Air Service Boys Over The Rhine Part 10

"No, but there isn't much comfort in war times. We've got to make the best of it."

"I guess you're right, Tom. Now do you want to go look at the latest work of the Hun?"

"Might as well. The bombardment seems over for the night."

"I wonder why it is they don't fire after dark."

"Probably afraid of giving the location of their cannon away by the flashes. They'd be seen at night; but during the day, if they used smokeless powder, or a smoke screen in case they can't get smokeless powder for such a big gun, it would be hard to locate the place where the shots come from. So we're comparatively safe after dark, it seems."

Later this was not to prove to be the case, but it was when Tom spoke.

The boys went to the section of the city in which the last sh.e.l.ls had fallen. While comparatively little damage had been done, a number of persons had been killed and injured, children among them. Some fragments of the sh.e.l.ls were picked up, but not enough to make certain any particular theory in regard to the gun.

"But if it's a gun, where could it be placed?" queried Tom of an officer. "The Germans haven't broken through, have they?"

The French officer shook his head.

"No. And please G.o.d they will never get through," he said. "But there is a gun somewhere, I am sure of that."

"Do you mean to say within ten or fifteen miles of Paris?" Jack wanted to know.

"I can not be sure. It is true there may have been traitors. We have them to contend with as well as spies. But our line is intact, and at no point along it, near enough to it to fire into Paris from an ordinary gun, can the Germans be found."

"Then it must be an extraordinary gun," suggested Jack.

"It may well be--perhaps it is. Yet, as I said, there may have been traitors. There may be a gun concealed somewhere closer to Paris than we dream. But we shall find it, messieurs! Who knows? Perhaps you may be the very ones yourselves to locate it, for we are depending on you soldiers of the air."

And it was not long before this talk came back to Tom and Jack with impressive recollection.

And meanwhile the bombardment of Paris went on, usually during the late afternoon or early morning hours--never at night, as yet.

Yet with all the frightfulness of which the unscrupulous Huns were capable, it was impossible to dampen for long the spirits of the French.

Soon they grew almost to disregard the falling sh.e.l.ls from the hidden German gun. Of course there were buildings destroyed, and lives were lost, while many were frightfully maimed. But if Germany depended on this, as she seemed to, to strike terror to the hearts of the brave Frenchmen the while a great offensive was going on along the western front, it failed. For the people of Paris did not allow themselves to be disheartened, any more than the people of London did when the Zeppelins raided them.

Indeed one Paris paper even managed to extract some humor out of the grim situation. For one day, following the bombardment, a journal appeared with "scare" headlines, telling about eleven "lives" being lost. But when one read the account it was discovered that the lives were those of chickens.

And this actually happened. A sh.e.l.l fell on the outlying section and blew up a henhouse, killing nearly a dozen fowls and blowing a big hole in the ground.

There were other occasions, too, when the seemingly superhuman bombardment was not worth the proverbial candle. For the sh.e.l.ls fell in sections where no damage was done, and where no lives paid the toll.

Once a sh.e.l.l went through a house, pa.s.sing close to an aged woman, but not hurting her, to explode harmlessly in a field near by.

And it was with such accounts as these that the Paris papers kept up the spirits of the inhabitants. Meanwhile the Germans kept firing away at quarter-hour intervals, when the gun was in action.

"I wonder if there is any chance of us getting in at the game?"

questioned Jack of Tom one night.

"I shouldn't be surprised. As that officer said, they'll have to depend on the aircraft to locate the gun, I'm thinking."

"And you think we have a chance?"

"I don't see why not," replied Tom. "We've been off duty long enough.

I'd like to get back behind the propeller again, and with a drum or two of bullets to use in case we sight a Hun plane. Let's go and send word to our captain that we've had enough of leave, and want to go out again."

"All right. But what about your father?"

"Well, I don't know what to say," answered Tom. "I'm about convinced that he wasn't killed, or even hurt, in any of the bombardments of Paris. But where he is I don't know. I guess, as a matter of duty to France, I'll have to let my private affairs go and--"

At that instant there sounded an explosion the character of which the two boys well knew by this time.

"The big gun again!" cried Jack.

"Yes, and they're firing after dark!" added Tom. "This may be just the chance the airmen have been waiting for--to locate the piece by the flashes. Come on out and see what's doing!"

Together they rushed from their room.

CHAPTER X

THE "DUD"

Much the same sort of scene was going on in the streets of Paris as Tom and Jack had witnessed when first the populace realized that they were under fire from a mysterious German cannon. There was the initial alarm--the warnings sounded by the police and soldiers, warnings which were different from those indicating a Zeppelin or aircraft raid, and then the hurry for cover.

But it was noticeable that not so many of the people rushed for a secure hiding place as had done so at first.

"They're not so afraid of the big gun as they were," observed Jack, as he hurried along with his chum.

"No. Though it's just as well to be a bit cautious, I think. The people of Paris are beginning to lose fear because they see that the German sh.e.l.ls don't do as much damage as might be expected."

"You're right there, Tom," said Jack. "The sh.e.l.ls are rather small, to judge by the damage they do. I wonder why that is?"

"Probably their gun, or guns, can't fire any larger ones such a long distance, or else their airs.h.i.+ps can't carry 'em up above the clouds to drop on the city."

"Then you still hold to the airs.h.i.+p theory?"

"Well, Jack, I haven't altogether given it up. I'm open to conviction, as it were. Of course I know, in theory, a gun can be made that will shoot a hundred miles, if necessary, but the cost of it, the cost of the charge and the work of loading it, as well as the enormous task of making a carriage or an emplacement to withstand the terrific recoil, makes such a gun a military white elephant. In other words it isn't worth the trouble it would take--the amount of damage inflicted on the enemy wouldn't make it worth while."

"I guess you're right, Tom. And yet such a gun would make a big scare."

"Yes, and that's what the Germans are depending on, more than anything else."

"But still don't you think the French will have to do something toward silencing the gun?"

"Indeed I do! And I haven't a doubt but the French command is working night and day to devise some plan whereby the gun can be silenced."

"There go the aviators now, out to try to find the big cannon,"

observed Jack, as he gazed aloft.