Rivals of the clouds

He checked himself. He was thinking of the clash after mess, last night, between Adams and Tex Langdon. It had been a sharp one. Lieutenant Adams was an old-timer--three weeks on the front. Tex had been up three days. In that time he had nosed over one ship, cracked another up two miles from the Squadron, in a forced landing, and then he had taxied into a wing-tip of Adam’s pet Nieuport, just before mess. The old-timer had told him just about what he had thought. Tex had listened with a grin on his face, and the grin had enraged Lieutenant Adams.

“You’ll get yours in about three more days, Langdon!” he had shot at him, and then, as Tex had kept right on smiling, Adams had gone the limit. “And the sooner the better--for this outfit!”

Ben Chapin, standing out in the fog with his face tilted upward, swore grimly. Adams hadn’t meant that. He’d been sore; the nervous strain was telling on him. And Tex had smiled that provocative smile of his. The big fellow was calm, or had been until that second. Then his eyes had narrowed to little slits.

“Easy, Lieutenant!” he had shot back coldly. “Where I come from that’s right bad talk!”

And then Adams had laughed. It had been a nasty laugh. And when he had finished laughing he had shot more words at the big Texan.

“You’re not where you came from, unfortunately! But you’ll get there, Lieutenant. The first Boche that gets on your tail will send you back to where you came from!”

Tex had got to his feet, after that. There had been no color in his face; Lieutenant Adam’s meaning had been unmistakable. Ben Chapin had grabbed him, and the old-timer had turned his back and moved from the mess-room.

Lieutenant Chapin listened for the roar of a ship’s engine, heard nothing but the distant rumble of guns, muffled by the fog. Staff had pulled a boner, in picking the locality of the Sixteenth Pursuit’s field. Every five or six days the ground fog was so bad that ships didn’t get in. Once or twice they hadn’t been able to get off.

The pilot turned back toward the barracks. He shook his head slowly. Somewhere in the sky, winging back toward the squadron, most probably, were Lieutenants Adams and Tex Langdon. Quite often two pilots, one winging in from the north and the other from the south patrol of the front, would meet over Chalbrouck, fly back to the Squadron together. Perfectly synchronized wrist watches helped such a meet in the air. Lieutenant Adams was an old-timer. He knew about fog; knew where it was likely to hang and where the ground might be clear. If the two ships met, he could guide Tex Langdon in. He could; but would he?

Ben Chapin swore again. He shook his head. It looked like a tough break for Tex. One more smash and he’d go back toward Blois. The Squadron needed ships too badly. And now there was fog, heavy fog. And the only pilot who could help Tex was Lieutenant Adams. Ben Chapin’s lips moved slowly as he moved along the corridor toward his tiny coop.

“If Tex rides this one into the corral,” he muttered grimly, “he’s good! More than good, I’ll say--he’s perfect!”

Nine miles east of the Sixteenth Pursuit Squadron’s fog-shrouded field, ten thousand feet above the front lines, two ships zoomed and dove, twisted and spun in the sky. The two ships had been engaged in combat for more than three minutes, and the battle was a tough one. One plane was a baby Albatross, very well camouflaged. The other was a fifteen-meter Nieuport, not so well camouflaged. In the narrow cockpit of the Nieuport was Lieutenant Tex Langdon. His blue eyes were rimmed with red, his lips were pressed tightly together as he handled the American ship, trying to get in position for a machine-gun burst at the enemy plane.

The German pilot was a fine flyer. Twice he had almost sent streams of tracer-marked lead into the fuselage of the American ship. The left wing surfaces showed the bullet holes of his last hit--and it was much too close for comfort. But Tex Langdon was fighting on and fighting desperately.

Two things worried him. He was running low in gas--and the damaged wing surfaces might be badly weakened. The Boche pilot had come down out of the clouds, almost taking him by surprise, as he was winging back toward the Sixteenth. Tex had kicked the Nieuport into a tail-spin, and on coming out of it the German lead had punctured his wing fabric. Since then the fight had been sharp.

The air was bad; the earth below was obscured by drifting fog. The patrol had not been a particularly successful one and now the attack of the German pilot threatened to make it disastrous. Tex had the feeling that he was too green for the enemy pilot.

The Nieuport came up in a zoom; for a flashing second he had the Albatross in the ringsight of the Browning. He squeezed the stick-trigger of the propellor-synchronized weapon, then released pressure after a short burst. He saw that his stream was behind the slanting enemy ship, then he lost the plane in a blind spot of his own ship.

He nosed downward and caught the flash of a shape coming up at the Nieuport then went over in a vertical bank. Green-yellow tracer-bullet fire streaked through the sky close to the plane. Once again the German pilot had come very close to scoring a hit!

Tex Langdon’s lean face twisted. The patrol had been a long one, a difficult one. He was new to such flying. The German pilot was more experienced. The Nieu-port’s gun was getting low. There was the fog hanging close to the earth; it might mean that he would have to search for the Squadron field.

The Albatross was a quarter mile away, between the Nieuport and the Allied rear lines, and banking. Her pilot banked, came out of it, zoomed for altitude. Tex Langdon wiped his goggle-glass clear of a splatter of oil, nosed down to gain speed, and banked his own ship. He could not afford to let the other pilot get altitude.

His lips moved as he squinted blue eyes on the enemy ship.

“Get sense--show tail and fly out of it! If I don’t--he’ll get me!”

It was the way he felt. He was fighting a losing combat. He was new at the front. There was justification for a sky retreat. Just one thing stopped him from winging out. One human--Lieutenant Adams. He would make his report and Adams would learn about it. There were few secrets in the outfit; he had learned that already. Adams would know that he had run away from an enemy pilot.

He shook his head. The Albatross was streaking in at the Nieuport now. Their altitudes were about the same; both had leveled off from zooms. But now the German pilot zoomed again. And then, as Tex pulled back on the stick of the Nieuport, he came out of the zoom and dove.

The American pilot shoved his stick forward, to dive the Nieuport. He saw the nose of the tiny Albatross come up, knew that the enemy pilot had tried again to get beneath his plane for a shot upward. Both planes were streaking at each other now. Tex squeezed the stick-trigger. The crackle of machine-gun fire sounded, then died abruptly. But his fingers were still squeezing the trigger. The gun had jammed!

# # # # The German brought his plane up despite the odds, and then Tex’s gun # chattered. # #

Tex Langdon groaned, banked to the right. A strut leaped, out on the left wing. Fabric ripped; the tracer stream of the other ship was tearing through wing and wood. A shape flashed up past the vertical-banked Nieuport. Tex Langdon twisted his neck, got a glimpse of the German pilot’s head. The two ships rushed past each other.

Once again Tex felt the desire to wing for it. He had plenty of reason now. His wing fabric was badly damaged--a strut had been splintered. And yet, something within him refused the chance. He swore hoarsely, banked around, leveled off.

His eyes widened. Slanting down toward earth, flames streaking up from her, was the Albatross! She was an eighth of a mile distant, and for a second he thought that his short burst, before the gun had jammed, had done the trick. And then he saw the other plane.