"WINGED"
A FRENCH ADVENTURE. Two French soldiers in stained and dusty uniforms 01 horizon blue—this story, by tiio wuy, was u truo oneemerged with caution trom a sliolliiolo and swiftly reconnoitred, tho ground before them.What was behind they knew—tho Marne, the Germans, and the other men of their section, most 'of them dead, Iho remainder prisoners. For a brief tut more than sufficient space they, too, had. been in tho hands of the "sale boclie," and having found, without surprise, that ho can be more than usually "sale" when he happens, for the time being, to bo on the winning side, they had signalled to each other with their eyes, and profiting by a moment of sudden disorder had niado a dash for it.
Somewhere not very far ahead there must be ..French troops, but many dangers lay between. There were- the shells of friends and foe, whipping and whistling bullets from, unseen machine-guns, Hanking parties of tho enemy. And there was an aoroplane. ■It was flying: very low, and, as it seemed to them, with a horrible directness of purposo, so that in a few seconds it would bp close upon them. The black crosses woro plain upon its wings: presently tho cross upon the fuselage would swerve into view, and then, if the machino carried an observer, they would_ bo hnnted across the open until tho stinging heat of the airman's ehi\rpnosed bullets darted through their doomed bodies. Their foelings woro much tho same as thoso of tho man in "Tho 'i'hirty-nine Steps," who was etalked across the bare hills of Galloway by relentless adversaries in a monoplane^ Prom tho litter of the battlefield they had picked out a riilo apiece. Their own they had lost in tho hand-to-hand fighting when their section was surrounded. Their pouches still contained a few cartridges, The aeroplane slowed round, and iiir. stantly they were on tho defensive. Concealment, being impossible they etood up ■boldly, their rifles raised at a sharp angle. Apparently thero was only oiio ma-n in the German mnchino, and •as soon as his head became visiblo they fired, rammed their bolts homo a second time and fired again. Tho aeroplane leapt, regained its poise, dipped its nose earthwards, and canio heavily down, with a splintering of wood and rending of fabric. They were only boys, so, heedless of discovery, they hastened towards a thick spiral of bluo and brown smoke now beginning to mount into tho aky out of which their victim had fallen, and as they did so 'a. German officer in flying attire came. to meet them with his left arm Taised in token of surrender. His "control" arm had been crippled by ono of their bullets.
They bandaged him up, and, assured of their success, hurried on in the direction of tho French lines. In order to leave no clue, they took the German officer with them.—"Ashair," in tho "Daily Mail."
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180817.2.67
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 9
Word count
Tapeke kupu
486"WINGED" Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 9
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.