Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine

“I have them, sir.”

“What are they doing?”

“Creeping in formation.”

“Good! You are an observer already. Lean over and look down. Get used to it. Make you dizzy?”

“A little. I get dizzy when the basket tries to lie down on its side, and feel as if I were going to fall out.”

The major laughed and motioned to her to sit down.

“Going to have tiffin now. Don’t bother us with your family troubles down there, at least not until after the whistle blows,” he called through the telephone, and doubling his legs under him he sat down on the bottom of the basket, with an appetizing-looking luncheon spread out on a piece of paper in his lap.

They could hear the wind roaring over them now, but only breaths of it sucked down into the basket. A thermos bottle of tea that was still hot was handed to Grace, Major Colt producing another from “nowhere” for his own consumption.

“Drink it down. It will put new life into you. Dip into the food too. There’s plenty and to spare. Suppose you never sat down to tiffin thirty-five hundred feet in the air?”

Grace said she never had.

“Were you ever shot down while on observation work?” she asked him between mouthfuls.

“Yes, a few times.”

“What happened?”

“I came down.” He grinned.

“What else, sir?” persisted Grace, determined to get the story from him.

“Nothing except that a Boche flier took a mean advantage of me and sneaked up on me in an Allied plane that the enemy had captured. Then he calmly dropped a bomb on the old bag.”

“What did you do then, sir?”

“Deserted the ship and woke up in a hospital. You see I bumped my head against a stone wall in landing. My head from infancy has been soft and demands most delicate handling.”

Grace said she couldn’t imagine such a thing. To her the major was a heroic figure. He reminded her of Hippy Wingate. Like Hippy he made a joke of the desperate work he had done and was still doing. There were no heroics about those cloudland pirates.

“What did you do before the war, if it is not an impertinent question? You know a woman’s curiosity must be satisfied.”

“No impertinence about it at all. I had a good job, and maybe I shall have the luck to get it back again after the war is over. I was a floor-walker in a Newark, New Jersey, department store. I’ve been up in the world since then. Had my ups and downs as it were.”

Grace laughed. War played strange freaks with human beings. The officer’s confession, instead of decreasing her admiration of him, increased it. A man who could step from department store life into the perilous life of a wartime balloonist was a man! That was the way with her wonderful Americans. But to have to return to the chattering crowds of shoppers, directing this one to the ribbon counter, that one to the galvanized cooking utensil sale in the basement – the thought was too much for Grace Harlowe. She could not reconcile herself to it nor adjust herself to seeing this hardy pirate acting in any such rôle in the future.

“You do not think so, eh?” he demanded shrewdly. “Watch me. One day you will step up to me, without recognizing me, and say, ‘Floor-walker, will you please direct me to the cosmetics?’”

“I will not,” declared Grace Harlowe. “I never use them.”

Both laughed heartily.

“You may be right – I may be right, who knows?” he muttered. “I shall miss this wonderful life, of course, and it will be difficult to settle down and have to look up again rather than down on a world of pigmies. Had I to do it over again I should go into aviation. Those fellows are free as the birds of the air, while I am anchored to a tree or truck. I prefer to be free, to soar the heavens without having a string attached – What!”

The major sprang up, scattering the remainder of their tiffin on the floor of the basket. The basket had given a terrific lurch and, glancing up with a frightened expression on her face, Grace saw the huge bag heaving, swelling and plunging, the basket twisting, lurching and jolting under her.

The girl staggered to her feet and grasped the side of the basket. Her head was spinning and her diaphragm seemed to be seeking to emulate the erratic movements of the ship.

“Wind-storm!” shouted Major Colt. “Going to have some real sport.”

Grace did not know what his idea of sport was, but she was quite positive that if this were sport she was not a sportsman.

“Haul in, you idiots!” bellowed the officer through the telephone. “Can’t you see we’re trying to stand on our heads?”

“Waiting for orders, sir,” came back the answer. “Hauling down now till ordered to stop.”

“You’d better,” growled the major. “Hang on so you don’t get thrown out!” he called to Grace.

The Overton girl needed no advice in that direction. She was clinging to the basket’s edge with all her might. The balloon adopted new tactics. The instant the winch down there began to wind in, the balloon, as if resentful of this interference with its “sport,” began to buck and dive. At one time the wicker basket was actually lying on its side, and as Grace lay on her stomach against it she found herself gazing straight down three-and-a-half thousand feet.

“Captain” Grace closed her eyes to shut out the sight. It was just a little more than she could stand. A few seconds later she was on her feet again, for the balloon had righted. Now the bag began to whip the air.

“Let go!” she heard the balloonist call through the telephone. “Trying to crack the whip with us? Not ready to bump our heads on the ground just yet. Up five hundred more. Maybe we’ll find a better streak there. Anyway we’ll ride it out, wind or no wind.”

The balloon eased a little, and while it still bucked there was less kick, so to speak, in its movements.

The respite, however, was a brief one, and again those fearsome tactics were resumed.

Major Colt glanced at Grace during a brief lull. She nodded and forced a smile to her face.

“Are we in great danger?” she shouted.

“It might be worse,” was the comforting response. “We are good so long as the bag holds, but the wind is growing stronger and no telling what may turn up. Keep cool. I’ll get you out of it, wind or no wind.”

A blast that threatened to rend the bag struck them, and the balloon lay down on its side. It was up with a bound, then down again, until Grace Harlowe could not decide for a certainty whether she was standing on her head or on her feet. As a matter of fact she was practically doing both.

Then suddenly peace, delicious peace and quiet, settled over the troubled ship. It righted, the wind stopped blowing and the balloon floated gently on an even keel.

“Oh, isn’t this fine!” cried Grace happily.

“Rotten fine, thank you, as the Englishman would say. Know what’s happened?”

“No, sir, but whatever it is I feel greatly relieved to know that the wind has died down as suddenly as it broke loose.”

“My dear woman, something other than the wind has broken loose. The wind is blowing just as hard as before, but we do not feel it because we are going with it. We’re adrift!”

“Meaning?”

“That the balloon has snapped its cable and is now traveling toward the Rhine at a high rate of speed. From present indications I should say that you and I will arrive there considerably in advance of the Third American Army.” Trying to appear undisturbed, though he was more troubled than he cared to admit to his passenger, Major Colt possessed a pretty clear idea of what was before them.

CHAPTER XII