And they continued to swarm over the Alpine landscape at their own
convenience; on the Calvary of Mount Terrible they erected a dwarf
wireless station; a hundred men came from Delle with
radio-impedimenta; six American airmen arrived; American planes circled
over the northern border, driving off the squadrilla of Count von
Dresslin.
And on the second night Recklow's men built fires and camped
carelessly beside the brilliant warmth, while "mountain mutton"
frizzled on pointed sticks and every blue-devil smacked his lips.
On the early morning of the third day Recklow discovered what he had
been looking for. And an Alpinist signalled an airplane over Mount
Terrible from the White Shoulder of Thusis. Two hours later a full
battalion of Alpinists crossed Mount Terrible by the Neck of Woods
and exchanged flag signals with Recklow's men. They had with them a
great number of cylinders, coils of wire, and other curious-looking
paraphernalia.
When they came up to the ravine where Recklow and his men were
grouped they immediately became very busy with their cylinders,
wires, hose-pipes, and other instruments.
It had been a beautiful ravine where Recklow now stood--was still as
pretty and picturesque as a dry water-course can be with the
bowlders bleaching in the sun and green things beginning to grow in
what had been the bed of a rushing stream. For, just above this
ravine, the water ended: the Staubbach poured its full, icy volume
directly downward into the bowels of the earth with a hollow,
thundering sound; the bed of the stream was bone-dry beyond. And now
the blue-devils were unreeling wire and plumbing this chasm into
which the Staubbach thundered. On the end of the wire was an
electric bulb, lighted. Recklow watched the wire unreeling, foot
after foot, rod after rod, plumbing the dark burrow of the Boche
deep down under the earth.
And, when they were ready, guided by the wire, they lowered the
curious hose-pipe, down, down, ever down, attaching reel after reel
to the lengthening tube until Recklow checked them and turned to
watch the men who stood feeding the wire into the roaring chasm.
Suddenly, as he watched, the flowing wire stopped, swayed violently
sideways, then was jerked out of the men's hands.
"The Boche bites!" they shouted. Their officer, reading the measured
wire, turned to Recklow and gave him the depth; the hose-pipe ran
out sixty yards; then Recklow checked it and put on his gasmask as
the whistle signal rang out along the mountain.
Now, everywhere, masked figures swarmed over the place; cylinders
were laid, hose attached, other batteries of cylinders were ranged
in line and connections laid ready for instant adjustment.
Recklow raised his right arm, then struck it downward violently. The
gas from the first cylinder went whistling into the hose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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