Tam o' the Scoots Part 7

As a general rule Tam hated clouds. You could not tell whether you were flying right side up or upside down, and he had always a curious sense of nervousness that he would collide with something. Yet, for once, he drove through the swirling "smoke" with a sense of joyous antic.i.p.ation, and presently began to rise gently, keeping his eyes aloft to detect the first thinning of the fog. Presently he saw the sunlight reflected on the upper stratas and began to climb steeply. His machine ripped out into the sun, a fierce, roaring little fury.

Not a hundred yards away was a fighting machine.

"_Ticka--ticka--ticka--ticka--tick!_" said Tam's machine-gun.

Tam's staring blue eyes were on the sights--he could not miss. The pilot went limp in his seat, the observer took his hand from his gun to grip the controls. Too late; the wide-winged fighter skidded like a motorbus on a greasy road and fell into the clouds sideways.

But now the enemy was coming at him from all points of the compa.s.s.

"Dinna let oor pairtin' grieve ye!" sang Tam and dropped straight through the clouds into the rain and a dim view of a bedraggled earth.

"There's Burley," said Blackie, clad in a long oilskin and a sou'wester as he checked off the home-coming adventurers. "Do you ever notice how his machine always looks lop-sided? There's Galbraith and Mosen--who's that fellow on the Morane? Oh, yes, that's Parker-Smith. H'm!"

"What's wrong?"

"Where's Tam--I hope those beggars didn't catch him--There he is, the devil!"

Tam was doing stunts. He was side-slipping, nose-diving and looping--he was, in fine, setting up all those stresses which a machine under extraordinary circ.u.mstances might have to endure.

"He always does that with a new machine, sir," said Captain Blackie's companion. "I've never understood why, because if he found a weak place, he'd be too dead for the information to be of any service to him."

Later, when Tam condescended to bring himself to earth, Blackie asked him.

"Why do you do fool stunts, Tam? The place to test the machine is on the ground?"

"Ye're wrong, sir-r," said Tam quietly; "the groond's a fine place to test a wee perambulator or a motor-car or a pair of buits--but it's no'

the place to test an aeroplane. The aeroplane an' the submarine maun be tried oot in their native eelements."

"But suppose you _did_ succeed in breaking something--and you went to glory?"

"Aye," said Tam quietly, "an' suppose A'm goin' oop wi' matchless coorage to save ma frien's frae the ravis.h.i.+n' Hoon an' ma machine plays hookey? Would it no' be worse for a' concairned, than if A' smash oop by mesel'?"

"Did you see Muller?"

"In the clouds. A' left him hauldin' a committee-meetin', Captain MacMuller in the cheer.

"'Resolvit,' says the cheerman, 'that this meetin', duly an' truly a.s.sembled, pa.s.ses a hairty vote o' thanks to Tam o' the Scoots, the Mageecian o' the Air-r, for the grand fight he made against a superior enemy--Carried.

"'Resolvit,' says the cheerman, 'that we'll no' ta' onny more risk, but confine oor attentions to strafin' spotters--"

"Carried wi' acclaimation. The meetin' then adjoorned to enquire after machine noomber sax, eight, sax, two, strafed in the execution of ma duty."

It seemed almost as though Tam's words were prophetic, for the next day Smyth and Curzon were attacked whilst "spotting" for the "heavies" and fell in flames in No-Man's Land. They got Smyth in during the night and rushed him back to a base hospital; but Curzon was dead before the machine reached the ground.

The same morning Tam read in the German "Official":

"In the course of the day Captain Muller shot down his thirtieth enemy aeroplane, which fell before the English lines."

"It were no' the English lines, but the Argyll an' Sootherland Hielanders' lines," complained Tam. "Thairty machines yon Muller ha'

strafit. Weel, weel!"

He went to his room very thoughtful, and the day following, being an "off" day, he spent between the machine-shop and the hangar where the B.

I. 6 reposed. It must never be forgotten that Tam was a born mechanician. To him the machine had a body, a soul, a voice, and a temperament. Noises which engines made had a peculiar significance to Tam. He not only could tell you how they were behaving, but how they would be likely to behave after two hours' running. He knew all the symptoms of their mysterious diseases and he was versed in their dietary. He "fed" his own engines, explored his own tanks, greased and cleaned with his own hands every delicate part of the frail machinery.

There was neither strut nor stay, bolt nor screw, that he did not know or had not studied, tested or replaced. He cleaned his own gun and examined, leather duster in hand, every round of ammunition he took up.

He left little to chance and never went out to attack but with a "plan, an altairnitive plan an'--an open mind."

And now since Muller must be settled with, Tam was more than careful.

The difficulty about aeroplanes is that they look very much like one another. Tam fought indecisively three big white Albatross machines before a Fokker hawk darted down from the shelter of a cloud-wraith and revealed itself as the temporary preoccupation of Captain Muller.

The encounter may be told in Tam's own words.

"I' the ruthless pairsuit of his duty, Tam was patrollin' at a height o'

twelve thoosand feet, his mind filled wi' beautifu' thochts aboot pay-day, when a cauld s.h.i.+ver pa.s.ses doon the dauntless spine o' the wee hero. 'Tis a preemonition or warnin' o' peeril. He speers oop an' doon absint-mindedly fingerin' the mechanism of his seelver-plated Lewis gun.

There was nawthing in sicht, nawthing to mar the glories of the morn.

'Can A' be mistaken?' asks Tam. 'Noo! A thoosand times noo!' an' wi'

these fatefu' wairds, he began his peerilous climb. Maircifu' Heavens!

What's yon? 'Tis the mad Muller! Sweeft as the eagle fa'ing upon his prey, fa's MacMuller, a licht o' joy in his een, his bullets tw.a.n.gin'

like hairp-strings. But Tam the Tempest is no' bothered. Cal-lm an'

a'most majeestic in his sang-frow--a French expression--he leps gaily to the fray--an' here A' am!"

"But, Tam," protested Galbraith, "that's a rotten story. What happened after the lep--did you get up to him?"

"A' didna lep oop," said Tam gravely; "A' lep doon--it wis no' the time to ficht--it wis the time to flee--an' A'm a fleein' mon."

That he would deliberately shrink an issue with his enemy was unthinkable. And yet he rather avoided than sought Muller after this encounter.

One afternoon he came to Galbraith's quarters. Galbraith was rich and young and a great sportsman.

"Can A' ha'e a waird wi' ye?" asked Tam mysteriously.

"Surely," said the boy. "Come in--you want a cigar, Tam!" he accused.

"Get awa' ahint me, Satan," said Tam piously. "A've gi'en oop cadgin'

seegairs an' A' beg ye no' tae tempit a puir weak body. Just puit the box doon whair A' can reach it an' mebbe A'll help mesel' absintminded.

A' came--mon, this is a bonnie smawk! Ye maun pay an awfu' lot for these. Twa sheelin's each! Ech! It's sinfu' wi' so many puir souls in need--A'll tak' a few wi' me when A' go, to distreebute to the sufferin'

mechanics. Naw, it is na for seegairs A'm beggin', na this time--but ha'e ye an auld suit o' claes ye'll no be wantin'?"

"A suit? Good Lord, yes, Tam," said Galbraith, jumping down from the table on which he was seated. "Do you want it for yourself?"

"Well," replied Tam cautiously, "A' do an' A' doon't--it's for ma frien', Fitzroy McGinty, the celebrated MacMuller mairderer."

Galbraith looked at him with laughter in his eyes.