The Boy Aviators with the Air Raiders: A Story of the Great World War

Once again did Billy have to start in. Fortunately, he was a pretty fair story-teller, and enthusiasm with his subject did more or less to help him. The Major was duly thrilled with the graphic account of all the stirring events that had come to Frank and Billy since the afternoon.

Being a man of considerable experience in aviation, though no longer allowed to make an ascent, on account of being subject to dizzy spells, the after effects from a severe accident, Major Nixon at least could enjoy hearing about the exploits of others.

Billy, too, was blunt, and not at all inclined to make himself and chum out to be any sort of heroes. He told the story in a most matter-of-fact way, though reading between the lines the officer was able to picture things about as they happened.

“I’m pleased to hear your grand account of this great seaplane,” he told them when Billy at last told of their safe return to the waiting hangar. “My word, if only we British had fifty like it, I believe we would be in condition to end the war before three months had passed. No Zeppelin would dare enter into the same class. What magnificent craft they would be for protecting the home coast from such bombardments as happened not so very long ago.”

“Well,” said Frank, thinking to strike while the iron was hot, “we’re going to ask that from now on our hangar be guarded against any sort of attack. This seaplane, after certain formalities have been complied with, really will belong to the French Government; so it’s surely up to you to defend the property of your ally from a raid.”

“Your point is well taken, Frank,” the officer told him. “Every hour of the day and night I will see to it that a company of armed guards is stationed around your property, with instructions to defend it against any force of thieves, desperate spies or any other invaders. They will rue the hour they attempt to capture or injure your wonderful seaplane.”

Major Nixon always made it a point to walk around the big air rover, and carefully note its various strong points as developed through the patents of its inventor, Dr. Perkins, U. S. A. He was the only one who had thus far been given the privilege of seeing the odd machine at close quarters; because the boys had the utmost confidence in his honor as a soldier and a gentleman.

It seemed to Billy that the Major spent an unusually long time looking things over on this occasion. Perhaps he wished to verify the statements, to which he had just listened, concerning the stability of the seaplane and its condition for hard service.

When he joined them again, Billy also noticed that there was a most peculiar expression on the other’s red face, of which he could make nothing at the time, although it all came to him afterward.

“Is the seaplane in condition for another trip that might cover several times the distance you did in this trial spin?” he asked.

Billy thought this to be merely a casual question, such as anyone might ask after hearing the story just finished; but Frank, able to see further, believed there might be a meaning behind it.

“All I would have to do would be to replace the liquid fuel that we have used, and after oiling the bearings in a few places, I give you my word, Major Nixon, I would be willing to take the chances of going to Paris and back in the Sea Eagle with as many as two or more companions on the journey.”

Upon hearing that the other smiled as though the answer pleased him. There were numerous attributes connected with Frank Chester calculated to appeal to a man of his observation; and considering the fact that he was an Englishman, usually cold and reserved toward outsiders, the Major had become warmly attached to the boy aviators and their fortunes.

“And now, if you’ll bend your heads toward me, because sometimes the very walls have ears, they say,” he remarked impressively, “I’ll tell you a great secret.”

Realizing that this was no joke, Frank, Billy and even Pudge leaned forward, after which Major Nixon went on to say in a cautious tone hardly more than a whisper:

“It was learned that our friends, the enemy, intended sending out another one of their exasperating raids with half a dozen Taubes. They would drop a few bombs on Dunkirk and Calais and call that a great feat. Now more than thirty seaplanes, guided by some of the most daring of British aviators, plan a gigantic raid on the German sea bases in Belgium to-night, and you can accompany them if you will!”

CHAPTER X.

THE AËROPLANE BOYS IN LUCK

Thrilled by the nature of the communication made by the British officer, Frank, Billy and Pudge stood there staring at one another.

Of course it was not so very difficult for Frank to understand just why this invitation to accompany the raiding party of British aviators had come to them. Back of it all was the French Government, he felt certain. Before going into the business of making heavy investments connected with the new American seaplane patents it was only natural they should desire to witness an efficient test of the machine’s superiority over any aëroplanes they already possessed.

The contemplated raid would afford such a test. Competent critics, those other experienced birdmen, would be near to gauge the capacity of the Sea Eagle. In other words, the French Government did not want to “buy a pig in the poke.” Unless the hybrid sea and aircraft could meet the requirements laid down, they would not dare risk squandering great amounts of money in those hard times to duplicate her model.

Frank was greatly pleased. It seemed as though he and his chums had received a magnificent compliment in being honored with such an invitation.

“Of course, Major Nixon, you have been authorized to see us, and extend this courtesy?” he asked, as a starter.

“I can show you my credentials in that line, Frank,” the genial officer replied, without the least hesitation or embarrassment, which he accordingly proceeded to do, thus relieving the other’s mind in the beginning.

“Everything is shipshape, sir,” said Frank. “Now let us talk about the conditions under which we are to be allowed to accompany the expedition”

“Please keep your voice lowered as much as you can while I instruct you,” begged Major Nixon.

“You are thinking of those German spies who are said to be everywhere?” ventured Frank, who had heard much talk along these lines ever since arriving at Dunkirk.

Indeed, the stories that passed current concerning spies were astonishing. Most of them Frank did not believe in at all, for he knew they were founded on the fears of the people. At the same time the secret agents of the Kaiser were certainly vigilant as well as bold, and if one had to err at all it were better to be on the safe side.

“In times past I haven’t taken much stock in the wild stories that have been going around,” said the soldier, smiling; “but we certainly know there are spies in Dunkirk at this very hour. In fact, you boys have had pretty strong evidence that your operations while here have been watched day by day.”

“Yes,” remarked Billy, “and after what happened last night we are ready to believe almost anything, sir. I remember reading that sometimes the walls have ears, and I guess it may be so.”

“Under such conditions then it is best that we get our heads close together and talk in very low tones,” said the officer. “There are guards posted all around the stockade now, and yet in spite of that precaution some of those German spies are smart enough to play the game.”

“Anchors and aëroplanes, but this is exciting enough to please even a fellow built like you are, Billy!” muttered Pudge, who was mopping his red forehead with his handkerchief, though the others did not consider it any too warm there in the hangar of the great seaplane.

“I am unable to tell you at this minute the exact hour when the start will be made,” Major Nixon whispered. “Much depends on the state of the weather, and the arrival of the fleet of aëroplanes from across the Channel, for most of them will come from England, you understand.”

“Conditions being favorable, then,” observed Frank, “you believe that by another morning the start of the raiding party will take place?”

“Yes, undoubtedly,” came the answer. “We wish to take advantage of the unusually good weather conditions. Then, besides, we have learned through certain sources of information that the Germans on their own hook are planning an extensive dash with their aëroplanes and dirigibles on the coast cities on the Channel. It is in hopes of balking that, as well as accomplishing other results that more than thirty seaplanes will make this stupendous raid on their submarine bases at Ostend, Zeebrugge and Blankenberghe.”

“Sandwiches and sauerkraut!” Pudge was heard to gasp, as though his breath were almost taken away by the magnitude of this assertion; for he had never as yet seen as many as thirty aëroplanes assembled together, and certainly not in action.

“Is that the only motive of the raid, Major Nixon?” Frank asked, for he invariably made it a point to acquire all the information possible.

“Well,” continued the soldier, “to be perfectly frank with you, there are a number of other objects which such a sudden attack is likely to influence. It is aimed to destroy the railway station at Ostend so as to greatly hinder the movement of troop trains and those carrying ammunition and supplies. Then, at Bruges, other damage may be done.”

“But isn’t there still another big object in it?” insisted Frank.

“I suppose you are referring to the great submarine blockade of the coasts of Great Britain which Germany proposes to inaugurate next week?” said Major Nixon. “Yes, although I have not been so informed, I can guess readily enough that by means of this raid it is hoped to extensively damage their submarine base at Zeebrugge, and injure the movement in the beginning.”

“In other words,” said Frank, “Great Britain means to throw down the gage of battle, and warn Germany she can make just as dashing raids as anyone. No one nation is mistress of the air in this world war – as yet.”

Major Nixon smiled as he heard those last two words, and saw the quick look of pride which the young aviator threw toward the monster seaplane that was housed in that hangar.

“It’s plain that you have the utmost confidence in the ability of your machine to wrest that supremacy from the Germans, if once France secures the right to manufacture a fleet of Sea Eagles,” he remarked, as he laid a hand upon the shoulder of Frank Chester, of whom the bluff soldier had become quite fond in the short time they had known each other.

“Then it is understood, Major, that we keep ourselves in readiness to start out so as to be on the move at dawn, for I don’t imagine such a great fleet of aëroplanes would wish to make a start in the darkness of night.”

“No, there is no necessity of such a thing,” came the quick reply. “In fact, one of the objects of this raid is publicity. We do not aim to creep up and damage the enemy in the dark. We want him to see the astonishing sight of such a mass of darting seaplanes descending on his coast towns like a flock of eagles, and destroying military property, not citizens’ private homes, mind you.”

“I think,” said Frank, “I can speak for my friends here as well as myself, Major, when I promise to be ready for the signal. How will we know when to start out, for we shall all sleep here to-night?”

“There is only one condition which you will be asked to meet,” said the other.

“Then tell us what it is, sir.”

“The French Government will expect to have a representative aboard the Sea Eagle during the flight, not to interfere in the slightest degree with your mastery of the seaplane, but simply to take notes concerning her behavior under every sort of condition.”

“We certainly agree to that condition, Major Nixon,” said Frank heartily. “In fact, I should have asked that one be sent out with us. It is a part of our policy to fully satisfy the authorities we’ve been dealing with for nearly a year, now, that everything we claim, and much more, is possible with our advanced model of a hydro-aëroplane.”

“Very good, and I am pleased to know it,” said the officer. “I shall have to go back to town, now, but I will advise the local representative of the Government that you accept the conditions. By early dawn there will appear here a skillful aviator with written credentials, and I hope his ultimate report will be all you boys hoped it to be. My word! I only wish I were going with you, but other duties must claim my attention.”

He shook each one of them warmly by the hand.

“The best of luck, Frank,” were his last words at parting. “I trust that you may have an experience calculated to dwarf anything that has ever come your way.”

Frank, as he contemplated what a thrilling adventure lay before them, fancied that this wish on the part of Major Nixon was in a fair way of coming true. It certainly would be difficult to imagine a more exciting experience than taking part in an aërial raid, where more than thirty seaplanes started out to bombard strongly fortified coast defenses of the enemy, each raider subjected to a continual fire from every known species of anti-aircraft gun known to modern warfare.

After the soldier had left them, the three Boy Aviators sat around and talked in low tones. They had barred the door, and so far as they could see there was not the slightest chance that any eavesdropper could get close enough to overhear what they said. Nevertheless, the caution of Major Nixon had its effect upon them and there was no loud conversation except when ordinary matters were touched upon.

Frank always liked to “potter” around and give little touches of improvement to some part of the seaplane in which he had such a deep interest. No one knew its good and bad qualities as well as Frank; even its inventor had not studied these points as carefully as the young aviator.

So it happened that from time to time the boy made numerous little improvements that he figured would cause the motors to work more smoothly, or strengthen some part of the framework that showed signs of weakness.

Half a dozen times Frank left his two chums, sitting there killing time, to attend to something connected with the plane. He had carefully examined to find what had caused the accident that gave them such a thrill when thousands of feet above the earth.

“The same thing will never occur again, that I’m as sure of as I am of my own name,” he told Billy, when the other asked him about it.

Several hours had passed since the soldier had left them. Pudge, having taken a stroll outside, came back to report that there were at least a dozen British “Tommies” standing guard around the enclosure in which the hangar had been erected.

“It’s a good thing, too,” said Pudge, “because a crowd has come out from town to hang around here in hopes we’ll make a flight to-day. Oilskins and onions, but I should think there must be a hundred people if there’s one. But those Tommies are ready to use their bayonets on the first fellow who tried to climb up and peep over the stockade.”

“There are two guards, I noticed, down by the end of the trestle, where it strikes the water,” observed Billy, who had been moving around.

Frank was doing some little job under the seaplane, and at this moment came sauntering toward his two mates. Billy, happening to glance up at the other’s face was surprised to see that Frank looked excited; at least his eyes sparkled strangely, and there was a grimness in the way he had set his jaws.

Billy, always inclined to be explosive, might have burst out with a question only that he received a quick and expressive look from Frank, accompanied by the placing of a finger on his lips. Then, as Frank dropped into a chair beside them, Billy leaned over to whisper:

“What’s up now, Frank, that you’re looking so mysterious?”

“I’ve just made a discovery, that’s all,” came the same sort of careful reply. “Fact is, after all our precautions we’ve been outwitted, for there’s a spy hidden in the hangar right now!”

CHAPTER XI.

THE MAN IN THE LOCKER

“Are you joking, Frank?” asked Billy, though he should have known his comrade better than to believe Frank would try to play any silly trick for the sake of giving them a thrill.

Pudge opened his mouth, but for a wonder even one of his queer favorite expressions failed to drop from his lips. In fact, Pudge was rendered temporarily speechless by the astounding nature of Frank’s communication.

“Not at all, Billy,” said the other, trying to act as though he might be telling them something of small importance. “I watched while I was sheltered under the plane, and twice I saw it shake a little as though some one might be holding the door ajar so as to hear better.”

“Door!” echoed Billy helplessly, as though more puzzled than ever.

“The door of the empty locker we thought we might need for storing things away, but which has never been used,” Frank explained.

“Gee whillikins! now I understand what you mean, Frank,” said Billy. “There is plenty of room in that locker to hold a man curled up.”

“Popguns and pyramids, but how could he ever get there when we’ve been sitting around all morning?” asked Pudge, in a hoarse whisper.

“Only in one way,” Frank told him. “Before they left here last night they must have fixed him there in the locker, believing we’d be back again sooner or later, when some information of value might be picked up.”

“Oh! my stars, Frank,” Billy ejaculated huskily. “What if, after all, he’s heard enough talk here to guess about that big raid?”

Frank looked very serious.

“It’s true that we’ve been pretty careful,” he said, “and most of the time just whispered while we talked about it; but all the same a man with the ears of a spy might have picked up enough to arouse suspicions, and once that’s done the rest would come easy.”

“What can we do about it, Frank?” asked Billy.

“Our good friend, the Major, has extended the invitation to us so that in a way I feel we’re responsible for the secret being kept,” Frank went on to say, as though he might be revolving certain conditions in his mind before deciding.

On hearing him say that Billy began to work the muscles of his right arm, at the same time opening and closing his fingers, as though eager to clutch something.

“I agree with you, Frank,” he hastened to say. “The great secret has been placed in our keeping, and for one I would feel pretty small if it leaked out through any fault of ours. We’ve got to cage that spy as sure as you live.”

“Punkins and partridges, that’s right!” muttered Pudge, who, while not as a rule pugnaciously inclined, could nevertheless assume what he was pleased to call his “fighting face” when occasion arose.

“I’m glad to find both of you are of the same mind,” Frank said. “The only question is to decide what our plan of campaign shall be.”

“P’r’aps some of those Tommies in khaki would be only too glad of a chance to step in and collar the spy?” suggested Pudge.

“But there are three of us here,” objected Billy, “and I don’t see why we should want to call on the soldiers for such a little thing. After we’ve grabbed Mr. Spy and have got him tied up it will be time enough to figure on handing him over to the authorities.”

“That’s what’s worrying me,” admitted Frank.

“About handing him over, do you mean?” Billy demanded.

“Well, you know what the fate of a spy always is,” the other said. “We are supposed to be neutral in this war business. No matter whether our sympathy lies with Belgium, Germany, or France, we’ve got to try and treat them as much alike as we can. Our company has been negotiating with the French Government for a long time, now, over this contract, and so, of course, we have to favor them if anybody; but boys, not one of us would like to feel that we were the cause of a spy being shot or hanged.”

“Oh well, we could kick him off the place after we got him out, Frank,” suggested Pudge so aggressively that Billy chuckled, and started to smooth the fat chum down the back, just as one might a pugnacious rooster who was boiling with a desire to plunge into carnage.

“That sounds all right,” Frank told him; “but you forget the one important thing. He has some knowledge of this raid, and if we let him go it may mean a great disaster to the fleet of seaplanes taking part in the dash up the coast.”

“Whew! looks like we might be what my father would say was between the upper and the nether millstones,” remarked Billy.

“Gatling guns and grasshoppers,” Pudge added, “my father would go further than that, I guess, and say we were between the devil and the deep sea. But Frank, you’re the one to decide that question. What shall we do?”

“There is a way,” Frank announced, “by which we could settle it so the man wouldn’t fall into the hands of the military authorities, who would execute him, and at the same time he could be kept from betraying what he may have learned.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Pudge; “because I don’t want to know I’ve been instrumental in standing a poor fellow up before a file, and getting him filled with cold lead. Tell us about it, please, Frank.”

“After we’ve captured the man we’ll get word to the civil authorities, saying we’ve caught a thief in our hangar, and asking them to keep him safe for two or three days. I’ll go and see the Major myself, and get him to promise that the man will be treated only as a thief and not as a spy.”

“You’ve guessed the answer, Frank,” announced Pudge, with the enthusiasm he always showed when the leader of the aviator boys blazed a trail out of some wilderness in which they had lost themselves.

“Then the sooner we get busy the better,” hinted Billy, again working that good right arm of his as though it might be rapidly getting beyond his restraint.

“We have no firearms, though,” suggested Pudge.

“There’s no need of any,” Frank told him. “I’ll hold this wrench in a way that’ll make it seem like a six-shooter. The rest of you can help pile on the man when we drag him out of the locker, either feet or head first, it doesn’t matter which.”

“Just give me a chance to sit on him, that’s all!” threatened Pudge, at which Billy could be heard to chuckle, as though he pitied anyone who went through that far from enviable experience; perhaps Billy knew from his own associations with Pudge what such an operation meant.

“Now, here’s the way we’ll fix it,” began Frank. “I’ll step over again to the other side of the hangar to work at the motors of the Sea Eagle. Pretty soon you’ll hear me calling to you both to come around and see what a clever little arrangement I’ve fixed up.”

“Which will, in other words, mean the fun is about to begin?” commented Billy.

“When you join me,” continued Frank, “we’ll jabber for a minute, during which I’ll say we might as well go to town and get something decent to eat at noon. That will be apt to put him off his guard. Then we’ll all tiptoe over to the locker, and at a signal throw the door open. As soon as you glimpse him, take hold, and start to pulling like a house afire. That will keep him from trying to fight back or use his weapon, for I guess he’ll have a gun of some kind. Understand it all, boys?”

“Go on, Frank. Please don’t wait any longer than you have to,” pleaded Billy.

So Frank, a minute or two later, called to them to come and see what a splendid little change he had made in the gear of the deflecting rudder of the big seaplane.

It was a thrilling moment for the three boys when they began to move in the direction of the locker where Frank believed a spy had taken refuge many hours previously. As he had suggested, they walked on their tiptoes, each fastening his eager gaze upon the door which they expected to presently pull suddenly open.

When they had taken up their positions according to Frank’s plan, he gave the expected signal.

“Now, everybody!”

The locker door was dragged open in spite of the fact that something seemed to be clinging desperately to it from the inside. No sooner had this been accomplished than the boys, stooping, seized hold of the doubled-up figure they could see in the cavity under the bench, and started to drag with might and main.

Although the man in hiding made a powerful effort to resist the pressure brought to bear upon him, he was hardly in a position to do much.