CHAPTER VI

DEATH FROM THE SKY

A few nights later, Blake was aroused from sleep by an unusual commotion. Noise was common enough on that active section of the front, where the artillery seldom ceased its growling even through the night.

His first impulse was to turn over and go to sleep again, for he had had an unusually trying day. But there was something insistent, ominous, strange about this tumult that finally forced its way fully into his consciousness.

He opened his eyes and looked toward the little window of the room in the cottage where he and his friends were billeted. A red glare streamed through the pane, and he was wide awake at once.

Springing from his bed, he rushed to the window and looked out. Flames were leaping high into the air from the direction in which the Red Cross hospital lay. Great billows of smoke rose skyward, and as his eyes followed them he saw a descending object which a moment later was followed by a tremendous explosion.

He rushed to where his friends lay sleeping.

“Get up, fellows,” he shouted. “Joe! Charlie! get up, quick!”

They sat up in bed, looking at him stupidly, as they rubbed their eyes.

“What’s the matter?” mumbled Joe.

Blake seized him by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shake.

“Wake up!” he cried. “Come out of your trance! The hospital’s on fire! The Huns are raiding it!”

Both Joe and Charlie were awake enough now. They leaped out of bed and tumbled into their clothes.

“The hospital!” exclaimed Joe, as he slipped on his coat. “But that’s marked with the Red Cross and it’s lighted up at night. I don’t see how the Huns could make any mistake about that.”

Blake laughed bitterly.

“You poor innocent,” he cried. “As if that wasn’t simply an invitation to those fellows. There’s nothing sacred to that breed. But hustle now. We may be able to do something to help. And Charlie, you bring the camera along and come after us. I don’t know that we’ll have any time to take pictures, but if we do I’d like to be able to show the people of the United States just what kind of people it is that they’re fighting.”

The two darted out of the room, leaving Charlie to follow, and ran as fast as they could in the direction of the hospital, about half a mile away.

A faint hope still lingered that it might be some other building. But this was dissipated, as, at a turn of the road, they came in full view of the blazing structure.

The hospital base consisted of a large number of one-story buildings, spread out over a space of several acres. Some were open-air pavilions where convalescents had their quarters, others were designed for serious cases, while those of a central group were used for surgical operations. Upon the roofs of these had been painted gigantic red crosses, plainly visible to aviators by day and still more visible at night, when brilliantly illuminated.

The night was clear, the stars were out and a mistake by aviators was absolutely impossible.

The Allies had acted on the theory that they were dealing with a civilized nation, although every month that the war progressed was teaching them how utterly they had been mistaken.

The central building, that of the surgical operations, was in flames, while some of the other buildings near by had also caught fire. It was plain at a glance that the main building was doomed.

A gasp of horror went up from the boys.

“There were hundreds of poor wounded fellows in that building!” panted Joe as he ran.

“Yes,” gritted Blake through his teeth. “Oh, those beasts!” he muttered, as he shook his fist toward the sky.

The whole camp had been roused by this time and thousands had rushed to the rescue. So many there were that were eager to help that they would have gotten in each other’s way, had not the officers taken command of the situation and drawn a cordon around the place, while a sufficient force of men was detailed to do the rescue work.

The scene was heart-rending. Men without legs and arms, utterly helpless, were brought out on stretchers. Some had been actually on the operating table when the raid took place, and doctors and Red Cross nurses ran along beside them, trying to staunch the blood from their wounds that had not yet been sewn up. The bombs were still raining down, and even as the boys looked, a bomb exploded in the midst of a party of doctors and nurses, blowing them and their helpless burdens to pieces.

Joe was white to the lips and Blake was trembling with rage and pity. They wanted to rush in and help, but were prevented by the military guards.

Just then, Blake felt a touch on his arm. He turned and found Charlie standing panting beside him.

“I tried to get here sooner,” Charlie gasped, as he laid down the camera and tripod, “but these things were pretty heavy and you beat me to it.”

“Quick!” said Blake. “Set it up, Charlie. If we can’t do anything else we can put on record this picture of the hideous way the Germans are carrying on war.”

“That’s right,” said a voice, and they looked up to find Lieutenant Baker close beside them.

“These flames will give you light enough,” said the lieutenant. “Get the whole thing in your film, the wounded men, the slaughtered doctors and nurses, everything.”

The tripod was hastily planted, the camera placed and the film began to register.

The American commanders were not content with merely rescuing the victims of this barbarity. Allied planes were hastily manned and winged their way upward in pursuit of the raiders. Searchlights swung great arcs across the sky, seeking out the location of the attacking planes. Anti-aircraft guns from batteries all over the camp were sending their missiles upward on the chance of disabling some of the unseen foes.

Suddenly a shout went up as one of the searchlights steadied itself on two planes engaged in combat, a thousand feet or more up in the sky. They wheeled about each other, jockeying for position, turning, diving, soaring, while the whir of their motors and the crackling of their machine guns could be faintly heard from below.

For some minutes this continued, and then one of the machines gave a sudden lunge toward the earth. The searchlight held it as it came down, and the spectators scarcely ventured to breathe as they watched its descent.

When half the distance had been covered, the pilot regained some measure of control and attempted to attain a higher altitude. But the plane was too badly crippled and the attempt was useless. It came lower and lower in great sweeping spirals, and a shout went up as it was seen that it bore German markings.

The crowd scattered to give it space for landing, but the moment it touched the ground they rushed toward it. It was a German bombing machine and had carried a crew of four men. Two of these had already paid the penalty, having been killed by some of the stream of machine-gun bullets rained upon them. The commander and his observer seemed to be unwounded, but their faces whitened as the crowd rushed in upon them.

A dozen hands reached in and tore them roughly from their seats and a roar went up from the throng.

“Lynch them!”

“Kill the beasts!”

“Put a bullet into them!”

“Throw them into the flames!”

“Tear them to pieces!”

It would have gone hard with them, but just at that moment a captain with a detachment of men forced himself through the crowd and took possession of the prisoners.

The crowd fell back reluctantly, still growling ominously, but they were soldiers first of all and military discipline prevailed.

Unmeasured relief came into the captives’ eyes, together with something of defiance and arrogance as they saw themselves rescued from the wrath of the throng.

The captain looked them over grimly. From head to foot and foot to head again his eyes traveled with an unutterable contempt that would have blistered anyone susceptible of shame. Even the Huns fidgeted and reddened at last as that relentless gaze bored through them.

“Why did you drop your bombs on this hospital?” asked the captain in a voice that was like chilled steel.

“I didn’t know it was a hospital,” replied the aviator in passable English, but his eyes fell as he said it.

“Didn’t you see the Red Crosses marked plainly on it?” pursued his interrogator.

“No,” answered the prisoner sullenly. “Anyway,” he continued, with a flaring up of his habitual arrogance, “it had no right to be located so close to the lines.”

Again the captain’s look of biting contempt.

“I knew you were a brute,” said the captain. “Now I know that you are a liar, too. Take them to headquarters,” he directed, turning to his men. “This is a matter for the general.”

The guards closed about the prisoners and forced a way through the crowd with them. They cowered as the threats and growls of the thwarted spectators were showered upon them. But no actual violence was offered and they soon disappeared from view.

“The hounds!” growled Joe. “They ought to have a brace of bullets put through their hearts.”

“Too easy,” muttered Blake. “They ought to be made to die by inches.”

“And we treat those fellows as prisoners of war,” said Charlie bitterly. “They’re simply pirates and butchers. To bomb a hospital, killing helpless wounded men, women nurses!” he concluded savagely.

“They’re doing the same thing on the sea,” said Blake. “They take a special delight in sinking hospital ships. Only the other day, a hundred and twenty-three wounded men strapped to cots were drowned. Think of the _Warilda_, the _Llandovery Castle_, the long list of them, all plainly marked and lighted so that their character couldn’t possibly be mistaken.”

“They think they’re getting away with it and that when the war is over it will all be forgotten,” said Joe, “but that’s where they make their mistake. The Allies are keeping tab on the men who order these things to be done, and when Germany is beaten to her knees they’re going to demand that these men be given up to be tried and executed if convicted. They’ll find that there’s a God in heaven yet.”

“Well, let’s hope so,” said Blake. “And if the fellows who engineered this raid are ever hung, I’d give ten years of my life to be able to give the signal.”

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