Part 3

During the following days, as the line pushed up through Champigneulle, St. Georges, Alliepont and on to Verpel, the two wild men, for the greater part, went it alone. Major Mack heard Mudd’s bleat often, but the major was too busy to bother himself with such minor distractions. This war was what men like Mack had lived a life for. Mudd could not be expected to sec this; and Mack made no effort toward proselyting F.F.V’s conversion to the cause of Langdon, Samter--and, if the truth must be known, Mack.

* * * * *

The Major was on the wing a great deal during those busy days. With his own eyes, he saw Langdon knock an enemy craft out of the skies behind Buzancy, and follow a second out of sight toward Stonne and the Meuse.

“Yes, sir,” Major Mack told Mudd upon his return to the ’drome. “That heller of a Langdon went down on a Fokker. And when the Hun fell into a spin, after Langdon’s first burst, the kid sideslipped right with him and Samter poured his load from the rear gun. They had the poor devil burning through the last two thousand feet. The second plane they picked on was doing observations near Harricourt.”

“But it’s not consistent, sir!” Lieutenant Mudd insisted.

“But hell, Lieutenant,” Mack said, “it is strictly American, you know. And when we take this out of the Yank youth, we’re eternally lost.”

So Major Mack continued to make allowances for one of his planes which had no more right in an observation outfit, than has a free balloon in a pursuit squadron.

On the third of November Langdon got a German ship which was busily strafing roads near Authe; and on the fourth he accounted for a like worker near Oches.

“The damn’ gorillas--strafing our troops!” he said to Samter, as they regassed their ship at ten o’clock that morning.

Then, reserviced, the two went directly into the air and strafed roads as far back as La Neuville and Raucourt.

In his own way, Mudd was making history through the long hours of those crowded days. Time and again, even with his overhead defense shot to pieces, he made requested observations along the Meuse. He located ambushes near La Bessage and Le Vivier and dropped warning notes to the infantry. On a hill above a graveyard in Raucourt, there was a machine gun and anti-aircraft nest. Mudd wiped it out. Twice in four days he brought dead observers home in his rear pit. And on one of those trips he had landed his burning plane on the long hillside slope before Champigneulle.

“But why the hell doesn’t he stay and fight?” Samter argued. “Every slug hole in his linen is frayed to the front. Dead observers are of no use to anybody. They’re not worth a dollar a thousand ... Langdon, if I ever see a slug coming into the rear of your crate, I’ll spray you with my own gun just to teach you a lesson.”

“And I’ll pile you up surer’n hell if you do!” Langdon promised.

There was no freebooting on the seventh. Artillery and infantry wanted to learn all there was to be known of the bridges on, and the terrain adjacent, the Meuse. Headquarters told the Trente-Neuf to “go get it”. And, behind Mudd, Langdon and four other pilots--three of them green--took off.

At Villers Devant Mouzon, a detachment of engineers were doing their best to throw a path across the Meuse. The German machine gun nests and snipers were making of the job a nasty detail, till Mudd’s flight put an end to those ambushes.

At Remilly, a like detachment was having a still harder time. And the covering aerial defense was no enviable task. Before the first four hour patrol had ended, two of Mudd’s new men had limped back to the ’drome with motor trouble, and one had been driven down a few kilometers east of the river by an enemy pursuit plane. Mudd and Langdon, close at hand, had seen that Trente-Neuf pilot burn his ship before he was taken prisoner by ground troops. Then, still behind the lines, the two had turned back toward the river.

There was a heavy sky that day, November 7, and anything in the way of altitude had been out of the question. But now, here and there, the blue was breaking through and showing a higher ceiling. Suddenly, out of this clearer sky, a bi-motored enemy craft crossed their line of flight. Langdon jumped it. After a few seconds of thought, outclassed by the faster Yank, the enemy ship turned east. And the eager Langdon hung on. Mudd, after a moment, followed. Samter, as Langdon came down on the big ship’s tail again, thumped Langdon on the back and pointed to Mudd.

“Old F.F.V. himself,” Samter yelled. “He’s going to pile on with us. Now there _will_ be a war!”

But war and a personal battle were not Mudd’s concerns. Coming east from the Meuse, he had spotted two Hun pursuit planes that had seen Langdon and the bomber.

Mudd was pretty well off to the south, and the pair of single-seater Germans came down on Langdon before he could work into position. With the first burst of lead, Samter crumpled, shot through both legs. He fought to stay, clinging tenaciously to his machine gun mount. He pulled a belt from his flying suit, passed it through and around the gun scarf and worked his way to a standing position. Langdon had dived and slipped; now he zoomed and flew a wing-over. They came back under the pursuing planes--and Samter got one as they went by.

In a moment Langdon was crowding down on the bomber and single pursuit ship again. And just when he came into position, his gun jammed. The German seemed to realize his predicament; they passed the laugh from ship to ship. That was a mistake on their part; it made Langdon angry.

* * * * *

The speed of the chase was the speed of the big ship out front. The combat plane easily maintained a position between the pursuing DH and the huge German, thus further increasing Langdon’s rage.

For a few minutes, as they flew in line, the American thought hard. Then he gained a little altitude, and with it under him, he threw full power to his motor, went into a long dive and closed the distance between him and the pursuit plane. Before the German knew what was up, Langdon had hooked his left lower wingtip into the right side of the lighter craft. The latter’s single interwing N-strut came out, and half his lower wing went with it. That pilot was finished with the war.

But Langdon’s ship could not go through such a high speed collision without damage. He had counted on losing a few feet of wingtip. If only that much were wiped off, a pilot could carry the difference of lateral stability by using full rudder on the opposite side from the wing so damaged. Also the use of aileron would help offset the loss of wing lift. But he had lost more than was good for the wing balance of any plane. He was in a bad situation.

They had crashed at five thousand feet. Fighting to hold up the clipped lower left wing, he flew a flat turn to the right, covered a great deal of space and started back for the Meuse. But, even with full right rudder and his control stick clear to the side, he was losing altitude. He had to lose altitude in order to remain at all level. Two or three times, in the following five minutes, he came very close to falling into a spin. Each time, he dived, gained high speed and fought the craft out of its wing drag.

Here and there along the Chiers River, the anti-aircraft outfits were sending up feelers for Langdon. Even the machinegun crews were putting steel through his ship as he crossed the highest spots.

Finally he had Mairy just ahead and off to the right. It looked as though he would come to earth and pile up some place between the town and the Meuse; and as yet, the east bank of the river was in enemy hands. The war was just about over for two willing young men and....

Langdon had been watching Mairy, to his right. All of a sudden the weight came off his weak left side. He stared, full of bewilderment, for Mudd’s right wings were tucked under his damaged panels and carrying the load. That, for Langdon and Samter, was the grandest moment of life.

Both motors now roared full on. They lost no more altitude and the river became more than just a possibility.

Samter, still hanging on his belt, shook his head and fainted. Langdon made sure that it was Lieutenant Charles F.F.V., shook his head and tended strictly to his flying. The Meuse came closer, and Archie came up oftener. The war was as good as over for the enemy, but they still had a goodly amount of ammunition on hand and they were throwing most of it toward Langdon and Mudd. But that did not worry Langdon now. The river was only a matter of short kilometers. Soon F.F.V. would be working on his report.

“And he’s got me with my suspenders cut,” Langdon found time to reflect. “Hell, who ever heard of such a dumb thing as an intentional collision on the wing! Collisions are strictly for high rankers and to be made only upon takeoff and landing.

“They’ll ground me for this sure. I might even draw a bobtail. And old kid Charlie Mudd....”

As suddenly as he had arrived, Mudd left. A rifle shot from the east bank of the Meuse had found him. His plane, with dead hands and feet on the controls, spun into the river.

* * * * *

From the dressing station where Langdon sat, richly swathed in iodine soaked wrappings, he could watch the engineers fishing for a pilot and observer where the rudder of a plane waved above the surface of the Meuse. On a cot, where a few medical men had been busy for an hour, Samter was showing the first signs of returning consciousness. Now and then the observer had said, in delirium:

“F.F.V. Old F.F.V., himself.”

“We used to have one of them in this corps,” a medical private said. “He was from Norfolk, I think. That F.F.V. stuff stands for First Families of Virginia.”

“Right you are,” Langdon mused, from where he sat.

“Wrong as hell,” Samter mused. “It stands for Fell Flying Valiantly.”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 15, 1929 issue of _Adventure_ magazine.]