The Phantom Airman

"Some woodman or peasant returning from a party," observed Sharpe.

"I wonder where his cottage is," replied his friend; "it must be somewhere in the neighbourhood."

"We must welcome him to a belated supper. Perhaps this good Rhine wine will open his lips still more, and he may tell us something about the birds of the Schwarzwald."

"Particularly the phantom-bird," facetiously observed Keane with a smile.

Nearer and nearer came the stranger, breaking occasionally into snatches of song, as though he would frighten away the goblins and weird creatures of the forest, for of the superstitious peoples of Europe, the peasantry of the Black Forest are most given to credulous beliefs. Perhaps this is because no other district of Europe is so rich in quaint legend, folklore and ghostly tradition.

Now and then the approaching stranger would stop his singing to address some remark to a companion; evidently some beast of burden trudging beside him. The next moment the figure of a man, leading a pack-horse through the forest, suddenly emerged upon the clearing. Catching a sight of the dancing flames which mounted skyward as one of the airmen stirred the fire into life, and beholding the dark figures of the two strangers, the newcomer, suddenly stopped, apparently half-terrified by the sudden apparition.

"Geistlich!" he muttered, staring with wide-open eyes towards the sudden flame.

"Guten abend, freund!" exclaimed Keane, wishing to draw the man into conversation.

The man's fears departed as soon as he discovered that he was addressed by human beings like himself, for in his first wild flight of fancy he feared it was far otherwise, and that he had suddenly come upon one of those forbidden glades, where the sprites and goblins dance after dark.

"Guten abend!" he replied, and, being asked to join the company, made haste to do so, reining in his loaded horse and tethering him to a tree-stump close by.

"'Tis late to travel these lonely woods, friend," said Keane in excellent German.

"Yes, 'tis late, but the moon will soon be up, and then, why, 'twill be better footing," replied the stranger, whose full, round face and longing eyes were already directed towards a wicker-covered bottle, which seemed to hold something good, so that he smacked his lips once or twice, and in fancy he was already draining the sweet nectar which the bottle contained.

"Have you far to go?" asked Sharpe.

"Why, yes, 'tis another seven miles to my cottage in the woods."

"Then stay with us an hour until the moon shall rise and clear away the goblins of the Schwarzwald," urged Keane, who, by this time, had been able to examine the stranger's face by the light of the fire, and to read it like a book.

"A simple, credulous fellow, a true peasant of the Schwarzwald, untouched by the outer world," he told himself. "He should be useful to us." Then, passing to him the wicker-covered bottle, he said:–

"Good Rhine wine from Bacharach, Hans. Taste it!"

"Ach, from Bacharach on the Rhine,
Comes the finest sort of wine,"

exclaimed the stranger in the rude dialect of the Black Forest, and his round eyes sparkled as he clutched the bottle, raised it to his lips, and drank half a pint without stopping to take breath.

"'Tis a long time since I tasted such rich and luscious wine, gentlemen," said the peasant, handing back the bottle.

"Pray be seated and rest awhile," urged his companions, and nothing loath to keep such excellent company, Hans, if such was really his name, sat down by the fire.

"Pray, what brings you to the lonely Schwarzwald, gentlemen? Have you come to hunt for the wild boar, or to fish the mountain streams?" he asked, "for I can show you where the biggest fish are to be found, and where the wild pig rears her litters."

"Butterflies and birds, especially birds," replied Keane, pointing to his nets, and his neat little boxes for packing specimens.

"Birds? Ach, there is one bird which sometimes flies in these parts which you will never catch," said the peasant, speaking in lowered tones, as though half-frightened by his own words.

"Ha! What bird is that?" asked the others.

"Hist!" exclaimed Hans, raising his forefinger, and looking guardedly around. "It is the phantom-bird!"

"The phantom-bird?" echoed the two airmen, who could scarcely believe their eyes and ears, as they earnestly regarded this solemn, frightened, half-childish man, who had evidently seen the very thing they had come so far to find, but who believed it to be something supernatural.

The two Englishmen glanced at each other. Had they really found someone who could enlighten them about this mysterious aeroplane, for he could certainly be referring to nothing else? And at that moment Keane blessed his lucky star, which had led him to choose these wild forest regions for their jumping-off ground. Still, they must not appear too curious, lest they should betray the reason of their presence here.

Keane shook his head as, with an apparently incredulous laugh, and a sympathetic motion of the hand, he would banish all tales of ghostly visitants to the realm of limbo. This only had the effect of egging on the speaker to tell his tale, however.

"Ach, Himmel!" he exclaimed. "Es war geistlich!"

"Did you see it, then?"

"Ya, das hab ich!" returned the other.

"Was it in the day or the night-time when you saw it?" asked Sharpe.

"It was night, about this time, and there was but a half-moon above the tree tops."

"Were you very much frightened, Hans?"

"Yes, I was scared to death almost. I thought the old man of the mountains had come for me. I had been to market to sell my little wooden-clocks, and near this very place the huge grey phantom bird swooped down, then circled round and round and disappeared there, over there!" and the peasant, his eyes almost starting out of his head with terror, pointed away to the east.

"Bah! It was no bird, it was an aeroplane, Hans. You should not have been frightened," exclaimed Keane, who had been taking particular note of the direction in which the mysterious machine had disappeared.

"Yes, a ghost-aeroplane!" iterated the Schwarzwalder. "There has never been anything like it before."

"Did anybody else see it?" queried Sharpe, passing the bottle once again to Hans, who stayed but a moment to wipe his lips with his sleeve, and to take another deep drink of the wine.

"Ja, it was seen by Jacob Stendahl the same night, not far from this very place."

"And who is Jacob Stendahl?" asked Keane.

"He is the woodcutter whose cottage is down by the stream, two miles away. That path leads to his house. He was terrified; he said it was an evil omen, and next morning his little Gretchen died."

"And what happened to you, Hans?" asked Sharpe.

"That same night my sow farrowed, and all the litter were dead next morning," replied the peasant gravely.

A deep silence followed this last remark, and the Schwarzwalder brooded over his misfortune, and lamented to himself the loss of his fine litter of young pigs.

The two airmen felt certain now that Hans had really seen the mysterious aeroplane, and they plied him with a dozen further questions as to the noise it made in passing, and the speed at which it travelled, and whether anyone else had seen or heard of it. To some of their questions Hans could give no coherent answer. He said, however, that very few people lived in this part of the forest, and parts of it were seldom or never trodden by human foot. He had spoken to one or two about it, and they also had either seen or heard of it from someone else, and the general opinion amongst the Schwarzwalders in that part, was, that it was one of the dead German airmen, whose spirit came to visit the spot in a ghost-aeroplane.

"Which of the German aces is it, then, that revisits this place, do they think?" asked Keane.

"Some say that it is the ghost of Immelmann, who used to come here before the war to hunt the wild boar; others say that it is the spirit of Richthofen, but I cannot say," replied Hans.

On the question of speed and noise, however, the peasant declared that he was certain.

"It must have been a ghost-aeroplane," he said, "because it was silent, and its speed was like the passing of a spirit when it leaves the body."