Dastral of the Flying Corps

"Spit–spit-t-t–spit-t-t-t!!" went the C.O.'s machine gun, as he pumped a whole drum of ammunition into his opponent, raking his fuselage, engine, and petrol tank from end to end. The next instant, the huge German machine, which mounted two guns, went down with blazing petrol tank, and crashed from 8,000 feet.

And now commenced an indescribable scene; a terrible fight in mid-air, which would have been deemed to be impossible but a few short years ago. The sky, to those watching far below, must have seemed full of wild, swooping and circling birds of prey, spitting fire and smoke, while every now and then a machine went down blazing, or wildly zig-zagging to destruction. No less than four enemy 'planes had thus gone down, when No. 2 machine of "C" Flight, with crumpled wing, went down with a fatal nose-dive in a terrific crash.

But still the fight went on, until more than half the British machines had gone under, taking down with them at least twice their number, and yet neither Himmelman nor Dastral had appeared. Numbers were telling upon the English, and those machines which were left had nearly consumed their ammunition, when, suddenly out of a little cluster of clouds at 12,000 feet a dark speck appeared.

The little speck at first appeared like a tiny bird, but the aviators knew only too well what it meant. Whistling through the air in a terrific nose-dive which reached the rate of 150 miles an hour, the dreaded Fokker appeared to strike his chief opponent. Straight for the Squadron-Commander's machine he came, like a fierce bird of prey.

For an instant the fight slackened, and the enemy machines even drew off a little space, to leave a clear path for the air-fiend, who had never been known to fail in his desperate strokes. A thrill of intense excitement held the combatants, as the Major made a daring counter move, and jammed his last drum of ammunition into place.

"Spit! Bang! Spit! Bang!

"Whir-r-r-r!" Himmelman had opened fire while nose-diving at terrific speed. Already the victim seemed to be in his clutch, when, just as suddenly, from the same cloud in which the German air-fiend himself had found ambush, another speck appeared, swooping like a hawk with its talons ready to strike. It was Dastral, who had waited and waited, in the biting cold and the clinging moisture of the wet cloud; waited at 12,000 feet near the edge of the cloud.

He had seen Himmelman coming, had watched him like a tiny speck seeking shelter in the same misty vapour. How Himmelman had failed to discover his enemy was a mystery. They were both invisible to the combatants, it is true, and Dastral had used a dozen devices to keep himself out of sight of the Boche, though ready at any moment to fight with him.

There can be little doubt, however, that Himmelman had been watching the fight so closely that he had never even dreamt of finding his chief enemy so close at hand. Besides, no one had ever dared to imitate his tactics before, and his first intimation of Dastral's presence was when, during his wild swoop, having half emptied his first drum at the Squadron-Commander, he suddenly heard machine-gun bullets whizzing about his own ears, and felt a stinging sensation in his right arm. Looking round, he saw that the dark cloud in which he had been hiding had given birth to another air-fiend, and in that moment Himmelman knew that he was no longer the Master-Pilot of the Skies.

"Gott in Himmel!" he gasped, and made one last effort to manoeuvre.

With his hand upon the gun, and his feet upon the rudder bar, he flattened out, and tried to fight his enemy from below, leaving his last victim to limp away to safety.

But Dastral was too quick, for he had time to give the Fokker two full drums before he also flattened out just above the monoplane. He knew the Fokker had its gun fixed forward, rigidly fixed, so that it could only fire ahead through the propeller. All this he had coolly calculated beforehand. Unless, therefore, Himmelman could manoeuvre to get his enemy directly ahead, he could do nothing. Still, though wounded, the German fought on. Round and round spun the machines, over and under they went, like a shoal of porpoises, each trying to get the advantage.

Up there at 9,000 feet they performed the most amazing gymnastic gyrations and contortions. Once the German got the advantage, and was about to open a new drum of fire, when Dastral, pulling over the joy-stick, and with clenched teeth, muttered:

"No, you don't! By all the saints, no!"

And, with that, he dived under the air-fiend, and emptied his seventh and last drum into him from beneath.

It, was the end of the great fight, for with his fuselage ablaze from end to end–for his petrol tanks had been pierced–and with a bullet through his brain, Himmelman went down in a spinning nose-dive to the earth.

Even then the chief of the air nearly took down his opponent with his wreckage, for Dastral being underneath, only just slithered, rather than banked, in time to let the blazing mass hurtle by. Another dozen feet, and the heroes would have gone down together.

The next moment the daring young pilot gazed almost ruefully down upon the tangled wreckage far below. He was amazed at his own work, riding up there alone, for he was now the Master-Pilot of the Skies. Even so, somehow, his chivalrous young heart was sad, for a brave man never finds pleasure in the death of another brave man, and your true hero has always a gentle soul.

Then touched by a gust of sudden pity, he circled down to within three hundred feet of the burning mass in which the remains of the brave pilot lay, and, heedless of the risk he ran, he detached from its place, where he had secured it that morning, unknown to all but himself and Jock, a wreath of laurel, with these words attached to it, penned in his own hand:–

"To Himmelman–the bravest of the brave–the Pilot of the Western Skies. A tribute ofrespect from his Conqueror.

    Dastral of the Flying Corps."

Then he climbed back again, joined the remnant of his squadron, which with broken struts and wires, and bearing strong evidence of the great fight in every part of their delicate frames, struggled back to the aerodrome near Contalmaison.

Thus did Himmelman meet his end, going down bravely, and, with Himmelman, the Germans lost the mastery of the air.

But Dastral himself was wounded in that last fight, and his machine, the new "wasp," was so badly damaged that even his wonderful skill could not save her, and she crashed behind the British lines, quite close to Contalmaison.

CHAPTER XI

"BLIGHTY"

AFTER the fall of Himmelman the supremacy of the air was wrested from the Germans; the enemy's advance was definitely stopped. Thus was the way paved for the final victory, which was to end in the defeat of militarism, the restoration to Europe of her liberties, and to civilisation of her freedom.

There is only one more incident to record, before this story of adventure and heroism is finished. It concerns one of those unfortunate persons whose heroic soul had been confined, by some mysterious dispensation of Providence, to the narrow limits of a misshapen and deformed body.

We have met this poor fellow once before, in the earlier part of the story. Then it was that we saw his brave young spirit yearning with desire to do some manly deed, but we found him broken-hearted and dismayed, because all his efforts to serve his country, in her time of peril, had been refused. Now, by another strange dealing of Providence, which always assigns to every brave man his post in the day of trial, we meet him again.

When Dastral, after his fight with Himmelman, crashed just behind the British lines, he was carried away unconscious from the wreckage, scorched and blistered, and wounded in no less than three places, and taken to the field hospital. From there he was removed quickly to the base hospital, and, after three days of feverish tossing, during the whole of which time he remained unconscious, he was sent, at the urgent request of a General Officer commanding, by the next hospital ship to Blighty.

It was during the voyage from Havre to Southampton that he first regained consciousness. Once, on opening his eyes and trying to look about him, he asked:

"Where am I? What is the matter? And why is it so dark?"

A gentle hand was laid on his fevered brow. Dastral thought it was the hand of his mother, so soft it felt and kind. Then a tender voice, which seemed to echo far down into the distant past, whispered:

"Be quiet yet a little while, and you will soon be better."

The wounded pilot tried to turn his face towards the voice, but found that he could not move, for his head, his hands and limbs were powerless. The light also in the room was very dim. So he lay still, and tried to think, but his head was confused, and his brain was in a whirl.

"What is the matter? Have I been wounded?" he asked after another minute or two, without trying to turn his head this time, for the pain racked him so.

"Yes, you have been seriously wounded, and you must not try to talk or think much for the present. You just need to rest quietly, and you will soon be out of all danger," came the answer in those same quiet, but strong tones,

Again that voice which stirred the memories of the past, yet Dastral could not fix it. Somewhere he had heard it before, but where?

His eyes burned like live coals, and his body ached in every limb. He fancied that he could hear the throb, throb of an engine, and, as he dozed off again, with that pulsating throb in his ears, he was away again in his wild dreams, rushing through the heavens to meet Himmelman, and, over the German trenches, he was fighting his last great fight over again. But his dream kept changing, for the constant watcher by his bedside saw at times a stern look, and then a smile, flicker over his countenance.

"I wonder of what he is dreaming now?" murmured the hospital attendant, who, himself, wore the ribbon of the D.C.M. on his breast, lately awarded for bravery on the high seas, in the service of his country.

Suddenly the pilot started again, and opened his eyes. As he did so, he caught sight of the face bending over him, and instinctively the words fell from his lips, as from the mouth of a child:

"Tim Burkitt!"

"Yes, Dastral, you are right. It is Tim Burkitt. God has sent me to watch over you, and to nurse you back to life."

Tim, who had been serving latterly as ward attendant on board one of His Majesty's hospital ships conveying the wounded men back to Blighty, had heard of Dastral's accident, and had been to fetch him from the base hospital, having secured permission from the D.D.M.S. to have him under his own special care.

"There, that will do, Dastral. I did not intend to let you recognise me until you were out of all danger."

Despite his orders, however, Dastral would persist in half-raising his hand, to grasp that of his friend. And, seeing the ribbon on his tunic, he gasped:

"Tim, where did you win that?"

"Hush! That will keep till another time," replied Tim.

"But, Tim, how came you here?"

In a few words the attendant told him how he had at last, after persistent effort, gained a footing in the services, and, though only the humble post of sick-ward attendant on a hospital ship had been offered to him, yet he had gladly accepted it.