The Guns of Europe

"Philip!" he cried in strong self-reproach, "show me how, and I'll sail the Arrow for a while and you can rest."

Lannes shook his head and smiled.

"You're an apt student," he said, "but you couldn't learn enough in one lesson, at least not for our purpose. Besides, I'll have plenty of rest soon. We're going to land in an hour. Behold your first sunrise, seen from a point a mile above the earth!"

He swept his free hand toward the east, where the suspicion of silver had become a certainty. In the infinity of space a mile was nothing, but all the changes were swift and amazingly vivid to John. The silver deepened, turned to blue, and then orange, gold and red sprang out, terrace after terrace, intense and glowing.

Then the sun came up, so burning bright that John was forced to turn his eyes away.

"Fine, isn't it?" said Lannes appreciatively. "It's good to see the sunrise from a new point, and we're up pretty high now, John. We must be, as I said, nearly a mile above the earth."

"Why do we keep so high?"

"Partly to escape observation, and partly because we're making for a cleft in the mountain straight ahead of us, and about on our own level. In that cleft, which is not really a cleft, but a valley, we'll make our landing. It's practically inaccessible, except by the road we're taking, and our road isn't crowded yet with tourists. Look how the light is growing! See, the new sun is gilding all the mountains now with gold! Even the snow is turned to gold!"

His own wonderful eyes were shining at the tremendous prospect, outspread before them, peak on peak, ridge on ridge, vast masses of green on the lower slopes, and now and then the silver glitter of a lake. The eyes of him who had been so stark and terrible in the battle were now like those of a painter before the greatest picture of the greatest master.

"The Alps!" exclaimed John.

"Aye, the Alps! Hundreds of thousands of you Americans have come all the way across the sea to see them, but few of you have ever looked down on them in the glow of the morning from such a height as this, and you are probably the only one who has ever done so, after an all-night fight and flight for life."

"Which makes them look all the better, Philip. It's been a wonderful night and flight as you call it, but I'll be glad to feel the solid mountain under my feet. Besides, you need rest, and you need it badly. Don't try to deny it."

"I won't, because what you say is true, John. My eyes are blurred, and my arms grow unsteady. In that valley to which we are going nobody can reach us but by way of the air, but, as you and I know, the air has our enemies. Do you see any black specks, John?"

"Not one. I never saw a more beautiful morning. It's all silver, and rose and gold, and it's not desecrated anywhere by a single German flying machine."

"Try the glasses for a longer look."

John swept the whole horizon with the glasses, save where the mountains cut in, and reported the same result.

"The heavens are clear of enemies," he said.

"Then in fifteen minutes the Arrow will be resting on the grass, and we'll be resting with it. Slowly, now! slowly! Doesn't the machine obey beautifully?"

They sailed over a river, a precipice of stone, rising a sheer two thousand feet, above pines and waterfalls, and then the Arrow came softly to rest in a lovely valley, which birds alone could reach before man took wings unto himself.

The humming of the motor ceased, and the machine itself seemed fairly to snuggle in the grass, as if it relaxed completely after long and arduous toil. It was in truth a live thing to John for the time, a third human being in that tremendous flight. He pulled off his gloves and with his stiffened fingers stroked the smooth sides of the Arrow.

"Good old boy," he said, "you certainly did all that any plane could do."

"I'm glad you've decided the sex of flying machines," said Lannes, smiling faintly. "Boats are ladies, but the Arrow must be a gentleman since you call it 'old boy.'"

"Yes, it's a gentleman, and of the first class, too. It's earned its rest just as you have, Philip."

"Don't talk nonsense, John. Why, flying has become my trade, and I've had a tremendously interesting time."

John in common with other Americans had heard much about the "degenerate French" and the "decadent Latins." But Lannes certainly gave the lie to the charge. If he had looked for a simile for him in the animal kingdom he would have compared him with the smooth and sinuous tiger, all grace, and all power. Danger was the breath of life to him, and a mile above the earth, with only a delicate frame work holding him in the air he was as easy and confident as one who treads solid land.

John unbuckled the strap which had held him in the Arrow, stepped out and fell full length upon the grass. His knees, stiff from such a long position in one attitude, had given way beneath him. Lannes, laughing, climbed out gingerly and began to stretch his muscles.

"You've something to learn yet about dismounting from your airy steed," he said. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Not a bit," replied John, sitting up and rubbing his knees. "The grass saved me. Ah, now I can stand! And now I can move the rusty hinges that used to be knees! And as sure as you and I live, Philip, I can walk too!"

He flexed and tensed his muscles. It was a strange sight, that of the young American and the young Frenchman capering and dancing about in a cleft of the Alps, a mile above the valley below. Soon they ceased, lay down on the grass and luxuriated. The heavy suits for flying that they had worn over their ordinary clothing kept them warm even at that height.

"We'll rest until our nerves relax," said Lannes, "and then we'll eat."

"Eat! Eat what?"

"What people usually eat. Good food. You don't suppose I embark in the ship of the air like the Arrow for a long flight without provisioning for it. Look at me."

John did look and saw him take from that tiny locker in the Arrow a small bottle, two tin cups, and two packages, one containing crackers, and the other thin strips of dried beef.

"Here," he said, shaking the bottle, "is the light red wine of France. We'd both rather have coffee, but it's impossible, so we'll take the wine which is absolutely harmless. We'll get other good food elsewhere."

He put the food on a little mound of turf between them, and they ate with hunger, but reserve. Neither, although they were on the point of starvation would show the ways of an animal in the presence of the other. So, their breakfast lasted some time, and John had never known food to taste better. When they finished Lannes went back to the locker in the Arrow.

"John," he said, "here are more cartridges. Reload your automatic, and keep watch, though nothing more formidable than the lammergeyer is ever likely to come here. Now, I'll sleep."

He rolled under the lee of a bank, and in two minutes was sleeping soundly.

CHAPTER VI

ABOVE THE STORM

John had slept well in the Arrow, and that fact coupled with his extraordinary situation kept him wide-awake. It was true that he had returned from the dizzy heights of the air, but he was still on the dizzy side of a mountain.

He stood up and tensed and flexed his muscles until he was sure of his physical self. He remembered the weakness in his knees that had sent him down like a little child, and he was so ashamed of himself that he was resolved it should not happen again.

Then he walked to the edge of the little valley which in the far distance had looked like a cleft in the side of the mountain. It was rimmed in by a line of stunted pines, and holding to a pine with each hand he looked over. He saw that sheer stone wall which he had beheld first from above when he was in the Arrow, and far below was the ripple of silvery white that he knew to be the river. To the north lay rolling hills and green country melting under the horizon, the old Europe that men had cultivated for twenty centuries and that was now about to be trodden to pieces by the iron heel of tremendous war.

John understood it. It seemed at the moment that his mind expanding to such an extent could comprehend the vastness of it all, the kingdoms and republics, the famous and beautiful old cities, and the millions of men who did not hate one another involved in a huge whirlpool of destruction. And yet, expand as his mind did, it could not fully comprehend the crime of those who had launched such a thunderbolt of death.

His eyes turned toward the south. It was perhaps not correct to call that little nest in which the Arrow lay a valley. It was a pocket rather, since the cliffs, unscalable by man rose a full half mile above it, and far beyond glimmering faintly in the sunshine he saw the crest of peaks clad in eternal snow.

Truly his view of the Alps was one of which he had never dreamed, and Lannes was right in saying that no man had ever before come into that valley or pocket, unless he had taken wings unto himself as they had done. They were secure where they were, except from danger that could come through the air.

He took the glasses, an uncommonly powerful pair from the locker and examined every corner of the heavens that he could reach. But he saw none of those ominous, black dots, only little white clouds shot with gold from the morning sun, floating peacefully under the blue arch, and now and then some wide-winged bird floating, aslant, from peak to peak. There was peace, peace everywhere, and he went back from the dizzy edge of the precipice to the side of the Arrow. Lannes still slept heavily, and John appreciated his great need of it, knowing how frightful his strain must have been during that long night.

He felt that he was wholly in Lannes' hands, and he did not know the young Frenchman's plans. He might wish to get away early, but John resolved to let him sleep. Whatever they undertook and wherever they went strength and steadiness must be of the utmost importance, and Lannes alone could take them on their flight.

John leaned against a little hillock and watched the country that rolled northward. For the first time in hours he thought of his uncle and Mr. Anson. And yet he was so filled with wonder at his own translation into another element that he did not worry greatly about them. They would hear of him soon, he felt sure, and in a time of such vast anxiety and fear for half a world brief apprehension about a single person amounted to but little.

He dozed a short while, and then awoke with a start and an effort of the will. Lannes still slept like one dead. He felt that the young Frenchman and the Arrow were in his care, and he must fail in nothing. He stood up and walked about in the pocket, shaking the dregs of sleep from his brain. The sun doubled in size from that height, was sweeping toward the zenith. The radiant sky contained nothing but those tiny clouds floating like white sails on a sea of perfect blue. The gold on the snow of the far peaks deepened. He was suffused with the beauty of it, and, for a little space the world war and the frightful calamities it would bring fled quite away.

Lannes awoke about noon, stood up, stretched his limbs and sighed with deep content. He cast a questing glance at the heavens, and then turned a satisfied look on John.

"No enemy in sight," he said, "and I have slept well. Yea, more, I tell you, Yankee that you are, that I have slept magnificently. It was a glorious bed on that grass under the edge of the cliff, and since I may return some day I'll remember it as one of the finest inns in Europe. Have you seen anything while I slept, Monsieur Jean the Scott?"

"Only the peaks, the hills, the blue sky and three or four big birds which I was unable to classify."

"Let their classification go. When we classify now we classify nothing less than armies. Do you think the Arrow has had sufficient rest?"

"A plenty. It's a staunch little flying machine."

"Then we'll start again, and I think we'll have an easy trip, save for the currents which are numerous and varied in high mountains."

"What country are we in now?"

"A corner of Switzerland, and I mean for us to descend at a neat little hamlet I've visited before. They don't know war has begun yet, and we can get there provisions and everything else we need."

They launched the Arrow, and once more took flight, now into the maze of mountains. Their good craft frequently rocked and swayed like a ship at sea and John remembered Lannes' words about the currents. Reason told him that intervening peaks and ridges would make them break into all forms of irregularity, and he was glad when they hovered over a valley and began to descend.

He saw about half a mile below them a small Swiss village, built on both sides of a foaming little river, and, using the glasses as they dropped down, he also saw the whole population standing in the streets, their heads craned back, staring into the skies. The effect was curious, that of the world turned upside down.

"The place has four or five hundred inhabitants, and it is a good village," said Lannes. "I have been here four times before, and they know me. Also they trust me, though through no merit of mine. They have seen flying machines often enough to know that they are not demons or monsters, but not often enough to lose their curiosity concerning them. We shall descend in the midst of an audience, inquisitive but friendly."

"Which you like."

Lannes laughed.

"You judge me right," he said. "I do love the dramatic. Maybe that's one reason why I'm so fond of flying. What could appeal to the soul more than swimming through the air, held up on nothing, with a planet revolving at your feet? Why a man who is not thrilled by it has no soul at all! And how grand it is to swoop over a village, and then settle down in it softly and peacefully like some magnificent bird, folding its wings and dropping to the ground! Isn't it far more poetical than the arrival of a train which comes in with a clang, a rattle, and smoke and soot?"

John laughed in his turn.

"You do put it well for yourself, Philip," he said, "but suppose our machine broke a wing or something else vital. A mile or a half mile would be a long drop."

"But you'd have such a nice clean death. There would never be a doubt about its completeness."

"No, never a doubt. Have you picked your port?"

"'Port' is a good enough place. We'll land on that little park, squarely in the center of the population."

"You're truly in love with the dramatic. You want an audience whenever it's safe."

"I admit it. There is something about the old Roman triumph that would have made a mighty appeal to me. Think of a general, young, brilliant, garlanded, coming into Rome along the Appian Way, with the chariots before him, the captive princes behind him, miles of beautiful young girls covered with roses, on either side, and then the noble villas, and the patricians looking down from the porticoes, the roar of Rome's thunderous million acclaiming him, and then the Capitoline with the grave and reverend senators, and the vestals and the pontifex maximus, and all the honors for the victory which his brain and courage have won for the state."

"I'm not so sure that I'd like it, Philip."

"'De gustibus non disputandum,' as somebody wrote, John. Well, here we are, settling down gently in the place something or other, and just as I told you all the people are around it, with their eyes and mouths wide open."

The aeroplane settled softly upon the grass amid great and sincere cheers, and John looked about curiously. He had returned to the world from space, a space inhabited only by Lannes, himself and the two Germans, one of whom was now dead. That pocket in the mountain had not counted. It was like a bird's nest in a tree, and this was the solid, planetary world, upon which he had once dwelled.

An elderly man of fine appearance, and with a long brown beard, reaching almost to his waist, stepped forward. Lannes lifted the cap and glasses that hid his head and face and greeted him in French.

"It is I, Philip Victor Auguste Lannes, Heir Schankhorst," he said politely. "You will remember me because I've dropped out of the skies into your village before. The young gentleman with me is one of those strange creatures called Yankees, who come from far across the ocean, and who earn money by the sweat of their brows in order that we may take it from them."

There was such a mellow tone in his voice, and the friendly gleam in his eyes was so wonderful that neither Herr Schankhorst nor his people could resist him. It seemed that most of them understood French as they raised another cheer, and crowded around the two men of the sky, plainly showing their admiration. None mentioned the war, and it was clear that the news of it had not yet penetrated to that remote valley in the high mountains. Lannes introduced John by his right name and description to Herr Schankhorst who was the burgomaster and then, still followed by the admiring crowd, they hurried away to the little inn, two stalwart youths being first detailed to keep watch over the Arrow.

"They're proud of their trust and they'll guard it as they would their lives," said Lannes in English to John. "Meanwhile we'll have dinner in this inn, which I know from experience to be the best, and we'll have the burgomaster and the Protestant clergyman to dine with us. This is German-speaking Switzerland, but these people fear the Germans and they don't fear us. So, we're welcome."

The inn was small, but the food and drink were of the best. John was well supplied with gold, and he did not hesitate to spend it for the burgomaster, the Lutheran clergyman, Lannes and himself.

"No you can't pay your share," he said to Lannes, "because you haven't any share. Remember, I've been a free passenger in the Arrow, which belongs to you, and it's my time to settle the bill."

"Have your way," said Lannes.

They had been speaking in English, and Lannes politely explained to their guests that his comrade was an obstinate Yankee, a member of a nation, noted for its stubborness, but the most delightful of people when you let them have their way, which after all was a way that generally harmed nobody.

The burgomaster and the clergyman smiled benevolently upon John and John smiled back. He had noticed already that Americans were popular among the great masses of the people in Europe. It was only those interested in the upholding of the classes who frowned upon them and who tried to write or talk them down. He was keen enough too, despite his youth, to deduce the reasons for it.

Here in this little town he was looked upon with favor because he was from America, and soon he was busy answering questions by the burgomaster and clergyman about his own land.

They made no reference to any war or approaching war, and he surmised that they had no thought of such a tremendous catastrophe – Lannes informed him later that they had neither telegraph nor telephone – and John following the cue of his comrade made no reference to it. They ate with sharp appetites, but an end had to come at last. Then Lannes went out into the town to buy his supplies, leaving John to entertain the guests.

John felt deeply that little period of rest and kindly simplicity and the time was soon to come, when he would look back upon it as the greenest of green spots in the desert.

Lannes returned in an hour and announced that they were ready for another flight. They went back to the Arrow which the stalwart youths were still guarding, proud of their trust.

"Must you really go?" said the burgomaster to Lannes. "Why not stay with us until tomorrow? Look, the clouds are gathering on the mountains. There may be a storm. Better bide with us till the morrow."

"We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your kindness," said Lannes, as he and John took their seats, "and under any other circumstances we would stay, but Herr Schankhorst there is a call for us, a call that is sounding all over Europe, a call louder than any that was ever heard before on this old continent."

Lannes raising his voice spoke in clear, loud tones, and he had the impressive manner that he knew so well how to assume. The crowd, eager and expectant, pressed nearer, all about the Arrow. John saw that the dramatic instinct, always alive within his partner, had sparkled into flame.

"And there is reason for this call," continued Lannes, raising his voice yet further, until the most distant were sure to hear every syllable. "The trumpet is sounding throughout Europe. You may well thank the good God that you dwell here in your little valley, and that all around you the mountains rise a mile above you. There were many trumpets when the great Napoleon rode forth to war, but there are more now."

A gasp arose from the crowd, and John saw faces whiten.

"All Europe is at war," continued Lannes. "The nations march forth against one another and the continent shakes with the tread of twenty million soldiers. But stay here behind your mountain walls, and the storm will pass you by. Now push!"

Twenty youths shoved the Arrow with all their might and the plane rising gracefully in the air, soared far above the village. John looked down and again he saw the whole population with heads craned back and eyes turned upward, but he knew now that they were swayed by new and powerful emotions.

"Lannes," he said, "I never saw such an actor as you are."

"But think of the opportunity! How could I overlook such a chance! They knew absolutely nothing of the war, did not dream of it, and here was I with the chance to tell them the whole tremendous truth, and then to shoot suddenly up into the air far beyond their hearing. It was the artistic finish that appealed to me as much as the announcement. Tell your great news and then disappear or become silent. Don't linger over it, or you will mar the effect."

"We're leaving the valley out of sight, and I judge by the sun that our course is northwesterly."

"Right my brave aviator, but I don't think you'll be able to use the sun much longer for reckoning. The worthy burgomaster was right. Look behind you and see how the clouds are gathering!"

John gazed at the vast mass of the Alps, stretching their tremendous rampart across the very heart of Europe. The Arrow had gone higher, and deep down in the south he saw the ridges and sharp peaks stretching on apparently to infinity. But it was a wild and desolate world. Even as he looked the far edges dropped away in the gloom of advancing clouds. The gray of the horizon became black and sinister.

But he looked on, his gaze held by the sublimity of the mountains and the powerful spell, cast by an historic imagination. He was not only gazing upon the heart of Europe, but upon the heart of great history. There, where that long black line led through the clefts the army of Hannibal was passing. He shut his eyes and he saw the dark Carthaginian with his deep eyes, his curly perfumed beard, a scarlet robe wrapped around him, its ends dropping upon his horse, his brothers and the captains riding just behind him, and behind them the Carthaginian sacred band, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Celts, the wild Numidians shivering on their barebacked horses, the monstrous elephants, the women, and all the strange and heterogeneous elements which the fire and genius of the great leader fused into an army unconquerable by the bravest and best soldiers of antiquity, a great man holding a great nation at bay for half a life time.

Mind and eye ran down the long line of the ages. He saw Goths and Vandals, Germans and Gauls pouring through the passes upon Italy, and then almost in his own time he saw that other, the equal of Hannibal, almost exactly the same age, leading another army over the mighty mountains into the rich plains below. He watched the short figure of Napoleon, and behind him the invincible French youth, born of the republic, dragging their cannon through the snow to victory.

"Open your eyes, John, are you going to sleep?"

"I was never further from sleep, and my eyes were so wide open that I saw more than I ever did before in my life."

"And what did you see, my wise John?"

"I saw generals and nations crossing the mountains down there. I saw through a space of many centuries, and the last I saw was your Napoleon leading his troops over the Great St. Bernard to Marengo."