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CHAPTER X
GRACE TAKES THE SKY ROUTE

THE morning was cool and there were wind clouds on the horizon when Grace Harlowe stepped out to take an observation just at daybreak on the following morning. She scanned the sky for some moments, but saw no more carrier pigeons.

Across the river the enemy was moving. She could see them plainly through her glasses and it gave her a queer feeling. Here within pistol range were the hosts of the enemy that had laid France in ruins, that had killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of her own countrymen, moving out into their own land, a land on which hardly a shell had fallen in the four years of desperate warfare. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, as Grace reasoned it out with some bitterness. Could the enemy have been driven back by force of arms and hammered until his hosts poured into the Rhine in a perfect cataract, she confessed to herself that she would have felt better over the situation. But there they were, taking their time to retire and without a shot being fired at them. The Overton girl actually shuddered to think what a different situation would exist at that moment had victory crowned the arms of the enemy.

Grace shrugged her shoulders and went back to awaken Elfreda and start the fire for breakfast.

“If the captain has not gone out, please give him some breakfast. I must hurry with mine, for I am going over to report to our superior that we are off duty to-day; that is, I am. You will be on call.”

“Are you going to report to her?” demanded Miss Briggs disapprovingly.

“Yes. I have no way of getting word to her, and by the time we drive back to the balloon base she may be on her way. The army is to make an early start to-day, I understand. It will take a long time to cross the bridges. What an opportunity for the enemy; but he knows better. He knows that the American artillery is trained on him and that machine guns are ready to sweep his ranks from this side of the river. Our people are taking no chances.”

“They are familiar with the breed,” nodded Miss Briggs.

Grace ate a hurried breakfast, and leaving her equipment with Elfreda started out at a brisk pace for the headquarters of Mrs. Chadsey Smythe. As she drew near the cottage she saw some one emerge from it. This some one proved to be the maid, Marie Debussy.

“Good morning, Marie. Where are you going?”

The girl answered dully that she was going to fetch Madame’s mess.

“You have been crying, what is the trouble?”

“Oh, Madame, it is terrible! Because I came late the supervisor would not let me in last night. She was in a terrible temper. I sat out all night and this morning she abused me terribly. Can you not do something for me? I should like so much to be with you and Miss Briggs, for you are so kind. She will abuse you if you go to her this morning. Please don’t go.”

“I presume there will be more trouble if I do,” reflected Grace. “Will you deliver a message to her for me, Marie?”

“Yes, surely, Madame.”

“Tell her, please, that I am relieved from duty for the day, that I am to spend the day with Major Colt in his balloon, with the permission of General Gordon, but that I shall report for duty to-morrow morning. I am sorry Mrs. Smythe is so unkind to you, but do try to get along with her until we reach the Rhine. I am sure there will be a change soon after we get there. Please tell her that Miss Briggs will go through in Major Colt’s car to-day with Captain Boucher of the Intelligence Department and some others.”

“I will tell her. I hope I may live with you and work for you when we reach the Rhine. I can do much for you. I will do any and all things for you. We go to Coblenz, I am told.”

Grace said that was her understanding.

“I shall be afraid with so many of the Boches about.”

“Don’t worry, Marie, you will be protected. I am so sorry you are in trouble, but I promise you it will all come out right and that you soon shall be back in your beloved France, just as I hope to be back in my much-loved country. Good-bye, and don’t forget the message.”

Elfreda and Captain Boucher were eating breakfast together when “Captain” Grace arrived. He advised Grace to take rations with her, as the balloon probably would not come down, unless forced down, until night, adding that the rest of the equipment would be placed in the army car, where she would find it, or in Miss Briggs’ billet that evening.

Immediately after breakfast Captain Boucher ordered his attendant to pack up, and to assist the ladies in shipping their belongings when the car arrived. He asked them to have the car pick him up at the cottage on the return from the balloon base.

“I shall not see you again, as I am going out,” he said shaking hands cordially with Grace. “Good luck and don’t fall out.”

“So long as the basket keeps right side up I expect to be with it,” replied the Overton girl brightly. “Good-bye, sir, and thank you.”

“If I thought you would be in position to settle a wager, Loyalheart, I should like to lay a wager that that big sausage balloon comes down a hopeless wreck with you at the bottom of the heap,” observed Miss Briggs.

“Your reasoning is bad, J. Elfreda. Were we to make such a wager and I returned in condition to pay up, don’t you see that you would lose? I am not a lawyer, but my logic on rare occasions is really brilliant. Any rebuttal?”

“Not a word,” answered Elfreda, shrugging her shoulders. “I think the car is coming.”

Everything being ready the Overton girls were soon on their way to the balloon base, that is, on the way to Major Colt’s balloon base, for the sausage observation balloons were strung out over a line several miles in length. The big gas bag was swaying, chafing at its bit, as Grace characterized it, when they reached the base. They observed that the huge bag was attached by a cable to a big, heavy army truck, the shining cable being wound about a drum on a winch. As the army moved, the truck moved, and the crew either paid out the cable or wound it in, as the officer in the basket far above them wished to go up or down.

The cable looked a too slender thread to hold such a giant of a thing as a big observation balloon. Elfreda shook her head disapprovingly as she looked at the outfit with wide-open eyes.

“I’ll bet you really wish you were going up, too,” teased Grace, having observed the expression on the face of her companion.

“What! Never! I have no ambition to go skyward on a bubble. The bubble might burst.”

“In the first place, this isn’t a bubble, and in the second place I am not going to make a spectacular leap in a parachute. Good morning, Major,” greeted “Captain” Grace as the car drew up near where the officer, clad in his flying togs, was giving directions to the men. “How soon do we take the sky route?”

“In a few minutes, Mrs. Gray. Good morning, Miss Briggs. Looks like wind to-day. Ever get sea-sick, Mrs. Gray?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you should not be air-sick. Sometimes we flop about a bit, but we shall be all right.”

“Is – is that the thing that you ride in?” questioned Elfreda pointing to the basket that was resting on the truck.

The major laughingly said it was.

“It does look rather too delicate for two human beings to ride in,” agreed Grace. “I hope it is stronger than it looks.”

The officer assured her that it would hold, though its smallness did not permit of much moving about.

“Flying now, as compared with wartime, is a perfectly safe sport. It is different when enemy artillery are trying to pot one, and enemy airplanes are dropping incendiary bombs at you or trying to rake you with machine-gun fire. That sometimes makes it quite interesting for the balloonist. As a matter of common prudence, however, we always attach ourselves to parachutes, as we will do this morning,” added the major.

J. Elfreda shot a significant glance at her companion and Grace looked a little troubled, but this soon passed and she began asking questions about the parachute. She observed that two of them were attached to the basket.

“Our parachutes,” explained the major, “when open are thirty-five feet in diameter, with a circular hole in the top about a foot wide to permit the imprisoned air to escape. Otherwise the parachute would go into a side-slip in making a descent.”

“Cheerful, isn’t it?” observed Miss Briggs under her breath.

“Fastened to the edge of the parachute, as you can see, are small cords which lead down and attach to half as many light ropes, finally terminating in only two ropes which are fastened to the harness worn by the person for whose use the parachute is intended,” continued the major. “That cone-shaped case contains the entire works. I’ll not go into the mechanism of the contrivance in detail. When a man prepares to descend, the harness being already on him, the parachute is pulled from the case and out he jumps. Then all he has to do is to wait for the parachute to open.”

“Quite simple, sir,” agreed Elfreda. “All one has to do is to jump, and wait. If the parachute breaks or doesn’t open you keep on waiting. Is that it, Major?”

The major laughingly agreed that it was.

“It is well to understand the workings before one goes up. I know it all sounds formidable to you, but it isn’t at all formidable. See that you are fastened all right and make certain that your harness has not fouled, then jump.”

“Do parachutes ever fail to open?” questioned Grace soberly.

“I have heard of such cases, but not in this war. If one thinks fast and clearly and doesn’t lose his head, the chances are that he will be all right.”

“How far does one ordinarily drop before the parachute opens?” asked Miss Briggs.

“About fifty feet, sometimes a little less if one is heavy. If light, he might fall much further than this.”

“Heavens!” exclaimed J. Elfreda. “Grace, I’m sorry for you. Being light you may fall a mile before the thing opens, and by that time you may have no need for a parachute.”

“I should think one would land pretty hard,” suggested Grace.

“About the equivalent of jumping from a fence. The descent is very easy, about five hundred feet a minute. However, there will be no need for worry to-day. I am explaining these matters merely as a matter of routine and ordinary prudence. I can imagine no emergency that would make it necessary for you to take the jump into space. If I did, I shouldn’t be taking you up. No, there is no possibility of such a thing. Now, if you will step down we will get you into your flying togs and harness you to the parachute.”

For a moment Grace Harlowe’s courage weakened, but only for a moment.

“If I can go through a battle in the air in an airplane, I surely can ride in a captive balloon, even if the basket I am to ride in does look like a toy spaniel’s sleeping basket,” she told herself. “I am ready, sir,” she announced, stepping down.

A heavy flying coat and helmet were put on, then came the harness. The latter was adjusted while Grace was standing on the ground, the major fixing her up before donning his own harness, examining it with a care that sent the cold chills up and down the spine of J. Elfreda Briggs.

“Does it pinch you anywhere?” asked the major. “You know it must fit firmly.”

“I think it is quite comfortable,” replied Grace. “Now what do I do?”

“Climb up the ladder and get in, being careful that you do not foul the lines.”

The officer stood on the ground to watch her getting in to make certain that the parachute ropes did not become tangled. Grace ran up the ladder nimbly and climbed over into the basket, which was just deep enough to leave her head and shoulders showing above its upper edge.

“All set,” cried the major, going up the ladder. “Let up gently. I’ll direct you as we go as to altitude. You see, Mrs. Gray, we are connected with the truck by a telephone wire, so that the observer may be always in contact not only with his base, but also with the artillery control station. We spot in wartime, both for marks and for results. Sorry I can’t show you some spotting under actual war conditions.”

“I am quite content to have you tell me about it,” laughed Grace.

The major grinned, then tested the telephone, adjusted the aneroid barometer, took a final glance around, and nodded to the flight sergeant. The latter blew two short whistles, and as if for good measure bellowed “Let go!”

“Better come along,” called down Grace to Elfreda who with one hand shading her eyes was gazing up at them, her face a little pale.

Miss Briggs shook her head.

“One balloonatic in the family is enough,” she cried, then something seemed to be drawing the earth away from Grace Harlowe, and she suddenly realized that they were going up.

CHAPTER XI
ROUGH GOING IN CLOUDLAND

“WE’RE off,” the major informed her, but his reminder was unnecessary. Already J. Elfreda Briggs had shrunk to almost childish proportions and the big army truck looked like a toy express wagon. Had it been painted red the illusion would have been nearly perfect.

“My, it’s windy up here!” shouted Grace.

“We will be out of it soon, I think,” answered the major.

The wind was roaring through the rigging and the basket was swaying most alarmingly. It seemed to Grace as if they were in imminent danger of being spilled out. She clung tightly to the edge of the basket, and looked down into it rather than toward the earth. What was even more disturbing was the way that wicker floor settled and heaved underneath her feet. What if the bottom should drop out? What if the sides should give way? “Captain” Grace leaned back a little so as not to bear too much weight on the side she was clinging to.

Major Colt’s back was turned toward her and his binoculars were at his eyes. Those confident shoulders gave Grace renewed assurance that there was nothing unusual about their situation. Just the same she rather envied J. Elfreda Briggs, probably at that moment lounging back comfortably on the rear seat of the major’s automobile and making uncomplimentary remarks about “that crazy Grace Harlowe.” “Captain” Grace was not over-certain that Elfreda was wrong.

Going up in a captive balloon is very different from a trip in an airplane. There is no comparison possible so far as sensations are concerned. Flying in a plane is exhilarating, but the lurches and sways of the basket of a balloon, have a far different effect.

They had been going up for hours, as it seemed to her, when the major turned toward her.

“Make you dizzy?” he shouted.

Grace smiled and nodded. She wondered how pale her face was, or as much of it as showed outside of the helmet.

“Enjoying it?”

“It is a wonderful experience,” answered Grace, forcing a smile to her face.

“Stop at two thousand,” called the officer through his telephone. “Now you see one of the difficulties of going eastward. The strong light is in our faces and we cannot see clearly. After the sun passes the meridian, visibility will be vastly improved. You will enjoy the view then.”

Grace Harlowe fervently hoped she might.

“Look over. You will get used to it very quickly. Not so much wind at this level. I knew we should get better weather here. Guess I spoke too quickly,” he added as a sickening lurch heaved the basket, and for a few seconds the bottom seemed surely to be falling out of it.

“Stopped at two thousand,” came a voice from the depth somewhere below.

“Thought you were gone that time, didn’t you?” chuckled the officer. “That jolt was caused by the stopping of the winch at two thousand.”

“Two thousand what, sir?”

“Feet of altitude. We will loaf around here for a time until you grow weary of it, then we will go higher in search of some new scenery. When the light gets better I will show you the Rhine.”

For the next several minutes the officer was occupied with studying the landscape to the eastward.

“Enemy trains moving in formation. Nothing unusual,” he called down through the telephone. “Large body of men emerging from forest ten kilometers to the south of the main body. Go to thirty-five. May get a better view.”

Grace tightened her grip as the basket lurched. She knew now what the order meant. They were going fifteen hundred feet higher than they were. Her eardrums began to throb and her breath came in little short gasps.

“Stop at thirty-five.”

Again that disconcerting jolt and a violent swaying back and forth of the huge, ungainly bag over their heads.

“How do you like it now?” called the officer in a jovial voice.

Grace saw his lips move and knew he was speaking to her, though she could not hear a word he said.

“I can’t hear you, sir.”

“I thought so. Pinch your nose and swallow hard several times,” he shouted, himself performing the same operation on his own nose.

Grace followed his direction, faintly heard, and something snapped in both ears. For the moment she thought she had ruptured her eardrums, but to her amazement discovered that she could hear as well as ever.

“I think I am perfectly all right now, sir,” she said. “How queer!”

“Decreased pressure,” answered Major Colt briefly. “We will make our weather report now if you will be good enough to remove the thermometer from the pocket behind you and throw it overboard.”

“Throw it overboard? Do you mean it, sir?”

He nodded.

Grace thrust her hand into the pocket and, finding the instrument, dropped it over the side. To her surprise it stopped with a jolt when just below the level of the basket. It was attached to a slender wire. “Please haul it in in five minutes,” the major ordered. Then he gave through the telephone the wind velocity, which Grace was amazed to learn was thirty-eight miles an hour; then the barometer reading, and then he called for the temperature.

“Twenty-eight, sir.”

“Twenty-eight,” repeated the major through the telephone. “That duty done we will now proceed to enjoy ourselves. Hungry?”

“I – I hadn’t thought about it. Now that you mention the subject I do realize that there is a sort of gone feeling in my stomach.”

“We’ll have a bit of a bite. While I am getting it ready you see if you can find the American Army.”

Grace studied the landscape ahead of them for a long time, and said she couldn’t see anything that looked like an army. He demanded to know where she was looking.

“About where those little green hills are. I do not recall having seen those from the ground,” she said, lowering her glasses.

The major chuckled.

“Know where you are looking for the American Army? You’re hunting for it on the other side of the Rhine. Look down at an angle of about forty-five degrees. See anything?”

“I think I do, but what I see doesn’t look like any army that I ever saw.”

“You’re looking at the Third American Army, just the same. Now find the Boche army a little further out, but not too far.”

“I have them, sir.”

“What are they doing?”

“Creeping in formation.”

“Good! You are an observer already. Lean over and look down. Get used to it. Make you dizzy?”

“A little. I get dizzy when the basket tries to lie down on its side, and feel as if I were going to fall out.”

The major laughed and motioned to her to sit down.

“Going to have tiffin now. Don’t bother us with your family troubles down there, at least not until after the whistle blows,” he called through the telephone, and doubling his legs under him he sat down on the bottom of the basket, with an appetizing-looking luncheon spread out on a piece of paper in his lap.

They could hear the wind roaring over them now, but only breaths of it sucked down into the basket. A thermos bottle of tea that was still hot was handed to Grace, Major Colt producing another from “nowhere” for his own consumption.

“Drink it down. It will put new life into you. Dip into the food too. There’s plenty and to spare. Suppose you never sat down to tiffin thirty-five hundred feet in the air?”

Grace said she never had.

“Were you ever shot down while on observation work?” she asked him between mouthfuls.

“Yes, a few times.”

“What happened?”

“I came down.” He grinned.

“What else, sir?” persisted Grace, determined to get the story from him.

“Nothing except that a Boche flier took a mean advantage of me and sneaked up on me in an Allied plane that the enemy had captured. Then he calmly dropped a bomb on the old bag.”

“What did you do then, sir?”

“Deserted the ship and woke up in a hospital. You see I bumped my head against a stone wall in landing. My head from infancy has been soft and demands most delicate handling.”

Grace said she couldn’t imagine such a thing. To her the major was a heroic figure. He reminded her of Hippy Wingate. Like Hippy he made a joke of the desperate work he had done and was still doing. There were no heroics about those cloudland pirates.

“What did you do before the war, if it is not an impertinent question? You know a woman’s curiosity must be satisfied.”

“No impertinence about it at all. I had a good job, and maybe I shall have the luck to get it back again after the war is over. I was a floor-walker in a Newark, New Jersey, department store. I’ve been up in the world since then. Had my ups and downs as it were.”

Grace laughed. War played strange freaks with human beings. The officer’s confession, instead of decreasing her admiration of him, increased it. A man who could step from department store life into the perilous life of a wartime balloonist was a man! That was the way with her wonderful Americans. But to have to return to the chattering crowds of shoppers, directing this one to the ribbon counter, that one to the galvanized cooking utensil sale in the basement – the thought was too much for Grace Harlowe. She could not reconcile herself to it nor adjust herself to seeing this hardy pirate acting in any such rôle in the future.

“You do not think so, eh?” he demanded shrewdly. “Watch me. One day you will step up to me, without recognizing me, and say, ‘Floor-walker, will you please direct me to the cosmetics?’”

“I will not,” declared Grace Harlowe. “I never use them.”

Both laughed heartily.

“You may be right – I may be right, who knows?” he muttered. “I shall miss this wonderful life, of course, and it will be difficult to settle down and have to look up again rather than down on a world of pigmies. Had I to do it over again I should go into aviation. Those fellows are free as the birds of the air, while I am anchored to a tree or truck. I prefer to be free, to soar the heavens without having a string attached – What!”

The major sprang up, scattering the remainder of their tiffin on the floor of the basket. The basket had given a terrific lurch and, glancing up with a frightened expression on her face, Grace saw the huge bag heaving, swelling and plunging, the basket twisting, lurching and jolting under her.

The girl staggered to her feet and grasped the side of the basket. Her head was spinning and her diaphragm seemed to be seeking to emulate the erratic movements of the ship.

“Wind-storm!” shouted Major Colt. “Going to have some real sport.”

Grace did not know what his idea of sport was, but she was quite positive that if this were sport she was not a sportsman.

“Haul in, you idiots!” bellowed the officer through the telephone. “Can’t you see we’re trying to stand on our heads?”

“Waiting for orders, sir,” came back the answer. “Hauling down now till ordered to stop.”

“You’d better,” growled the major. “Hang on so you don’t get thrown out!” he called to Grace.

The Overton girl needed no advice in that direction. She was clinging to the basket’s edge with all her might. The balloon adopted new tactics. The instant the winch down there began to wind in, the balloon, as if resentful of this interference with its “sport,” began to buck and dive. At one time the wicker basket was actually lying on its side, and as Grace lay on her stomach against it she found herself gazing straight down three-and-a-half thousand feet.

“Captain” Grace closed her eyes to shut out the sight. It was just a little more than she could stand. A few seconds later she was on her feet again, for the balloon had righted. Now the bag began to whip the air.

“Let go!” she heard the balloonist call through the telephone. “Trying to crack the whip with us? Not ready to bump our heads on the ground just yet. Up five hundred more. Maybe we’ll find a better streak there. Anyway we’ll ride it out, wind or no wind.”

The balloon eased a little, and while it still bucked there was less kick, so to speak, in its movements.

The respite, however, was a brief one, and again those fearsome tactics were resumed.

Major Colt glanced at Grace during a brief lull. She nodded and forced a smile to her face.

“Are we in great danger?” she shouted.

“It might be worse,” was the comforting response. “We are good so long as the bag holds, but the wind is growing stronger and no telling what may turn up. Keep cool. I’ll get you out of it, wind or no wind.”

A blast that threatened to rend the bag struck them, and the balloon lay down on its side. It was up with a bound, then down again, until Grace Harlowe could not decide for a certainty whether she was standing on her head or on her feet. As a matter of fact she was practically doing both.

Then suddenly peace, delicious peace and quiet, settled over the troubled ship. It righted, the wind stopped blowing and the balloon floated gently on an even keel.

“Oh, isn’t this fine!” cried Grace happily.

“Rotten fine, thank you, as the Englishman would say. Know what’s happened?”

“No, sir, but whatever it is I feel greatly relieved to know that the wind has died down as suddenly as it broke loose.”

“My dear woman, something other than the wind has broken loose. The wind is blowing just as hard as before, but we do not feel it because we are going with it. We’re adrift!”

“Meaning?”

“That the balloon has snapped its cable and is now traveling toward the Rhine at a high rate of speed. From present indications I should say that you and I will arrive there considerably in advance of the Third American Army.” Trying to appear undisturbed, though he was more troubled than he cared to admit to his passenger, Major Colt possessed a pretty clear idea of what was before them.