THE BOTTLE PARTY 
By Capt. W.E. Johns
ALGY burst into the officers' mess of No. 266 Squadron like a whirlwind.
"I say. Biggies," he cried excitedly, "have you seen Duneville?"
"No. What's it doing? Running about in circles, taking snatches at itself?" replied Biggies, looking up from a well-thumbed paper.
"I mean those balloons," went on Algy breathlessly.
"Calm yourself, son I What balloons?" asked Biggies, in surprise.
"Three—three blinking sausages all in a row," declared Algy, "and one of them has got two baskets on it," he added vindictively.
"Yes; but what's this got to do with me?" replied Biggies coldly.
Algy stared at him, nonplussed.
"Well—er," he stammered, "I—er—thought that particular sausage was your special meat—yours and Wilkinson's of 287."
"Is that why you didn't have a crack at 'em?" inquired Biggies sarcastically.
"Yes, that and—er——"
"Go ahead, laddie!" broke in Biggies impatiently. "Don't stall. What was the other thing?"
'Ten Fokker triplanes cruising above 'em," admitted Algy reluctantly, with a sheepish smile.
"Bah! You wouldn't let a little thing like that stop you, would you?" said Biggies reprovingly, raising his eyebrows.
"You go and have a smack at 'em yourself—they're still there/' invited Algy. "If you think——"
A car pulled up outside, and Colonel Raymond, of Wing Headquarters, alighted. He nodded cheerfully to the officers present. "Where's the Major, Bigglesworth?" he asked quickly.
"Isn't he on the tarmac, sir?" asked Biggies.
"Can't see him," replied the Colonel. "But what I really came over for was to ask if you'd seen—er——"
"The scenery around Duneville?" asked Biggies innocently.
"Then you have?" said the Colonel.
Biggies shook his head. "No, I haven't," he denied; "and, what is more, I don't want to. I don't see the sense in burning good petrol to go all that way to look at it."
"Oh, well, I shall have to go on to 287 Squadron," observed the Colonel sadly. "They may be more accommodating."
"Wait a minute, sir!" cried Biggies, as the Colonel reached the door. "What's the prize this time for knocking a sausage down?"
"Three days' Paris leave and free transport," said the Colonel promptly.
"Tell Wilks he can have it" grinned Biggies. "He knows more about what to do in Paris than I do.
"I'm not getting my eardrums blown out for any three days in Paris," he declared as the door closed behind the Colonel. "No one but a madman would take on that job. Apart from the Huns upstairs, I bet the ground around the winches of those balloons is so thick with guns that you couldn't walk a yard without stepping on one. If anyone tried to get near them the air would be so stiff with archie and naming onions that he'd have to fly by compass to get through 'em. No! Not for me!"
"If the Fokkers weren't there and the gunners weren't there, it wouldn't be so hard, would it?" inquired Henry Watkins, known as the Professor, nervously.
"I thought you'd get a rush of blood to the brain!" sneered Biggies. "What do you suggest doing? Going over and asking them to go away for a bit? Well, go ahead, son—I'm not stopping you."
"There must be a way," insisted Henry.
"Well, get out your copybook and work it out," invited Biggies.
"Wait—I've got an idea 1" cried Henry suddenly.
"I'll bet you have," murmured Biggies.
"Listen, Biggies 1 Have you ever blown into an empty bottle?" asked Henry, leaning forward in his chair.
"Blown into an empty bottle! What on earth would I blow into an empty bottle for?" inquired Biggies, in amazement.
"I mean when you were at school—blown across the top of one with the cork out?" went on Henry enthusiastically.
"Ah! You mean to make sure there was nothing left in it?" said Biggies, with a flash of inspiration.
"No, you ass—to make it whistle," Henry retorted. 
"But what the dickens would I want to make an empty bottle whistle for?" exclaimed Biggies, in astonishment. "Oh! You mean to whistle for another full one?"
"No, you idiot!" yelled Henry. "Just to make a noise."
"You're barmy—I always knew you were," declared Biggies. "What's all this got to do with balloons, anyway?"
"Listen, you poor fish!" said Henry tersely. "When I was at Thetford, learning to fly——"
"Learning to fly! Did you learn to fly?" gasped Biggies, in mock amazement.
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt!" snarled Henry. "When I was at Thetford, a fool came over from Narborough, on Christmas morning, and dropped an empty bottle from about ten thousand feet. We didn't know it was a bottle. We thought it was just the sky falling down. At first it whistled, then it shrieked, and then it——" Henry threw up his hands in a despairing gesture. "The din was like nothing on earth. It made more noise than a score of 230-pound bombs. Now, my point is this: If one bottle can do that, think of the noise two or three dozen bottles would make falling at once! I'll bet the gunners would stick their heads in their dugouts when that lot started warbling. They'd go to earth like a lot of rabbits with a terrier around."
"I get you!" cried Biggies. "Go on, kid!"
"How many machines can we raise?" asked Henry.
"Nine," Biggies replied.
."Eight," corrected MacLaren. "Mine's having a new tyre put on."
"Not on your life!" cried Biggies hotly. "You're not getting away with that, Mac. You take off on bare rims if you can't get off any other way. Nine! Go on, Henry."
"Well, we all go over at the maximum height, and six come up behind the Fokkers," Henry explained. "We'll cross over, say, at Hamel, so that they won't see us. Now, let us suppose that each of the six machines has nine bottles. Let me see! That's fifty-four bottles. We'll tie a bit of string round the necks, but keep them separate, so that we can pick up the whole lot in a bunch and drop them overboard together. Now, this is the plan. We've all crossed over at Hamel and are approaching the balloons from the German side. The first six machines go on ahead, drop the load of bottles overboard as they pass the balloons, and then dive for home underneath the Fokkers. They'll come down, of course, but we can beat them in a dive. They'll break up if they try to catch us. The Fokkers will chase the six machines, and that will take them away from the balloons and dispose of one difficulty. When the bottles start singing their song of songs, every gunner on the ground for miles will think the sky is falling down on him, and they'll dive into the nearest hole. That will leave the way all clear for the other three machines which are in the offing. They make for the sausages—one sausage apiece—and they ought to get them before the Huns see what's up. They won't hear the machines coming for the noise of the bottles. How's that?" he concluded triumphantly.
Biggies looked at the speaker approvingly.
"Come on, chaps!" he cried, springing to his feet and starting towards the door. "Lets go and fill up with Buckingham."
By "Buckingham," Biggies meant a type of incendiary bullet used only for balloon-strafing. Its use was forbidden for any other purpose, and an officer with Buckingham in his machine-gun belts had to carry written orders from his C.O. that he was balloon-strafing—to save him from punishment, perhaps death, if he was captured with the illegal missiles on board.
"Wait a minute! Who's going to do what?" cried Mahoney. "Let's get this clear at the start."
"Algy, the Professor, and I will do the shooting, and the rest can carry the bottles," replied Biggies. "Algy ought to be able to hit a balloon, if he can't hit anything else. Come on, let's get the bottles."
The shell-torn village of Hamel lay below. Nine Camels in a "layer" formation of six and three, the three underneath, roared across the Lines and headed steadily out into enemy sky. A few minutes later they started to swing round in a wide curve which would bring them up behind Duneville and the balloons.
Biggies, leading, peered ahead through the swirling flash of his propeller, and gave a little grunt of satisfaction as Hs eyes fell on a large formation of enemy triplanes in the distance.
He glanced over his shoulder, rocked his wings, and altered his course a trifle to place himself directly between the sun and the enemy machines. His eagle eyes probed the atmosphere under the Fokkers. Ah! There were the balloons, looking from that height like three huge, over-grown mushrooms on the ground.
His eyes returned to the Fokkers, and did not leave them again until the distance between them was little more than a mile. Then he raised his arm above his head, which was the signal that had been arranged for the attack to be commenced.
The six top machines immediately turned to the right and dived steeply in the direction of the enemy balloons.
Biggies, with Algy at one wing-tip and the Professor at the other, turned slightly to the left, and then came round on his original course to watch the bottles go over-board. He pushed up his goggles and rocked with silent mirth as the six Camels, with the Fokkers now in hot pursuit, began heaving their curious cargo overboard.
"My hat! That's the funniest thing I ever saw in my life!" he chuckled.
The six machines, with the Fokkers still behind them, were soon mere specks in the sky, far away and below them. He banked steeply towards the balloons, and, raising his left arm above his head, pushed the control-stick hard forward.
The Camel stood on its nose and roared down in a wire-screaming dive with Algy and the Professor close behind. The sausage seemed to float up to meet them. Not a single burst of archie stained the sky. The plan had worked.
Biggies took the centre sausage in his sights, and grabbed his gun-lever.
At three hundred feet two streams of orange flame leapt from the twin Vickers guns on his engine cowling as he pumped lead into the ungainly gasbag.
"Got him!" he grunted, with satisfaction, as a streamer of black smoke burst out of the side of the victim.
He held his fire a fraction of a second longer, then pulled up in a steep zoom, glancing backwards as he did so. A triumphant yell burst from his throat, but it gave way to a mutter of annoyance. Two of the sausages were falling in flames; the other was still intact; but it was not that which! had provoked the exclamation. The Professor had evidently missed and had turned back for a second attack.
Biggies grinned as he saw the flames light up the side of the third balloon.
Simultaneously an inferno of darting flames and smoke tore the air around him. He dived for the Line, looking anxiously ahead for the Fokkers as he did so. There they were, all ten of them, coming back.
"This isn't going to be so funny!" he muttered between set teeth, as he watched the ten enemy triplanes streaking down out of the blue with the speed of light on a course that would intercept them before they could reach the Lines and safety.
He beckoned to Algy to come closer, pointing towards the enemy machines, and Algy obediently crept in close against his wing-tip. Where was Henry? Biggies* brow puckered in a frown as he scanned the sky in every direction, but could see no trace of him.
If the Fokkers caught him alone, he would stand a poor chance of ever getting back.
There was no time for further meditation, for the Fokkers, painted all colours, were falling on them like a living rainbow. Biggies tilted his nose up a trifle and took the leader, who was flying a blue machine, in his sights.
At five hundred feet the enemy formation broke like a bursting rocket, each machine swerving round to attack from a different direction. Biggies paid little attention, for his eyes—the mirth gone from them now—were fixed on the Spandau guns on the nose of the blue machine.
Through the gleaming swirl of his prop he saw two streaks of stabbing flame leap from them, and his hand closed on the gun lever on his own control-stick. Some-thing crashed against his ring-sight with a shrill metallic whang.
His windscreen disappeared as completely as if it had been swept away with a blow from an axe; an invisible hand snatched at the shoulder of his coat, but he did not flinch. He was watching his own tracer bullets boring into the engine of the blue machine.
Only when collision seemed inevitable did the German pilot lose his nerve and swerve, and Biggies whirled round on his tail in the lightning right-hand turn for which the Camel was famous. A red machine with yellow wheels swept past, with Algy glued to its tail, but two other triplanes were close behind.
The blue machine roared up in a perfect stalling turn, but even as Biggies took it in his sights an ominous flack-flack-flack warned him that an unseen enemy was perforating his fuselage.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw two triplanes meet head-on and break up into fragments in a sheet of flame. The sight left him unmoved, for he had seen it happen before. Another machine roared past him, leaving a long plume of black smoke in its wake as it plunged headlong to oblivion, but it was gone before he could see whether it was friend or foe. Coloured machines flashed across his sights and his guns chattered incessantly.
"This won't do!" he muttered anxiously, flinging the Camel into a steep bank to survey the position. "We'll be out of ammunition in a couple of minutes at this rate."
Algy was still on the tail of the red Fokker, which had also gone into a steep bank in an effort to escape him. The other machines followed, and a moment later they were all whirling around in an ever-decreasing circle.
Where was Henry? Biggies wished he knew, for his absence worried him. Perhaps he had slipped home before the dog-fight started, and Biggies hoped fervently that such was the case.
Meanwhile, the position of the other two Camels was desperate, and he said bitter things about the other six Camels, which, having got rid of their bottles, had evidently gone straight on home without waiting to see whether the three balloon-strafing machines had got clear.
A V-shaped formation of nine tiny dots far overhead caught his eye, and he laughed hysterically as he recognised them for British S.E.’s. "That's Wilks and his crowd 1" he told himself delightedly. "Raymond has sent them over here to get the sausages. They've arrived too late, but they are just in time to help us out of this mess."
The S.E.S were coming down, still in formation, in an almost vertical dive, but the Huns had seen them, too, and one by one they broke out of the circle and dived for home. Biggies did not pursue them, as he had little ammunition left and felt that they could now safely be left to the S.E.S.
Wilks, in his blue-nosed machine, roared by, placing his thumb against his nose and extending his fingers in the time-honoured manner as he passed the Camel. Biggies grinned, and returned the salute in like manner.
"Lor! What a day!" he chuckled, as he raced towards the Lines for safety. "I should like to see old Wilks' face when he sees we've knocked all those sausages down!"
Once more his eyes swept the skies. Over Duneville the air was black with archie, the gunners having evidently recovered from the bottle scare. And Wilks and his crowd, having driven the Fokkers to earth, were dodging through the barrage on their way home.
In front of him, Algy's Camel was already across the Lines. But of Henry there was no sign. Perhaps he was home already—perhaps going back another way. Anyhow, it was useless to go back and look for him.
He dived across the Lines, followed by a trail of raging archie. Six machines were taxiing in as he reached the aerodrome. Another was just landing.
"Have you seen Henry?" yelled Biggies to Algy, who was standing up in his cockpit, grinning, as he taxied in.
"No," Algy said. "I didn't see anything except Fokkers after they turned back on us. He must have been crazy to have another go at that sausage after missing it first time. Why Mac and Mahoney didn't have the sense to come back after the triplanes, I don't know. They might have known we should run into the whole bunch of them. My machine's shot to bits. My word, that red Hun could fly!"
A group of wildly excited pilots gathered around the Squadron Office, waiting to make out combat reports, and a babble of laughing voices rose into the air.
“I wish that kid'd come in," said Biggies, with a worried frown. "I wonder what he can be up to."
The telephone in the office rang shrilly, and Biggies hurried to the door as he heard "Wat" Tyier, the Recording Officer, speak. Wat was writing down a message, repeating it as he wrote.
"Yes," he was saying. "Observation Post 19—117 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery." He glanced up at Biggies and looked quickly down again. "Yes," he went on, "three enemy balloons—seen to fall—just behind—enemy Front Line trenches. Yes. I've got that. One Sopwith Camel— also seen—to fall—in—flames—message ends. Goodbye."
Dead silence fell upon the group. Biggies leaned for a moment against the doorpost, staring at the ground. The knuckles of the hand that gripped his flying-cap had turned very white.
His nostrils quivered once, quickly. He looked up mistily, and his face twisted into a semblance of a smile.
"Come on, chaps!" he said huskily. "Let's aviate."