Chapter XX: Winning of the Iron Cross

THE aviators in the party of Roten were all for sailing, post-haste, to the slope where the mysterious climbers had been sighted, and very shortly the little fleet was in the air, headed that way.

Flying low, the observers kept a sharp lookout for the near appearance of the man with the burden and the "shorter fellow."

Roque caught the first glimpse, and called to his pilot to risk a look for himself. Billy had only a side glance, as the machine rounded the summit, but that was enough for him.

"It's Henri and Schneider, or their ghosts!" he shouted.

Roque fixed his glasses for the close view.

"As sure as shooting it is, but how in the world did they get here?"

Billy had no ear for this--he was for landing right there, even with a chance of plowing through the bushes. However, reason ruled, and he steered for a clearing, into which the biplane promptly plumped.

Hardly waiting until the machine had run its length, the boy was out and speeding to greet his chum.

It was a regular collision, the manner in which the youngsters came together.

"Glory be!" This was Billy's high-pitched note.

"Here's to you, Buddy, bully old boy!" Henri cried.

The "bully old boy" then made a dash for Schneider and worked the latter's brawny arm up and down like a pump handle.

Roque repeated the last-named performance with both the recovered members of his crew.

In the meantime the Austrians were saluting Captain Schwimmer, well known to them as a gallant officer in a famous command.

"But for them, gentlemen," gravely stated the captain, nodding toward Schneider and Henri, "I had been in my last fight. Through danger, cold and hunger have they brought me, and neither needs a patent of nobility--nature took care of that."

Roque had only to listen to the happy reunion chatter of the boys to get the side of the story he wanted to hear.

"It seems," he commented, "that Billy and I were not in the same class this time with these trouble hunters."

"Do you suppose that there is anything left of our biplane?"

Henri had taken on the air of a sea captain who had lost his ship.

"That is an important question," said Roque, "There is only one fit mate to that craft in this part of the country."

Fortunately for the preservation of good feeling, Roten did not hear this latter statement.

It was necessary to detail two corporal aviators to take the wounded captain back to army headquarters, where he could have the skilled surgical attention that would hasten his recovery.

As the invalid was lifted into the machine that was to do ambulance service, he gave a hand each to Henri and Schneider.

"From my heart I thank you both," were his last words in profoundly earnest farewell.

Henri traveled as a passenger with Billy and Roque in the brief journey to the forest station in the pass where it was hoped to find intact the stranded biplane.

Schneider, who had been given a lift by Roten in the trip, was in high glee when it developed that the No. 3, behind its screen of bushes, had sustained no damage.

"See that?" The big fellow held aloft the rabbit's foot. "There's no jinx that can beat it."

Roque was delighted to learn, as the aërial expedition proceeded, that one of his cherished desires had matured--a large German contingent had arrived to support the determined effort of the Austrian forces to relieve the Przemysl fortress.

He had made up his mind that it was well worth the risk to carry back the new word of hope to the hemmed in garrison, and Roten was informed of his purpose.

"I regret that you must quit us, Mr. Roque," said the aviation chief, "but it's the big thing you are going to do, and I certainly wish the best for your undertaking. Let me advise, however, that not a screw should be loose when you make that dash. You can't fall in that country now without bumping a Russian."

"I'll back my boys to make the riffle," confidently asserted Roque.

"They'll need the keen eye every inch of the way," persisted Roten.

"We came out safely, and I guess we can repeat," declared the secret agent.

"Well, good-bye, sir, and look out for the big guns at Malkovista; the Russians are there now, and it's only three miles from Przemysl."

"We've come into our own again." Billy and Henri were standing together, viewing with satisfaction the graceful lines of the No. 3's, every part adjusted to a nicety. Both boys were well aware that they were to run a through express.

Schneider had been supplied by a brother aviator with a new outfit of firearms, and, as usual, was spoiling for an uproar.

"Going, going, gone." His imitation of an auctioneer was excellent, and with this send-off the biplanes bolted for Przemysl.

The pilots themselves knew the route this time, and they sent the biplanes over the course at sixty miles an hour.

Three times they were over the fire of long-range guns, but too high for harm.

Settling in the fortress enclosure, their initial greeting came from Stanislaws.

"Here's a cure for sore eyes."

This delighted individual capered around the welcome incomers like a dancing master.

The garrison received with acclaim the news that Roque conveyed.

They had been advised in a general way by wireless from the nearest Austrian point of the upcoming of the German reinforcements, and this confirmation in person and in detail added to the enthusiasm created by the first report.

"Now, boys," said Roque to his pilots, the next evening, "I am seeking a sight of the gray lines again, and there's another hard flight in store for you. So get a good night's rest. We start at daybreak."

Facing a bitter, biting wind, the aviators left Przemysl at dawn, and when they, numbed but undaunted, finally reached the far-away German lines it was a battle front that they crossed. There the atmosphere was being warmed by gunpowder flashes, and below was burning petrol, thawing out the ground that the troops might dig themselves in.

Before the entrenchments, in wide range, combined forces of Austrians and Germans were locked in a life and death struggle with Russian contenders for the possession of Warsaw--a bloody repetition in one spot of the never ending conflict.

Though completing a continuous flight of seven hours, the aviators were there offered no temptation to alight. Hovering over the banks of the Bzura they saw a German cavalry detachment all but totally destroyed by the exploding of a Russian mine, and in turn the big guns of the Germans cut wide swathes in the Muscovite ranks.

Schneider cheered or groaned as the tide of battle swept forward and back, when victory favored or defeat menaced his comrades in the fray. The firebrand, in every quivering fiber, madly craved the chance to brave the shot and shell on the blackened battlefield.

He saw a German color bearer go down in the press of a hand-to-hand conflict, and as the mass was dissolved by artillery fire, that one still figure, among the many scattered in the open, presented irresistible appeal to the soldier-aviator.

"Land me, boy--have you the red blood to do it? Have you the courage, lad? You have, I know. Do it, lad--do it now!"

With his incoherent address, the big observer spasmodically clutched the shoulders of the young pilot.

Carried away by the vehement pleading of the man behind him, Henri set the planes for a straight fall.

Schneider bounded from the skimming machine, made it the work of a few seconds to reach the flag, which the dead man had wrapped around his body, and as quickly returned.

The powerful motors drove the biplane up and across the field, with the colors trailing over the shoulders of the observer, who, in his excitement, sang a mighty war song.

This deed of daring, directly in view of the trenches, and under the very eye of the German commander and staff, raised a tremendous cheer.

Of all this Schneider seemed oblivious. His was a blind patriotism.

Roque wore a look of mild reproach when he encountered Henri behind the lines that night, but he could not resist the prompting of forgiving admiration when Schneider stood before him in attitude of apology.

"Had no orders, of course, boss, but something stuck to my crazybone, and everything went."

"You will have something stuck on the breast of your coat, or I am very much mistaken," said Roque, extending his hand, which Schneider grasped with fervor.

That "something" was to be the Iron Cross, the famous decoration for valorous service, and the most coveted distinction in the German empire, a badge of courage woven into its military history.

"Were this boy a soldier of and for the Fatherland," solemnly continued Roque, "the royal gift might well be bestowed upon him."

Schneider threw an arm around the shoulders of the young aviator. "Of nothing else is he lacking to claim the honor," feelingly maintained the big fellow, and his eyes were moist as he spoke.

Henri shook his head. Then with a roguish glance at his chum, he said:

"The only medal I am hankering after is the one Billy and I are expecting for making the first aëroplane flight across the Atlantic."

"Have the 'made in Germany' mark on your machine and I believe you can establish the record," laughed Roque.

"Not on your life," exclaimed Billy. "We are going to build the crossing craft ourselves."

The No. 3's were lying idle behind the lines. Roque had ceased overground work for the time being, and like a mole was engaged in some undermining scheme, of which the boys had no inkling.

Resorting to his remarkable aptitude as a lightning change artist, and also applying the magic touch to Schneider, the pair of them were scarcely recognizable to even the lads with whom they had been so long and so closely associated.

The secret agent and his trusty lieutenant were masquerading as natives of Russian Poland, and it may be told that their desperate mission was to enter Warsaw, where the slightest indiscretion or betrayal would put them in graves alongside of that daring spy of Roque's who failed to conceal his identity.

It was the midnight hour when Billy was awakened by a man enveloped from neck to foot in a grayish-brown overcoat, from under the head cape of which came the voice of Roque:

"Take this" (slipping a fold of coarse paper into the hand of the drowsy lad), "and if you do not hear from me after three days, read what is written, and follow the instructions to the letter. Not a look at the message, remember, for three days; to be exact, the morning of the fourth day. You hear me?" Billy sleepily nodded his head.

Out on the turbid tide of the yellow river beyond the German trenches two shrouded figures silently launched a flatboat and drifted away in the darkness.

"What's doing?" This was Henri's morning question, preceding a swallow of coffee.

"If I knew what was in here I could probably tell you a whole lot that I don't know at present."

Billy displayed the closely folded packet containing Roque's instructions.

When Henri was advised of the conditions imposed he accepted the trust as a matter of course.

It had never been a habit of the boys to break faith.