Tam o' the Scoots. Wallace Edgar

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СКАЧАТЬ ye gang an' tak' a look at me eenstruments?" he asked mysteriously.

      "Why, Tam?"

      "Will ye, sir-r?"

      Captain Blackie walked over to the machine and climbed up into the fuselage. What he saw made him gasp, and he came back to where Tam was standing, smug and self-conscious.

      "You've been up to twenty-eight thousand feet, Tam?" asked the astonished Blackie. "Why, that is nearly a record!"

      "A' doot ma baromeeter," said Tam; "if A' were no' at fochty thousand, A'm a Boche."

      Blackie laughed.

      "You're not a Boche, Tam," he said, "and you haven't been to forty thousand feet—no human being can rise eight miles. To get up five and a half miles is a wonderful achievement. Why did you do it?"

      Tam grinned and slapped his long gloves together.

      "For peace an' quiet," he said. "A've been chased by thairty air Hoons that got 'twixt me an' ma breakfast, so A' went oop a bit an' a bit more an' two fellers came behint me. There's an ould joke that A've never understood before—'the higher the fewer'—it's no' deefficult to understand it noo."

      "You got back all right, anyhow," said Blackie.

      "Aloon i' the vast an' silent spaces of the vaulted heavens," said Tam in his sing-song tones which invariably accompanied his narratives, "the Young Avenger of the Cloods, Tam the Scoot, focht his ficht. Attacked by owerwhelmin' foorces, shot at afore an' behint, the noble laddie didna lose his nairve. Mutterin' a brief—a verra brief—prayer that the Hoons would be strafed, he climbt an' climbt till he could 'a' strook a match on the moon. After him wi' set lips an' flashin' een came the bluidy-minded ravagers of Belgium, Serbia an'—A'm afreed—Roomania. Theer bullets whistled aboot his lugs but,

      "His eyes were bricht,

      His hairt were licht,

      For Tam the Scoot was fu' o' ficht—

      "That's a wee poem A' made oop oot o' ma ain heid, Captain, at a height of twenty-three thoosand feet. A'm thinkin' it's the highest poem in the wairld."

      "And you're not far wrong—well, what happened?"

      "A' got hame," said Tam grimly, "an' ain o' yon Hoons did no' get hame. Mon! It took him an awfu' long time to fa'!"

      He went off to his breakfast and later, when Blackie came in search for him, he found him lying on his bed smoking a long black cigar, his eyes glued to the pages of "Texas Tom, or the Road Agent's Revenge."

      "I forgot to tell you, Tam," said Captain Blackie, "that von Zeidlitz is down."

      "Doon?" said Tam, "'Fritz Fokker' doon? Puir laddie! He were a gay fichter—who straffit him?"

      "You did—he was the man you shot down yesterday."

      Tam's eyes were bright with excitement.

      "Ye're fulin' me noo?" he asked eagerly. "It wisna me that straffit him? Puir auld Freetz! It were a bonnie an' a carefu' shot that got him. He wis above me, d'ye ken? 'Ah naw!' says I. 'Ye'll no try that tailbitin' trick on Tam,' says I; 'naw, Freetz—!' An' I maneuvered to miss him. I put a drum into him at close range an' the puir feller side-slippit an' nose-dived. Noo was it Freetz, then? Weel, weel!"

      "We want you to take a wreath over—he'll be buried at Ludezeel."

      "With the verra greatest pleasure," said Tam heartily, "and if ye'll no mind, Captain, A'd like to compose a wee vairse to pit in the box."

      For two hours Tam struggled heroically with his composition. At the end of that time he produced with awkward and unusual diffidence a poem written in his sprawling hand and addressed:

      Dedication to Mr. von Sidlits

      By Tam of the Scoots

      "I'll read you the poem, Captain Blackie, sir-r," said Tam nervously, and after much coughing he read:

      "A graund an' nooble clood

      Was the flyin' hero's shrood

      Who dies at half-past seven

      And he verra well desairves

      The place that God resairves

      For the men who die in Heaven.

      "A've signed it, 'Kind regards an' deepest sympathy wi' a' his loved ains,'" said Tam. "A' didna say A' killit him—it would no be delicate."

      The wreath in a tin box, firmly corded and attached to a little parachute, was placed in the fuselage of a small Morane—his own machine being in the hands of the mechanics—and Tam climbed into the seat. In five minutes he was pushing up at the steep angle which represented the extreme angle at which a man can fly. Tam never employed a lesser one.

      He had learnt just what an aeroplane could do, and it was exactly all that he called for. Soon he was above the lines and was heading for Ludezeel. Archies blazed and banged at him, leaving a trail of puff balls to mark his course; an enemy scout came out of the clouds to engage him and was avoided, for the corps made it a point of honor not to fight when engaged on such a mission as was Tam's.

      Evidently the enemy scout realized the business of this lone British flyer and must have signaled his views to the earth, for the anti-aircraft batteries suddenly ceased fire, and when, approaching Ludezeel, Tam sighted an enemy squadron engaged in a practise flight, they opened out and made way for him, offering no molestation.

      Tam began to plane down. He spotted the big white-speckled cemetery and saw a little procession making its way to the grounds. He came down to a thousand feet and dropped his parachute. He saw it open and sail earthward and then some one on the ground waved a white handkerchief.

      "Guid," said Tam, and began to climb homeward.

      The next day something put out of action the engine of that redoubtable fighter, Baron von Hansen-Bassermann, and he planed down to the British aerodrome with his machine flaming.

      A dozen mechanics dashed into the blaze and hauled the German to safety, and, beyond a burnt hand and a singed mustache, he was unharmed.

      Lieutenant Baron von Hansen-Bassermann was a good-looking youth. He was, moreover, an undergraduate of Oxford University and his English was perfect.

      "Hard luck, sir," said Blackie, and the baron smiled.

      "Fortunes of war. Where's Tam?" he asked.

      "Tam's up-stairs somewhere," said Blackie. He looked up at the unflecked blue of the sky, shading his eyes. "He's been gone two hours."

      The baron nodded and smiled again.

      "Then it was Tam!" he said. "I thought I knew his touch—does he 'loop' to express his satisfaction?"

      "That's Tam!" said a chorus of voices.

      "He was sitting in a damp cloud waiting for me," said the baron ruefully. "But who was the Frenchman with him?"

      Blackie looked puzzled.

      "Frenchman? There isn't a French machine within fifty miles; did he attack you, too?"

      "No—he just sat around watching and approving. I had the curious sense that I was being butchered to make a Frenchman's holiday. It is curious СКАЧАТЬ