellows on a stunt. But presently I could see Archie getting in his grand work. It was a battery somewhere on the Lille road, and it was a scorcher, for it got his level first pop. Instead of going on, the 'bus started circling as though he was enjoying the 'shrap' bath. As far as I could see there were four guns on him, but three of them were wild and late. You could see their bursts over him and under him, but the fourth was a terror. It just potted away, always at his level. If he went up it lived with him; if he dropped it was alongside of him. It was quaint to see the other guns correcting their range, but always a bit after the fair. Of course, I knew it was Tam and I somehow knew he was just circling round trying out the new gun. How he escaped, the Lord knows!"

Faithful to his promise, Tam returned.

"If any of you gentlemen have a seegair--" he asked.

Half a dozen were offered to him and he took them all.

"A'll no' offend any o' ye," he explained, "by refusin' your hospitality. They mayn't be good seegairs, as A've reason to know, but A'll smoke them all in the spirit they are geeven."

He sat down on a big packing-case, tucked up his legs under him and pulled silently at the glowing Perfecto. Then he began:

"At eleven o'clock in the forenoon," said Tam, settling himself to the agreeable task, "in or about the vicinity of La Bas a solitary airman micht ha' been sighted or viewed, wingin' his way leisurely across the fleckless blue o' the skies. Had ye been near enough ye would have obsairved a smile that played aroond his gay young face. In his blue eyes was a look