CHAPTER VIII.
THE AVIATORS' PLEDGE.
For several days, from behind the lines, the Boy Aviators had watchedthe Russian attack upon the heights on the north declivities of theCarpathians, in desperate endeavor to open a path to the highest ridgescommanding the mountain wall.
Their own inaction on the edge of terrific combat, pouring in and out ofUzsok, Lupkow, and Dukla passes, had been nerve-racking. The roar ofbattle never ceased, day or night, and among all the Slav contendersswarming in the camp there were but two with whom they could commune,the familiar scouts, Salisky and Marovitch.
A welcome word then from the latter was the word "move."
The flight of the aeroplanes from this point, where Lupkow pass piercedthe Carpathians, followed the Vistula River in that part of its coursewhich forms the boundary between Austria and Russia.
It was in the little town of Sandomir that the aviators rested after acontinuous flight of 200 miles, and where the pilots met an old friendof the Przemysl time, none other than Stanislaws, in the guardedprocession north of the defenders of the late Austrian fortress.
Billy and Henri did not hesitate in making a rush to greet this formercomrade of the aerial profession, and eager to hear of the last days inthe surrendered stronghold.
"Here you are again, Stanny," cried the U. S. A. boy, "and, though theluck has run tough against you, we can't help being glad of the chanceto see you."
The Austrian airman for the moment had a look askance at the green garbof the lads, indicating Russian service, but he could not long withholdhearty response to the advances of his young friends.
"I did not know you first, you gay turncoats," he jovially quizzed, "butit's a happy break in the gloom for me, I assure you."
"As for that," said Billy, touching the green sleeve of his coat, "wehave simply been tossed about from one to the other of you until theJoseph we read about could scarcely have worn more colors on his back.But how did they get to you, Stanny? I thought the old fort didn't havea hole in it."
"There was an opening, though, my boy, and wide enough for famine andfever to crawl through. That was the combination that got to us firstand there was nothing else to do but to give up. The rank and file didnot know how near the rations were gone until Breckens, you rememberhim, was starting in his aeroplane with distress messages for Vienna.The Russians shot him down, and he fell within our line. The situationwas then revealed. Well, my young friends, it is all over, and we haveonly one glow ahead--they have promised not to send us to Siberia."
"But how was it that the aeroplanes could not bring in enoughconcentrated foodstuff to keep you ahead of hunger?"
Henri had recalled the many expeditions in which Billy and himself hadparticipated to serve that purpose.
"An impossible task," asserted Stanislaws. "With the rations entirelyexhausted, there were one hundred and twenty thousand mouths to feed inthe garrison alone, and civilian inhabitants, too, clamoring for food."
"It must have been awful," was Henri's sympathetic comment.
Stanislaws passed a hand before his eyes, as if to shut out the terriblememory.
"Is there anything we can possibly do for you, Stanny?" earnestly askedBilly.
The haggard soldier in faded blue at first gave the negative by shakinghis head. Then he suddenly asked:
"By any chance, do you suppose that you will visit Przemysl in yourpresent routing?"
"I'm not sure," replied Billy, "though it is evident that our scoutsstarted here to get in touch with the Russian forces whose strength maybe diverted elsewhere, now that the fortress has surrendered."
"If it be so, and you are again privileged to move at will within theenclosure, there is a favor that you may safely, I believe, do for me."
"Name it," urged Billy.
"In the bastion at the extreme right of the west rampart of the innerfort is a loose stone, rough-faced, and marked by powder burn, crossshape. The stone can be moved with knife blade. Behind it you will finda moleskin belt, containing a decoration of great value to me and mine;a ruby-set sword hilt of far more value to a jeweler; a packet ofletters, and several roleaux of gold. I would that you could accept thegold without danger, owing to its place of minting, but otherwise Ipledge you to deliver this belt to the man, Fritz, at the Steiber CoffeeHouse. Say to him, 'It is for Eitel,' and you will have fulfilled yourpromise."
"What if there are no 'Fritz' and no 'Coffee House'?"
Billy spoke like the critic of a contract.
"In that case," wearily stated Stanislaws, "return the belt to the placeI left it. In no event must you assume any further risk."
"I don't see why you didn't get away in your aeroplane when you saw thejig was up. You could have done it with honor."
Henri could not suppress his regret over this lost chance on the part ofthe Austrian.
"That was officially suggested to me more than once in the fort justbefore the storm broke," said Stanislaws, "but the idea did not appealto me. My duty was to sink or swim with the balance."
It was not remarkable that the boys should be permitted to hold suchlengthy converse with the prisoner, for as the companions of the notedscouts from headquarters they roved without hindrance, and, besides, hadnot the Muscovite troops themselves, but a short time previous, cheeredthe unarmed Austrians after their parade out of Przemysl?
That Salisky and Marovitch finally interrupted the interview was not amove of official interference, but due only to the emergency of theirtravel plan. The scouts attributed the interest taken by the lads in thetrooper under guard solely to the fellowship of airmen.
"All aboard," hailed Salisky, at sight of the young pilots; "we must bepushing on."
"Where away?" called Billy.
"'Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies,'" quoted the scout."But," he instantly added, good-naturedly, "we expect to visit some newbirds in an old nest."
The inference was plain enough that the aeroplanes would be headed forthe Przemysl fortress, and the direction taken by order speedily provedit.
Billy and Henri did not realize what a shake-up there had been in andabout the stronghold since their leaving with Roque, until the machinesthey were driving hovered over the once familiar ground.
Heaps upon heaps of debris marked all that remained of the strongest ofthe outlying forts, which the Austrians had blown up preparatory tosurrender.
Only the inner sections and the town itself, the boys observed, wereintact.
Over all now the black double-headed Eagle of Russia--gone thelong-resisting garrison of von Kusmanek.
Clearing the trenches and the barbed-wire entanglements, the pilotsvolplaned to the old landing place, where they had first met Stanislaws,the friend to whom they had just pledged their services for the onlyfavor they could grant.
"Some changes here, pard," remarked Billy, as they looked out and aroundfrom the rampart to which they had climbed.
"I should say," commented Henri; "I see that all the bridges are gone,and that pontoon one leading out of the town, I suppose, was set up bythe Russians immediately after the surrender."
"Speaking of the town," said Billy, "reminds me that it wouldn't be abad idea to go over and see if the Coffee House is yet standing, and ifFritz is still on his pins."
"I expect Fritz has many times tightened his belt since the picking grewthin, let alone feeding the public as he used to do."
"Well, old top, and what of it?" laughed Billy. "Fritz could buckle up afoot or two and then would never be mistaken for a fairy."
The Steiber Coffee house, the boys soon discovered, was no longer acenter of good cheer, bright fires and sanded floors, but an improvisedhospital, crowded with the sick and wounded. Fritz, however, was thereas large as life, and apparently none the worse for the horse-meat dietduring the weeks of want and woe in the town.
Like Stanislaws, he had an extra look at the transformed aviators beforehe began to thaw into former genial
address, a warning process instantlyand wholly completed when Billy sounded in his ear the words, "It is forEitel."
This friend of many travelers, credited with speaking knowledge of sevendifferent languages, probably used a little of all of them in thegreeting inspired by the magic sentence.
"The same flying boys you are that sat at my fireside with the HerrGeorges" (Roque) "and the red giant" (Schneider) "on that first darknight when the great guns were roaring across the river and you came inwith the wind. Ah, how different now," sighed the heavyweight host; "thegood days are no more. And," he concluded, "what of Eitel; what word ofhim?"
Henri told of the trust imposed in them by Stanislaws, and of the chargethat they deliver to him (Fritz) the belt and the valuables therein.
"He knows, he knows," murmured the innkeeper, with eyes moist and atremor in his voice, "that old Fritz will find a way to reach his lovedones at home."
"The next thing," asserted the practical Billy, "is to pass you thetrinkets, for we never know when the call will come to pull out foranother station. Keep a happy thought, old man, until we see you again."
With these parting words the lads sauntered back toward the fort, with astudied air of careless unconcern.
All the time they were figuring on the quickest way to get to theearthwork where Stanislaws' treasure was concealed.
Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in Russia; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes Page 8
