The Air Patrol: A Story of the North-west Frontier

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH

  THE DEATH TRAP

  There was no alarm from beyond the bend during the night. But in thesmall hours the sentry at the bridge gave a loud shout, and firedsouthward up the track. When Lawrence rushed from the house to discoverwhat had happened, he learnt that the sentry had seen a number of dimfigures creeping towards the mine. They had now disappeared. Lawrenceconjectured that Nurla Bai and his friends, who must now be nearlyfamished, had been attracted by the sound of guns, and stolen down inthe hope of eluding the vigilance of the garrison, and gaining the paththat led above their old quarters and descended on the track on thenearer side of the bend. Even if they had got thus far undetected, theycould not but have fallen into the hands of the defenders of thebreastwork. It was an attempt they were not likely to repeat. Therewas no chance of their rejoining the Kalmuck army until the defence wasbroken.

  Before morning the doubled breastwork was defended by a strong wireentanglement. Soon after daybreak the enemy began a terrificbombardment from four guns, two of which had been mounted on platformsbehind the two which Lawrence had already seen in position. Thegarrison could make no effective reply, but could only watch theirbreastwork crumbling away under the shells that pounded it withoutintermission. The two brothers held their men some distance in the rear,as much under cover as possible, ready to lead them on and occupy theruin of the entrenchment as soon as the expected charge began.

  About ten o'clock they saw Fazl running towards them from the bridge.He had been taking his turn of duty on guard at the aeroplane platform,and the fact that he had left his post seemed ominous. Rushing up toLawrence, he exclaimed excitedly that he had heard the distant hum of anaeroplane. The boys were incredulous: they themselves were almostdeafened by the roar of the guns and the crash of falling masonry. Butimmediately afterwards, in the interval between the shots, they caughtthe sound--the continuous throbbing drone, like a giganticsewing-machine at work. They looked at each other aghast. For a momentor two they were mute: then Bob said:

  "You must get aloft at once. It's our only chance. Get above theaeroplane, and bomb it. There's no time to lose."

  Lawrence set off at a run, the Gurkha behind him. He raced across thebridge and on to the cantilever pathway, and had just turned the cornerwhen he heard a tremendous explosion behind him. A few seconds later alarge monoplane flashed by, and was soon lost to sight up the valley.

  Long practice had given him facility in starting. The aeroplane wasready for flight. Lawrence and the Gurkha leapt to their places, andwithin two minutes the machine was in the air, flying after the enemy.

  This, then, was the meaning of the Kalmuck officer's veiled warning.The enemy had taken a leaf out of the defenders' book. Their airmen,equipped no doubt with bombs much more destructive than Lawrence'shome-made missiles, intended to strike at the very heart of the defence,and by rendering the mine premises untenable, clear the way for theadvance of the army.

  Lawrence was fortunately cool of head and a rapid thinker. After amoment of stupefaction he saw his course clearly. The danger from theair must be met in the air. This could only be done by rising above theenemy's monoplane, and hurling his bombs down upon it. The Kalmuckpilot would be as anxious as he to avoid an actual collision, which mustprove disastrous to both the machines. It was wholly a question ofmanoeuvring for position.

  The glimpse he had caught of the hostile aeroplane as it flashed by,suggested that it was a much larger and more powerful machine than hisown. If this were indeed the case, he was probably quite outmatched inspeed as in armament. But he saw in a moment that the possession of thesmaller machine might tend to his own advantage, for he could wheel innarrow parts of the valley where the attempt would prove destructive tothe enemy. Moreover, he knew the valley thoroughly; the others, thoughno doubt vastly superior to him in a military sense, lacked localexperience and had everything to learn. Time was on his side.

  As soon as he began his flight he knew that he had gained one point. Ifthe enemy had turned at his customary wheeling-place, their aeroplanewould already have been in sight. The next suitable spot was severalmiles farther up the valley, unless indeed they should rise to a muchgreater height than that at which they had passed. Such an ascensionwould consume time; it would further make it very difficult for them todrop their bombs with any degree of accuracy. Whether they rose orcontinued their flight at the same altitude until they reached the widerturning-place, they would not be back for four or five minutes.Lawrence resolved to utilise this breathing space.

  He flew on until he reached his usual turning-place, then began to mountin a spiral course. While he was doing this, two considerations flashedthrough his mind. If, when he met the enemy, he should be still belowthem, he must fly on in the opposite direction, for the chance of beinghit by a bomb, when the machines were passing at the rate of perhaps ahundred and fifty miles an hour, would be very slight. His only fear inthat case was that they would fly straight back to the mine and workhavoc there without a possibility of interference. If, on the otherhand, he were above them, his best course would be to fly in the samedirection, and try to drop his bombs on them. When two express trainsare running the same way, it is possible, however great their speed, tocast an object from a carriage of one through an open window of theother.

  He was still ascending when Fazl shouted that the enemy's aeroplane wasin sight, at a greater height.

  "Rifle!" said Lawrence instantly, as he headed up the valley.

  The Gurkha fired, as the two machines rushed at terrific speed towardseach other. There was no reply, but a few seconds afterwards anexplosion in the valley below showed that the enemy had dropped a bomb.It would have been almost a miracle if it had hit the aeroplane in thefraction of a second of the passing. But a second explosion a littlelater was very perturbing. Unless he could check the enemy, they mightsail over the mine again and again, and on the wider target which thatpresented take surer aim. Luckily they would have to fly several milesdown the river before they could again turn, and the few minutes' gracemight give him time to ascend still higher, and attain an altitude atwhich he would have the advantage.

  As the machines passed, Lawrence had had time to confirm his impressionthat the other aeroplane was much larger than his own. He saw too thatit was occupied by three men. But these elements of superiority would beto some extent neutralized by the greater handiness of his own machinein navigating the narrow gorges of the valley. The situation demanded areadiness to take risks. The gorge to which Lawrence had now come afterpassing the enemy was so constricted that in ordinary circumstances hewould never have dreamed of attempting a turning movement. But he feltthe supreme necessity of wheeling at once, in order to return to the"bay" which he had lately left. There he might do something to protectthe mine, if only by diverting the enemy's attack upon himself. Hemight also have an opportunity of rising to a sufficient height foroffensive purposes.

  Choosing the widest part of the gorge, he banked his machine up, andclearing the cliff apparently by inches he swept round again to thenorth. When in half a minute he reached the turning place, theaeroplane was not in sight. But he heard sounds of a fierce strugglebeyond. The bombardment had ceased, but the air was filled with thecrack of rifles, the rattle of the machine gun, and the shouts of men.He could do nothing to help his brother. There was not even time to flyon and drop a bomb among the enemy: he must utilise every moment inpreparing for the return of the aeroplane. He steered his machine in aseries of short spirals, rising as rapidly as possible, watching thevalley northward anxiously. As yet its windings concealed the enemy'saeroplane from view. It was an inexpressible relief to him that theyhad not attempted to turn at the spot where he now was. They had notthought it practicable, or not had the time; probably they had shot bybefore even the possibility had occurred to them.

  He swept round and round in his corkscrew flight, rising gradually untilhe
was more than two thousand feet above the river. His view was nowgreatly extended, and when the larger aeroplane came in sight from rounda bend nearly a mile away, he saw with a flash of hope that it was nowlower than his own machine, although somewhat higher than before.Evidently the airmen had foreseen that he might rise in order to avoidtheir bombs, and sought to forestall him; but his narrow spiral hadcarried him up to a greater height than their two long inclined planes.

  The moment he saw them he started straight to meet them. Nothing couldhave been better calculated to assist his brother in the desperatestruggle on the track. It was as when a charging bull is diverted fromthe object of his fury by the fluttering of a handkerchief or anewspaper within his range of vision. The Kalmuck airmen recognisedthat they had an opponent with whom they must seriously reckon; andthough perhaps their general, looking on from below, would have biddenthem to ignore the aeroplane, and pursue the more important duty ofshattering the defences, they no doubt thought that a few minutes' oreven hours' further delay would be less disastrous than the destructionof themselves and their machine. When the defenders' aeroplane was outof action, the rest would be easy.

  Lawrence had resolved not to imitate the enemy in hurling a bomb whilethe machines were flashing past in opposite directions. His missileswere too precious for one to be wasted. As the aeroplanes met, he heardtwo cracks, followed by two metallic thuds on the iron plates below hischassis: the enemy had fired. What effect their shots had he knew not,but neither the engine nor the occupants suffered any injury. He hadalready commenced a turning movement. Completing his circle, he steeredstraight after the enemy, who were heading directly up the valley.There had been no explosion on the track or in the mine compounds asthey passed: so far his tactics had justified themselves.

  But Lawrence had not been more than a few seconds in pursuit before hefound that in speed his machine was utterly outclassed. The enemyseemed almost to leave him standing. This was not unexpected; but assoon as he was sure of it he felt that his course of action was clearlymarked out. It would be a fatal mistake to give the enemy enoughair-room to take advantage of their superiority. If they got plenty ofspace for manoeuvring they could rise as far above him as they pleased,and either shatter the aeroplane with a well-placed bomb, or, having tworifles to one, could wait an opening for a shot that would incapacitatehimself or Fazl, perhaps both. He must devote all his energy and skillto dodging and deluding the enemy, attacking them if occasion offered,in any case keeping them constantly employed. Their engine must consumea much larger quantity of petrol and lubricant than his. They must haveused up a great deal in flying from their starting-place--Tash Kend, hepresumed--and it was unlikely that there was any supply with the army atthe end of the valley from which they could replenish their tanks. Ifhe could only manoeuvre so as to starve them out of fuel, all theirsuperiorities would be nullified and their usefulness would havevanished.

  It was a question now of calculating chances, or rather ofguessing--like the children's game when one brings his closed fists frombehind his back and asks another to guess which hand holds the concealedobject. When the two aeroplanes were out of sight, the occupants ofneither could know what the others were doing. They could only make arandom shot at the probabilities. Lawrence felt pretty sure that theenemy would seek to rise to a greater altitude than they supposed him tobe attaining. He therefore decided to descend at once, and hover in thelower part of the valley. A long vol plane northward brought him withina short distance of the struggle going on at the bend. As he sped by,he ordered Fazl to drop a bomb among the enemy beyond the breastwork,then swooped past, three or four hundred feet above the river, turned atthe first possible spot, and flew back to meet the enemy. As heexpected, they had risen to a great height. Flying low as he now was,they were probably two thousand feet above him. When they saw him, theyat once began to descend; but the machines were rushing in oppositedirections so swiftly that the vertical distance between them waslessened by only two or three hundred feet when they met. A few secondsafter they had passed, Lawrence heard two explosions, and Fazl reportedthat the enemy's bombs had fallen, one in the river, the other on thecliff-side. Again they had missed their aim.

  Lawrence knew that they could not return within fifteen minutes. Whileit was important to him that they should waste their petrol, it wasequally important that he should husband his, for he had very littleleft at the shed. It occurred to him that there would be time to alighton the platform, run to the mine to see how things were passing there,and get back in time to fly off before the enemy came in sight. Hetherefore wheeled round at his usual place, and in less than a minuteslid gently on to the ledge. Leaving Fazl to look to the engine, he ranalong the pathway, and on turning the corner saw with some astonishmentthat hostilities had apparently ceased. The breastwork was still mannedby Bob and his party: Lawrence almost winced as he noticed how large anumber of bodies lay prostrate around them. The enemy were invisible:it seemed certain that their attack had been repulsed.

  The mine compounds were deserted, except by Gur Buksh and two other men,whom Lawrence recognised in a moment as Chunda Beg and Shan Tai. Thesethree were reclining against the wall near the machine gun. Every otherfighting man had crossed the bridge to bear his part in the holding ofthe track. Lawrence felt a thrill of pride in the courage and loyaltyof the cook and the khansaman, who, house servants as they were, oftenheld in scorn by the warriors, had in this hour of peril given theirassistance to the steadfast havildar.

  He hurried on to the compound, noting as he passed the havoc wrought bythe one bomb from the hostile aeroplane which had hit the mark. GurBuksh and the others saluted as gravely as if it were the prime ofpeace.

  "What has happened?" asked Lawrence breathlessly.

  The havildar related how the appearance of the enemy's aeroplane hadbeen the signal for a more ferocious bombardment than had before takenplace. When the breastwork was half ruined by the shells, a swarm ofKalmucks rushed to the attack with yells of anticipated triumph, whilethe defenders, who had remained in comparative safety some distanceaway, leapt back to their places at the shattered rampart. The enemy,coming unawares on the wire entanglements, had been thrown into anunwieldy and disordered mass; and after a few minutes of desperateefforts to break through the obstacle, with partial success, they hadbeen so withered by the defenders' fire that flesh and blood couldendure no more. They had fled, a confused rabble, to their ownentrenchment.

  There was no time for Lawrence to hear more, or to discuss with theimperturbable Sikh any measures that might be devised to assist theheroic fighters on the other bank. He knew well that the check could beonly temporary, and could not think without distress of the issue of thenext attack. Hurrying back to the ledge, he and Fazl got into theirplaces, ready to fly off directly they heard the returning aeroplane.The Gurkha's ears first caught the throbbing drone, and as the machineonce more rose into the air, the field guns recommenced to bark andspit.

  As soon as Lawrence reached his turning-place he began to climb. In afew moments he caught sight of the enemy's aeroplane skimming round thebend below the mine. It was much lower than before, probably no morethan three hundred feet above Lawrence, and as soon as the airmen caughtsight of him, they dipped so suddenly as almost to suggest that themachine was beyond control. But Lawrence realised that the descent wasintentional. They meant to come as close above him as they could in thehalf mile between them. He ceased to mount, and steered straight downthe valley, hugging the cliff on the left hand. The enemy followed hismanoeuvre, edging to their right in order to pass immediately above him.The two aeroplanes were only about a hundred yards horizontally apartwhen with a quick movement of his rudder, which threw a hazardous strainupon the planes, Lawrence shot out over the river. Before the enemycould alter their own course he had passed well outside them. Theirbombs, dropped hurriedly while the pilot was striving to cope withLawrence's sudden movement, fell harmlessly into the river.

  The enemy's tu
rning-place up stream being much nearer the mine than thatin the opposite direction, there was no time to alight again and saveexpenditure of petrol. But there was time to lend aid to the defendersat the breastwork. Lawrence flew on, instructing Fazl to hurl a bombamong the enemy as he passed the bend. Two teams of horses were draggingmore field guns up to the rampart. It was among these that Fazl letfall his bomb, and looking back, he shouted gleefully that one of theteams had stampeded and dashed with their gun over the bank into theriver, while the other were plunging furiously amid a smother of smoke.At the same time the rattle of the machine gun announced that Gur Bukshwas again at work.

  Lawrence did not wish to fly six or seven miles down the river to thewide bay in which he was sure the enemy had turned. To wheel roundearlier involved some risk, but it was a risk from which his strung-upnerves did not flinch.

  About three-fourths of a mile beyond the bend, at the spot where theenemy had established themselves after their first repulse, the gorgecurved to the west, and in the cliff-face there was an extensivedepression, scooped out as it were by a landslip. He resolved to tryhis luck there. The margin was perilously narrow, and only a manabsolutely familiar with the spot, as he was, and prepared for theturning movement at the very moment of reaching it, could have hoped towheel in the space.

  At the critical point he banked up at a sharp angle, and for one briefmoment felt a cold shudder of fear as he recognised the beginning of thesideslip that had brought disaster on so many reckless or unfortunateairmen. But the planes recovered their grip; the machine swung roundacross the river, having shaved the cliff on the left by an appallinglyfine margin; and flew lightly and evenly up stream again.

  By this daring feat Lawrence had saved nearly ten miles and theequivalent quantity of petrol. He had also avoided a meeting with theenemy on the north side of the mine, where manoeuvring to dodge themwould have been much more difficult. By alighting when they next passedhim he would again save while they were expending, and however largetheir supply had been when they started, it could not much longer standthe drain of continual flight up and down the river. Even now, sinceentering the valley, they must have travelled a good deal more than ahundred miles; their flight from headquarters might have been threehundred. No doubt a further supply of fuel and oil had been despatchedafter them, but it would take a week or more to reach them over suchrugged country. If he could only keep them fruitlessly employed untilthey were forced to leave the gorge through failing petrol, he wouldgain perhaps just enough time for the garrison to prolong their defenceuntil the expected relief force arrived.

  Thought is quicker even than an aeroplane's flight: these hopes,conjectures, volitions flashed through Lawrence's mind in the intervalbetween his venturesome circuit and his arrival at the bend. Thebombardment had recommenced. Two guns had been got into position; otherswere being hauled up the track. A hot rifle fire was opened upon theaeroplane, and both pilot and passenger were struck by fragments ofbullets that had splintered on the metal work. Their great speed sooncarried them out of further danger, but the bomb which Fazl droppedmissed its aim, exploded on the rocky bank instead of on the track, anddid little harm.

  Lawrence guessed that the Kalmuck airmen would now suppose him to haverisen, and would themselves be mounting in order to keep above him. Hetherefore resolved to keep low. The sequel showed that the enemy hadbeen cunning enough to guess at his guess. When they reappeared, so farfrom ascending they were descending, yet gradually, so that they mightadapt their course to the exigencies of the moment. They were now onlytwo hundred feet above him.

  This time he decided not to rush past and continue his flight up stream,but to wheel at the turning-place, and save time and petrol by flyingback in their wake to his platform. He realised afterwards that hebegan his turning movement a trifle too soon, though, as the eventproved, his indiscretion served him well. The enemy had not quite methim when he shifted his rudder for circling round the bay. He expectedthem to flash by as usual at express speed, but to his intenseastonishment and alarm he found that instead of continuing on theirdirect course they had suddenly banked over, and were wheeling above himin the same direction as himself. It was a manoeuvre of extraordinarydaring, for the larger aeroplane required a much wider circle than thesmaller, and in order to clear the cliffs it had to remain banked up ata dangerously sharp angle.

  Lawrence felt himself trapped. He could not fly out at either end ofthe bay, he thought, without being immediately followed by the enemy,who would then have him at their mercy. Yet he was in equal danger if heremained circling below them, for though their flight was swifter thanhis, at some moment their machine would be vertically above him, andthey would doubtless seize that moment for hurling a bomb. He could notdescend without shattering the aeroplane on the banks or plunging intothe river. He felt as helpless as a pigeon beneath an eagle.

  It was indeed an extraordinary situation: two aeroplanes wheeling roundand round in a cup-like hollow, with less than two hundred feet of spacebetween them. The Kalmucks had not as yet fired or dropped a bomb:Lawrence imagined them gloating over their helpless victim, awaiting afavourable moment for one crushing stroke. The first shot was fired byFazl; the enemy replied, but instead of keeping up a continuous fire,they ceased after a few shots, which riddled the planes, but hit novital part. Lawrence wondered at their abstinence, until, followingthem with his eyes, he had a sudden conviction that they were indifficulties. The machine was banked up to the extreme limit of safety,and it flashed upon him that the enemy, and not himself, were caged.They could not ascend, for, a few hundred feet above them, the cliff onthe west side of the stream hung forward in a jagged bluff that camewithin the circle of their flight. Contact with it would hurl them intothe river. Nor could they leave the bay by either of the exits north orsouth without the risk of colliding with the cliffs, for the space wasso narrow, and the speed of the machine so great, that the movementsnecessary for unbanking and steering could hardly be performed in thefraction of a second between their quitting the bay and running into thestraight. It is one thing for a wasp to fly into a bottle, and quiteanother to fly out again.

  The machines had completed several circles before Lawrence had graspedthe situation. During this time Fazl had been steadily firing, but theenemy had been silent. Suddenly the Gurkha uttered a shout; one of theKalmucks fell from the aeroplane, and whirled over and over in the airuntil he struck the river and disappeared.

  "Don't fire again!" cried Lawrence.

  He had become conscious that the perpendicular distance between the twoplanes was rapidly diminishing. The enemy's engine had not failed;their speed was the same; yet it was plain that moment by moment theywere drawing nearer to the plane below. If the machines had been ships,Lawrence would have been tempted to believe that the enemy were tryingto board; but he knew that a collision would be fatal to both. He wasat a loss to explain the strange movement; indeed, he had little time tothink of it, for he realised that unless he himself made his escape, hismachine would be soon hurled to the bottom by the impact of the larger.He had not found it necessary to bank so much as the Kalmuck pilot. Hislesser speed and the greater handiness of his aeroplane enabled him tofly out at the exit without the almost certainty of dashing against thecliff. At his next round he steered straight through the northern gap,and flew back in a flush of wonder and excitement to the platform.

  As he expected, the enemy did not follow him. Alighting he rushed to theprojecting buttress and gazed up the valley. He could see the doomedaeroplane as it flashed across the opening of the bay. It was stillwhirling round and round, but falling, falling with ever increasingvelocity. He shuddered with horror as he contemplated the inevitableend. He did not witness the actual close of the tragedy. The aeroplaneas it neared the bottom was hidden from him by the rocky banks of theriver. But half a minute after he himself stood in trembling safety atremendous explosion shook the ground, and a cloud of smoke and brokenrocks shot high into the air. Then there w
as a burst of flame, and heknew that all was over.

  Overcome with sickness at the terrible end of these gallant airmen, andwith nervous exhaustion after his own wearing efforts, he lay flat onthe rock to recover his composure. Thinking over the recent scene, hehit upon a conjectural explanation of the uncontrollable descent of theenemy's aeroplane. He supposed that, with the machine so criticallybanked up in order to navigate the narrow cup, the pilot had been quiteunable to make those delicate adjustments of the planes and the elevatorthat were necessary to counteract the dragging force of gravity. Lateron, when he had an opportunity of discussing the matter with hisbrother, Bob scouted his theory, declaring that while the petrol lastednothing could have prevented the machine from whirling round and round.But Lawrence stuck to his opinion, and Bob very naturally declared thatit was not a matter he would care to put to the test.