1

The following morning had no dawning. A light rain had fallen during the night and a heavy, obliterating fog arose from the wet earth, blanketing hill and valley alike. So dense was it that troops in the front lines, peeping over the top in anxious nervousness as they awaited the zero hour, saw nothing but a wall of white that made the shell-tortured land before them more mysterious than any dream of battle ever fancied.

What did it hold? Where were the German lines? And just what had been the effect of this five hour tornado of screaming shells?

Machine guns, under cover of the fog, were boldly mounted on the trench parapets. They danced and chattered on their tripods as they pounded forth streams of lead upon the unseen enemy positions.

Zero hour at last! Along the line officers blew shrill whistles, or some, calmer than the others, gave the signal with a confidently shouted, “Let’s go!”

Over the trench tops poured thousands of khaki 252clad warriors, sallying forth in the most resolute endeavor ever attempted by American troops.

They had not advanced ten feet from the trenches before the fog swallowed them, magically, and many were never to retrace their steps. The big show they had so long waited for was here with an ear-splitting, nerve-racking tempest of thundering guns. The Big Parade!

2

At any other time the air forces would have stayed safely at home, not daring to take wing on such a day when the ceiling was scarcely higher than a man’s head. But now they must go out, at any cost, blindly flying and vainly seeking some view of the advancing troops. But they went out singly, for to attempt formation flight on such a morning would be to court disaster and death.

McGee and Larkin were the first of the squadron to take off for the front, the interval between their time of departure being sufficient to avoid any meeting as they climbed.

The fog bank was much thicker than McGee had anticipated. At a hundred feet he could not see a thing above, below, or on either side. He headed his new ship, a swift Spad, in the direction of Vauquois Hill, intending to cross the line there and hoping that 253the crest of the hill might loom up out of the fog.

Vain hope. It was impossible to see a thing. Any minute he might go plowing into some hillside or foul his landing gear in the tops of trees. It was eerie business, this flying by instinct and facing the dreaded possibility of coming a cropper.

Several times he cut his motor, and at such times could hear the din of battle below–and it was not any too far below, either.

Added to the fear of crashing was the thought that any second he might cross the path of a high angle shell which had been directed at some enemy strong point. It was not a pleasant thought, but he could not shake it off. Certainly the air was full of them, and if he was to get any information as to the progress of the battle he must keep low and accept all hazards. Then too, there was the chance that he might meet up with some other plane drilling through the fog.

“Well,” he thought aloud, “I’m a poor prune if I lose my nerve now. I expressed my opinion of Siddons–and gee! how he’d like to be facing no more than this.”

It was a depressing, angering thought. Five days, von Herzmann had said. Then Siddons would face a firing squad. In the meantime, there was no human agency, on the Allied side of the line, that could stop the inexorable march of time and the certain death which this man must meet.

254It was this latter fact, the feeling of helpless impotency, that fired McGee’s brain with reckless daring and sent him boring through the fog like an angry hornet.

He soon found that this was of no avail and at last, seeking something that might be of value, he climbed out of the earth-blanketing fog into the clear sunlight, encountering clear blue sky at some fifteen hundred feet.

Below him, now, was a billowing sea of fog banks, tinted by the sun which had climbed about it. A short distance ahead he sighted an enemy tri-plane Fokker, but before he could give chase it had dived into the fog.

Over to the right, in what he thought must be the general direction of Montfaucon, he saw a single seater Nieuport cruising around.

He headed for it, and soon identified it as Yancey’s plane. The wild Texan was sitting above the fog, patiently waiting (as a cat waits for a mouse) for some observation sausage to come nosing out of the fog. Tex knew that the sun would eventually burn up the fog. The enemy, also knowing this, would be sending up their sausages so as to have them in position when the fog passed. Certainly the enemy had reason to see all that could be seen, for by this time they must be hard pressed indeed.

Directly in McGee’s path, about half way between 255his plane and Yancey’s, a black, formless bulk loomed out of the fog. A sausage!

McGee drove hard for it, and noted that he was in a race with Yancey, whose quick eye had sighted it.

The black bag was hardly out of the fog bank when tracers from McGee’s and Yancey’s guns began streaming into it. It exploded with amazing suddenness, the flaming cloth sinking back into enveloping billows of fog.

Yancey banked sharply, flew alongside McGee and shook his fist as though to say–“Go and find a rat hole of your own. This is my territory.”

McGee chuckled. The Texan, instead of trying to catch some view of the far flung battle lines, was out to increase his score.

McGee dived back down into the fog, hoping that it might be lifting. Down below, he knew, a mighty struggle was on. Lines of communication would be shot all to pieces in the rain of heavy shells. Great Headquarters would be waiting anxiously for some news of the real status and progress of the battle.

At 8:30 the fog was still holding over the field and McGee reluctantly turned his ship homeward.

By that sixth sense which the seasoned pilot has, or develops, he found the field. No one had been able to catch sight of the ground forces.

Cowan was storming around, under pressure from headquarters.

256“It’s information we want,” he told the pilots as they came in, “not a tale of what can’t be done. Get back over the lines. This fog will pass. This is not a job for an hour. Headquarters wants information. Get it!”

To McGee, he said, with something of a sting in his voice, “Considering the chances Siddons used to take, I’d think this squadron–his own group–would be equal to this task.”

It was a lash. Furious, yet realizing the justice of the taunt, McGee again took off, determined not to come back until he could bring some real news of the battle’s progress.

3

That was the longest, hardest day ever put in by American aviators. They had little trouble in gaining and holding air supremacy, but they had a most difficult time, when the fog finally lifted, in getting any accurate information.

The advance had been so rapid, and so successful, that the Hindenburg Line had been carried by the soldiers in the first few hours of battle. But in pressing forward, in the fog, they had been unable to keep in close liaison. Instead of being a well-knit whole, they were little more than a storming, victory-drunk mob. They stopped at nothing–and nothing could stop 257them. As for displaying their white muslin panels to airplanes so that their positions might be known–poof! They were too busy to fool around with panels and those dizzy air birds who never did anything but fly around and look for panels. Panels be hanged! This was a day for doughboys and the bayonet!

4

That night, after mess, the members of the squadron sat around in glum silence. The success of the day, with reference to gains, was great indeed, bu............