CHAPTER XXIV.
LOFTY GUN PRACTICE.
When the identity of the Russian aircraft had been established, the bigship was landed, and the aviators mingled with the soldiers on shore.Henri was particularly active in making the rounds among the Frenchcontingent.
He had been separated from his companions for less than a half hour,when they saw him coming, with a joy-illumined face and a skip betweenevery other step. At Henri's side, but at a more dignified pace andlooking every inch a soldier in the uniform of a French artilleryman,walked a youth who commanded immediate recognition from Billy.
"Hello, Francois," cried the Bangor boy, rushing forward withoutstretched hand, and the newcomer so hurried his stride that he camemore than half way with his warm return of happy greeting.
"The world isn't so wide, after all," laughingly declared Henri. "Whatdo you think of us running up against one another in this out of the wayneck of the woods? It is the remotest thing on earth that would haveentered my mind. But isn't it great?"
The boys had last seen Francois, Henri's brother, in a hospital atwar-torn Arras, these many days agone, and how much of history had beenwritten in red since that meeting!
Francois, then pale, worn and suffering from a serious wound, was nowstraight as an arrow, ruddy of cheek, and in gallant array of blue andred.
"I've heard all about how you and brother here," he said to Billy,"saved for mother the family fortune, and it would make your ears burnwere I to tell you all else that has been related of your courage andfidelity."
"Go lightly on that, please," was Billy's modest plea; "let's talk aboutsomething different--cabbages or kings, for instance."
Francois laughed. "Same old boy, I see, bound to bloom under cover. Oh,well, you can't get away from your record, so have it as you please."
"Say, Billy," broke in Henri, "I haven't had a chance to tell youbefore, but the bold Britons have broken into Enos, and that stormcaused us to miss the grand entry. It was something of a scrap, too, Ihear."
"Don't worry about that," observed Francois; "just take a run over toSmyrna instead; you will get all the thrills you desire there alongabout now--the allies' aviators are scattering bombs all over theplace."
"There's a chance for the 'Sikorsky' to show them a thing or two in theway of distributing fireworks."
Henri recalled the showering the Russian lieutenants gave Constantinopleas they passed over the ancient city coming down from the Bosphorus.
"What's your route?" inquired Billy.
"Don't know exactly," replied Francois, "but I fancy it will be theDardanelles for us. The transports have been waiting for several days totake our troops somewhere."
"That will give us another look at you soon," rejoiced Henri, "for ourcraft is going to be mighty close to the front when the real push ismade."
Within forty-eight hours the boys witnessed the embarking of all theAnglo-French forces, with the exception of a few battalions left atMudros, for renewed assault on the Turkish defenses of the Gallipolipeninsula. Francois was among the departing troops, and with farewellwords of gay assurance that he would soon meet again his brother andBilly.
Lieutenant Moppa, enthused over the reports of aviation activity atSmryna, and determined to give the "Sikorsky" another long-distancetry-out, ordered immediate flight toward the coast of Asia Minor.
"Barring a storm disturbance," declared the officer in command, "ourfour engines ought to hit the high mark of going this time."
On this journey the barometer proved not at all fractious, and it waseasy sailing.
The aviators found a large number of troop transports off Smyrna, and onthe very day of the arrival of the big airship a French airman droppedtwo bombs on Fort Kastro, killing several soldiers; another sank aGerman ship lying in port, and a third struck the railroad station.
"Those French flyers certainly are a busy lot," commented LieutenantMoppa. The occupants of the "Sikorsky," in coming on high, had a fulland open view of these effective aeroplane maneuvers.
The aviators on the Russian craft were also impressed with the fact thatabout 40,000 Turks were engaged in the defense of Smyrna, wellentrenched on heights commanding the city.
Constantinople had just contributed thirty heavy guns to the equipmentof the defenders.
Joining the allies in the offing, the mammoth machine, which dwarfed theother planes to small proportions by comparison, excited much curiosity,and attracted many ceremonial visits from the officers of the attackingforces.
Lieutenant Moppa was more than willing to accept a test of efficiency ofhis ship and the metal of his men.
"The only trouble is, your oversized aeroplane presents too big a targetfor close flying," argued a member of the French aviation corps.
"Perhaps so," smilingly returned the lieutenant, "but we are elusiveenough at a speed of 90 miles an hour."
"Well, it is a powerful machine, no question about that," cheerfullyconceded the French aviator. "I would like very much to make a trialtrip with you."
"You have the invitation," promptly stated the lieutenant.
When the "Sikorsky" made a demonstration the next day over Forts TwoBrothers and Bastrati, on Smyrna heights, the Frenchman was aninterested passenger, and the four engines, working all at once, gavehim an earful of noise that he had not expected. He was no lesssurprised at the youth of the pilots, but was soon convinced that theywere star performers at the wheels.
"Wonderful work there," he said to Lieutenant Moppa, after the big crafthad been put through all the paces of scientific planing.
This flight, however, was not intended solely as an exhibition trip.Lieutenant Atlass was soon working overtime with his bomb-droppingspecialty, and Mowbray and Gault, the aviator-gunners, swiveled thelittle growlers, mounted fore and aft, in most effective manner, raisingmany a howl from the trenches with their expert downfire.
The fighters in the fortifications were not slow themselves in showingthat this was no holiday set apart for rest.
They banged away with more vigor than precision at the huge fabric abovethem, and occasionally put a dent in the armor of the aerial tormentor.
"Your enclosures, I guess, have saved us many a flesh clip from spentballs," said the French aviator, who was standing in the fore-cabin withLieutenant Moppa.
"Wouldn't be surprised," responded the officer, "yet if we held oneposition long enough, there is no telling what a shell might do to us."
But it was the business of Billy and Henri to see that no fixed positionwas presented to the aim of a long range gun.
"I was just thinking," remarked Billy, in an aside to his fellowwheelman, "that if a chunk of lead should happen to strike full forceone of those magazines forward they'd be picking up pieces of us for aweek in Siberia or some other section of nowhere."
"Far be the dark moment," fervently declared Henri.
Happening to glance sidewise through the windows of the pilot house, thelast speaker saw a biplane lifting from the level between the two forts.
"Say, Buddy," he called, "they're going to fight us in our own strata.There's another of 'em coming up--and yet another. Three to mix with."
Lieutenant Moppa himself had just sighted the hostile aircraft, and heordered the gunners to watch for an opportunity to put a check on theflying challengers if they ventured too close. The men serving theairship's little battery, however, needed no encouragement. They werekeyed up to best effort for the difficult test of marksmanship--wingshooting from under wings.
"There goes one of their popguns," cried Mowbray, as a smoke wreathshowed at the bow of the leading Turkish aeroplane.
"Keep the nose right at them," the lieutenant instructed the pilots, "aslong as they come together. Don't present a side view unless you haveto."
"If they get far enough away from the forts what's the matter withbumping them?"
This suggestion from Henri did not seem to appeal to Lieutenant Moppa,who lifted a hand
in protest.
"It would be taking big chances for mighty small game," he asserted."Let Mowbray and Gault give them the tumble at long range."
The first named gunner at the moment blazed away, and with successfulresult, to which he testified with a whoop of satisfaction.
"One down," he yelled; "only crippled, maybe, but out of the game."
"Yes, and you have spoiled the day for the other two; they are notcoming to see the air circus at all."
It was Lieutenant Atlass who announced the retirement of the boldnavigators. What with Mowbray's center shot, the roaring of the fourengines and the appalling size of the great airship, it had been allsufficient to send the Turkish craft to cover.
"I see how it is," chuckled the French aviator; "they thought we hadrigged one of the warships with wings, and the idea scared them stiff."
The "Sikorsky" after a week's service over the Turkish entrenchments, onthe heights of Smyrna, started on return voyage to Tenedos, whereLieutenant Moppa proposed now to hold the big craft in readiness forthat long-expected summons to meet the Russian fleet when it should winthrough the Bosphorus. That this was a near coming event, the officerimplicitly believed.
Billy and Henri were not so much concerned in the whys and whereforesthat prompted the backtracking as they were in the prospect of rejoiningCaptain Johnson and Josh.
With these old scouts, as Billy said, "there was something doing everyday."