Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/184

 over and over to escape a Spad which came down on its tail and got it anyway; now a Spad streaked past in flame. A two-seater—a German machine marked by the big black crosses under its wings—glided slowly down in a volplane. Gerry circled up to it, approaching from the side with the lanyard of his machine guns ready; but the German pilot raised an arm to signal helplessness. His gunner was dead across his guns; his engine was gone; he had kept control enough only to glide; and he was gliding, Gerry saw, with the sun on his right. That meant he was making for German-held ground. He came beside the gliding two-seater, therefore, and signaled to the west. The German obeyed and, while Gerry followed, he glided to the field in the west and landed.

Gerry came down beside him and took the pilot prisoner; together they lifted the body of the German observer from his seat and laid him on the ground. Gerry possessed himself of the German's maps and papers.

The German pilot, who was about Gerry's own age, had been a little dazed from the fight in the sky; but Gerry discovered that his willingness to surrender and the fact that he had made no attempt to destroy his own machine upon landing was from belief that they had come down upon ground already gained by the Germans. Whether or not that was true, at least it appeared to be ground already abandoned by the English. Certainly no considerable English force existed between that position and the Germans whom Gerry had seen advancing two miles away. No batteries were in action nearby; the airplanes seemed to be standing in an oasis of battle. There was a road a couple of hundred yards to the south, and,