The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas

He raised himself and clambering over, gave a hasty glance about him. It was a terrible scene of wreckage that he surveyed. In the earth two immense holes, big enough to bury two horses, had been torn, and close by lay two men. Over toward the house was a third figure stretched out. Three horses, one of which died as Jack was looking over the carnage, lay not far off.

There was nobody else in sight.

Jack clambered over the edge of the gap the shell had torn in the roof and dropped lightly to the ground.

“Wasser!” moaned one of the wounded men, whom Jack recognized as one of his guards. The boy sped to the well and hastened back with the big earthen pitcher from which they had refreshed themselves earlier that day.

But he was too late. Even as the boy held the cooling draught to the sentry’s lips, the man died. The other was already dead when the boy dropped to the ground, his body frightfully shattered by the aerial bomb.

There was still the third man lying by the house and Jack, thinking he might be able to minister to him, hurried over. But here, too, the bomb had struck fatally.

A shaft of moonlight fell through the poplars and illumined the man’s face. It was Radwig, struck down in death even as he had planned a cruel revenge for another. Jack covered the dead professor’s face with the man’s huge blue cloak and then stood silent for a moment. The rapidity with which it had all happened almost stunned him.

Fifteen minutes before he had been a prisoner with the hideous sounds of spade and mattock in his ears. Now he was, by nothing short of a miracle, free again. He raised his face to the sky and his lips moved silently. Then, with a last look about the place, he prepared to leave, fervently hoping that before another day had passed he would be with his friends once more in Louvain.

All at once he heard a loud whinny. One of the dead troopers’ horses had been left behind in the mad flight from the farmhouse. It was saddled and bridled, although the girth had been loosened. Jack untied it, tightened the girths, and mounted. He did not know much about riding, but somehow he managed to stick to the animal’s back as he directed it down the road.

Every now and then he drew rein and listened. He had no desire to encounter prowling bands of Uhlans or to run into the small force that had evacuated the farmhouse, no doubt believing him to be dead. But dawn broke while he was still traveling, not at all certain that he was going in the right direction.

Jack decided to abandon his mount. Taking off its bridle so that it could find forage along the roadside, he patted its neck and said:

“Thanks for the ride, old fellow.”

Then bareheaded, and tired almost to exhaustion by all he had gone through, yet driven on by dire necessity of reaching the Belgian lines, the lad struck off across a wheat field into a path of woodland. On the edge of the field he shrank suddenly back into the tall wheat. There lay a man’s coat, a stone jug and a basket. No doubt the man was close at hand. But although he crouched there for a long time, nobody came, nor was there any sound of human life. Birds twittered and once a rabbit cocked an inquisitive eye at the lad as he lay crouched in the wheat.

Cautiously Jack raised himself and parting the stalks, peered out. He saw something he had not noticed before. The man, who doubtless owned the belongings which had alarmed Jack, lay stretched out at the foot of a tree. He was on his face sleeping.

But was he sleeping?

An ugly, dark stain discolored the ground around him. His shirt was dyed crimson. Jack saw, with a shudder, that he had nothing to fear here. The poor peasant was dead. Shot down by wandering Uhlans no doubt, as he was about to gather his harvest.

“Poor fellow, he’ll never need these now,” said Jack, as driven by thirst and hunger he investigated the stone jug and the basket. One held cider, the other the man’s dinner of black bread, onions and coarse bacon.

Too famished to mind the idea of eating the dead man’s dinner, Jack stuffed his pockets, took a long pull of the cider jug and then plunged into the wood. Here he flung himself down to rest and eat. Then, tired as he was, he forced himself to rise and travel on again.

Faint and far off the distant rumble of cannonading came to his ears, but here in the woods it was as calm and peaceful as if war, death and slaughter were forgotten things. At length he came to a place where the woods thinned out and there was a small clearing. He was about to advance across this when he saw something that caused his heart to give a quick leap and stopped him short in his tracks.

At one side of the clearing was an aeroplane!

It was a big monoplane with gauzy, yellow wings and a body painted the color of the sky on a gray day, no doubt to make it invisible at any considerable height.

Any doubt that it was a war machine was removed by the sight of a small but wicked-looking rapid-fire gun that was mounted on its forward part.

Jack was still looking at it, rooted to the spot as if he had been a figure of stone, when there was a sudden crackle on the floor of the wood behind him.

Then came an order sharp and crisp.

“Arrette!”

Jack was not a French scholar but there was something in the way the command was given that made him stand without moving a muscle. Footsteps came behind him and then he felt rather than saw a man passing from the rear to face him.

He worked round to the front of the boy and then Jack saw that he was a small man with carefully waxed mustache in whose hand was a particularly serviceable-looking revolver, which he held unpleasantly level at Jack’s head.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THROUGH BULLET-RACKED AIR

The man with the revolver gave a sudden cry:

“Mon ami Read-ee!”

“Great Scott, de Garros!” gasped Jack, recognizing the French aviator. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask zee same question of you,” smiled the other. “I leave you on zee sheep and now, voila! I find you in a Belgian wood wizout zee hat, wiz your face scratched by zee bramble and looking – pardon me, please, – like zee tramp.”

“I guess I do,” laughed Jack, in his relief at finding that instead of falling again into the enemy’s hands, he had met an old friend; “but I’m lucky that there’s nobody to say ‘how natural he looks’ – ”

“Pardon, I don’t understand,” said de Garros in a puzzled tone.

Jack plunged into a recital of his adventures, interrupted frequently by a hail of “Sacres,” “Nom d’un noms,” and “Chiens,” from the Frenchman.

“And now it’s up to you to explain how I find you here in the heart of a Belgian wood with a war machine,” said Jack as he concluded.

“Zat is eezee to explain,” said the Frenchman. “After you leave me in New York I get passage on a French liner for Havre. We arrive and I am at once placed in command of zee air forces of Belgium. Since zat time, pardon my conceit, monsieur, I think zat wizout bragging I can say I ’ave cause zee Germans very much trouble. Last night I fly over zee country and where I see Germans I drop a little souvenir, – but what is zee matter, monsieur, you look excited.”

“No, no, go on,” said Jack; “I was just thinking that it’s possible the day of miracles has come back.”

De Garros stared at him but went on:

“In zee course of my journey I see a farmhouse where Gerrman cavalry horses and stacked arms show in zee moonlight,” said the Frenchman.

“How did you know they were Germans?” asked Jack.

“Did you not know all zis territory is now overrun by zem? Yesterday they advance. They are now near Louvain. But nevaire fear, someway we drive zem back. But to continue. I drop one, two bomb wiz my compliments and – ”

“Saved my life!” exploded Jack.

De Garros looked concerned.

“Once more pardon, my dear Readee, but you are well in zee head? Zee sun – ?”

“No, no, don’t you see?” cried Jack; “those were your bombs that resulted in my being saved from a spy’s death.”

“Sacre! Ees zat possible? And yet it must ’ave been so! Embrace me, my dear Readee, nuzzing I ’ave done ’ave give me so much plaisair as zees.”

Jack had to submit to being hugged by the enthusiastic little aviator to whom, as may be expected, he felt the deepest gratitude.

“And now what are zee plan?” asked de Garros, when his enthusiasm had subsided.

“I want to join my friends in Louvain,” said Jack.

“Nom d’un chien! You are trying to walk zere through zees part of zee country!”

“Why, yes. I – ”

“Mon ami, you might as well commit zee suicide. It is swarm wiz German. I hide in zees wood till night when I can travel wizout having zee bullet swarm like zee bee round what you call zee bonnet.”

“Then what am I going to do?” he demanded. “I can’t stay here and I’ve had one experience with the Germans, and I assure you it was quite sufficient to last me for a lifetime.”

“I ’ave zee plan,” said de Garros.

“Yes.”

“My aeroplane hold three people.”

“Go on.”

“You shall fly wiz me.”

“To Louvain?”

“If that is possible. If not, to some place where you can communicate wiz your friend. ’Ow you like zat?”

Jack hesitated a moment. He was not a timid lad, nor did he fear ordinary danger. Yet flying above the German troops, between the place where they were talking and Louvain, was a risky business to say the least of it.

Yet there was no alternative that he could perceive. The mere idea of getting captured by Uhlans again gave him goose flesh. As if he read his thoughts de Garros said:

“You run no more of zee reesk in zee flight than you do on zee ground. Not so much. At night I fly high and I promise you I will not make any attacks.”

“You’re on,” said Jack, extending his hand.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A FLIGHT OF TERROR

“Take zees. You need zem. We fly fast. Très vite.”

De Garros was speaking as he handed Jack a pair of goggles. It was dusk and they, having finished an excellent meal from the aviator’s provision pannier, were about to start on their flight across the war-smitten country.

Already the flying man, aided to the best of Jack’s ability, had gone over the aircraft, testing every part of it. Everything was in perfect order, from the big Gnome eight-cylindered, self-contained motor, mounted with the big propeller forward, to the last bolt on the dragonfly tail.

Just before full darkness fell, which might have involved them in an accident in rising, de Garros gave the word to get on board. They clambered aboard, Jack with a heart that beat and nerves that throbbed rather more than was comfortable.

There are few people who do not feel a trifle “queer” before their first flight above the earth, and in Jack’s case the conditions of danger were multiplied a hundred-fold, for before they had cleared the woods and risen to a safe height they might be the target for German rifles and quick firers. De Garros wore a metal helmet padded inside. Jack had to be content with an old cap that happened to be in the aeroplane, left there by some machinist.

But, as de Garros said, the metal helmet would not be much protection against the projectile of a quick firer, or even a rifle.

The fighting aircraft was fitted with a self-starter, obviating the necessity of swinging the great propeller.

“All ready?” asked the Frenchman of Jack, who sat behind him, tandem wise, in the long, narrow body of the machine.

“Ready,” said Jack, in the steadiest voice just then at his command.

“Then up ve go.”

The self-starter purred, and then came the roar and a crackle of the exhausts as the propeller swung swiftly till it was a blur. Blue smoke from the castor-oil lubricant spouted, mingled with flame, into the thickening air of the evening. The wholesome smell of the wood was drowned in the reek of gasoline and oil fumes.

“Gracious, if there are any Germans within a mile, they’ll hear this racket,” thought Jack, with a gulp. “It sounds like a battery of gatling guns.”

De Garros took his foot from the brake lever and the machine darted forward. Jack clutched the sides desperately till his knuckles showed white through the skin. Then he gave a shout of alarm.

The machine had suddenly reared up like a startled horse. The jolting and bumping of the “take-off” stopped. The boy realized with a thrill that they were flying.

At that instant from the trees on one side of the clearing burst several Uhlans.

“Germans!” cried Jack.

“Maledictions!” exclaimed the Frenchman.

For a second or two the Uhlans stood paralyzed as the machine shot upward. They had heard the staccato rattle of the engine from where they lay camped, not far off in the same woods that had sheltered de Garros and Jack. Thinking it betokened a skirmish, they had hastily run toward the noise just in time to see the wasp-like machine whirr its way skyward.

But the machine was not well above the trees when they recovered from their surprise. Rifles were leveled.

“Look out!” cried Jack, “they are going to fire on us.”

“Hold tight now, I show you zee trick,” rejoined the flying man quietly.

The aeroplane was now above the wood which on that side was a mere belt of tall trees. Suddenly the machine ceased its upward flight. It rocketed downward like a stone. Above it bullets whistled harmlessly as the Uhlans fired at the place where it had been and was not.

The ground rushed up to meet them as the machine plummeted downward. Jack’s head swam dizzily.

“We’ll be killed sure!” he thought, but strangely enough, without much emotion, except a dull feeling that the end was at hand. Then just as disaster seemed inevitable, the machine suddenly began to soar again as Jack could have sworn it grazed the tall grass.

Up and up they shot, in a long series of circles, and then de Garros turned and grinned at Jack, showing his white teeth.

“’Ow you like?” he asked.

“I – I guess. I’ll tell you after a while” rejoined Jack, with suspended judgment.

The earth lay far below them now, although it was still light enough to see the fields marked off like the squares on a chess board and the countless fires of the Germans that dotted the landscape almost as far as could be seen. At every one of them were men, who, if any accident befell the machine and it had to descend, would make things very interesting for the air travelers.

Jack could not help thinking of this as the aeroplane flew steadily along, her motor buzzing with an even sound that told all was going well. But he knew they were not out of danger yet.

A hundred things might befall before they arrived safely in Louvain.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE BULLY OF THE CLOUDS

And then all at once the danger came.

Ahead of them loomed, in the darkness, for the moon had not yet risen, a bulking dark form.

An exclamation burst from the Frenchman’s lips.

“A Zeppelin. Malediction!”

“Do you think she’ll attack us?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell yet which way she is coming. Ah!”

A long ray of light, like a radiant scimitar, glowed suddenly from the mighty aircraft, 400 feet long and capable of carrying many men and tons of explosives.

Hither and thither the ray was flung.

“Zey heard our engines. Zey look for us!” exclaimed de Garros.

He shot up to a greater height. He was manœuvering to get above the Zeppelin, where her guns would be useless against the aeroplane, which was more mobile and swifter in the air than the Kaiser’s immense sky-ship.

But suddenly the glowing light enveloped them in its full blaze. Dazzlingly it showed them in its rays. It was the most peculiar sensation Jack had ever experienced. It was like being stood up against a wall with a fiery sabre pressed to your breast.

With a quick movement of the wheel, de Garros sent the aeroplane out of range of the revealing light. The next moment came a sharp crackle and something screamed through the air.

“Missed!” exclaimed the aviator with satisfaction.

Again the questioning finger pointed its interrogating tip hither and yon across the night sky. Others from below now joined it in its quest.

The firing from above, and the sight of the searchlight had been rightly guessed by the Germans encamped below. They knew that a hostile aircraft was above them and were helping in the search for it.

A sharp exclamation broke from the Frenchman. He bent and fumbled with some contrivance on the floor of the aeroplane.

There was a sharp click.

“What have you done?” asked Jack.

“I have released zee bomb.”

“The dickens!”

“Watch! Now you see!”

Fascinated, even in the midst of the awful danger they were facing high above the earth in the upper air, Jack leaned over and stared at a battery of searchlights sending out fan-shaped rays on every side.

He guessed this was the objective of de Garros’ bombs. He was right.

As he gazed there was what looked like the sudden opening of a flaming fire below, and the searchlights went out as if a giant had snuffed a monstrous candle.

Then came the report, booming upward through the air.

“Aha! Zere are some Germans below zere who will not do zee mischief more!” exclaimed the Frenchman with vicious satisfaction.

But his congratulations to himself were premature.

Again the light of the Zeppelin enveloped them. The glare seemed like a warm bath of all-revealing light. There was a flash and then the shriek of a projectile as the aeroplane dipped under the glow of the light. Then came the boom of the report.

“Zey ought to learn to shoot,” muttered de Garros.

“Thank heaven they can do no better than they are,” rejoined Jack.

“Now we show zem zee clean pair of heels and run away,” said de Garros.

“I’m glad to hear that. I couldn’t stand much more of this,” thought Jack.

“If I was alone, or had an officer wiz me, we go above zat Zeppelin high in zee air and blow him up,” announced de Garros cheerfully, after a minute or two. “Ah! zey get us again. Peste!”

The whine of a machine gun sounded as the searchlight of the pursuing Zeppelin again enveloped the bold little aeroplane. Her great bulk, big as a steamship, was rushed at top speed through the air. They could catch the roar of her four motors being driven at top speed.

De Garros had dropped again, and thanks to his skill, the aeroplane was still unhit, although the projectiles from the quick firer had come close enough for the occupants of the monoplane to hear their whine.

“We beat zem out!” exclaimed the Frenchman.

“Then we are faster than they are.”

“Oh, very much.”

“Well, we can’t be too fast for me,” muttered Jack. “I – ”

“Sacre!”

The searchlight had again caught them, and again there had come reports from her underbody. This time the sharp crackle of rifles.

“Are you hurt?” cried Jack, as the Frenchman gave a sharp exclamation recorded above.

“Malediction, yes. Zey nick my hand. Eet is not bad. But worse zey hit zee motor I think.”

The smooth-running machine was no longer firing regularly. Its speed had decreased.

“What are you going to do now?” cried Jack. “We’ll be mowed down by those machine guns if we slow up.”

“We must come down.”

“But the Germans?”

“There are no campfires below us now.”

“But can you make a good landing?”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“Parbleu! If I cannot zen all our troubles are over, mon ami.”

The aeroplane began to descend, slowly at first and then faster. The dark earth sky-rocketed up at them from below.

CHAPTER XXXVI

A MYSTERIOUS CAPTURE

But the disaster de Garros had feared more than admitted did not happen. Between two patches of wood lay an open field, readily distinguished even in the dark by its lighter color. In the stubble of a mown crop the aeroplane alighted, not without a considerable jolt to its occupants.

Their main anxiety now was the great Zeppelin they could hear, but not see, above them. Jack trusted they were equally invisible and that the searchlight would not reveal them, for high explosive bombs in a deadly rain from above would certainly follow.

De Garros, while wringing his wounded hand with pain, was helped out of the machine by Jack.

“Malediction, and I not get zee chance to fire on zat chien of a Zeppelin,” lamented the Frenchman. “Some day I pay zem back.”

“Is your hand badly hurt?” asked Jack anxiously.

“I do not know and we dare not yet use zee electric torch I ’ave on zee machine.”

“Why not?”

“It would show zee Zeppelin where we ’ide.”

“Then you don’t think they guess that we have descended?”

“No, if they had zey would search zee ground wiz zeir light.”

“That’s so.”

“But now they are point eet ’ere, zere, all over zee sky. If zey no find us zey think zat we are keel and zey go away.”

Jack shuddered at the narrow escape they had from this being made literally true.

For a long time, or so it seemed to the anxious watchers below, the Zeppelin soared above them, her searchlight swinging in every direction. But at last the noise of her engines grew dimmer and the light vanished.

“Zey go away disgoost,” said de Garros, shrugging his shoulders. “Now we see what are zee chances of patching up my hand and getting zee engine going again.”

The electric light, carried to locate engine trouble at night, was switched on and brought out by its long wires over the side of the craft. Then began an anxious examination of the aviator’s hand.

It proved that the tip of his thumb, where it had laid on the edge of the wheel, had been badly nicked by a bullet, but luckily it was the left member.

“If zee engine ees capable of being fixed I can drive wiz my right hand,” declared the aviator. “Thank the bon Dieu that it was not zee steering wheel zat was struck.”

With the first aid kit, carried by all soldiers in the field, they soon dressed and bound the injured member, and then came the examination of the engine, an investigation on which much depended. If it proved to have been too badly damaged to be repaired, they would not stand much chance for escape in a country so overrun with German troops. For all they knew some might be camped not far off. But they had to take their chance of that.

“Ciel, we are in zee luck!” exclaimed de Garros, after a brief examination, “the chiens only smashed a spark plug. I soon fix ’im and zen once more we start.”

The repair kit contained the necessary plug, which he quickly replaced. Then the journey through the night, which had already proved so eventful, was renewed. But now Jack felt a fresh alarm. How would they be able to tell at Louvain that it was a French and not a German aeroplane hovering above them.

He put the question to de Garros.

“Zat is easy. I ’ave on zee side of zee machine a set of four electric lights. Two are red, one is green, one is white. Zat is zee secret night signal of zee French machines.”

“But suppose the Germans should find out your code?” asked Jack.

“Eet is changed every night. Sometimes two green, one white, one red – many combinations are possible.”

“By Jove, I never thought of that!” exclaimed Jack, struck by the simplicity of the idea, and relieved at the thought that there would be no danger of being attacked by mistake.

Half an hour later they landed at a sort of fair ground in Louvain after answering all challenges satisfactorily. The Germans were not yet at the gate of the city. But they were near at hand and the place was wrapped in darkness. However, on account of de Garros’ rank, they obtained an escort to the hotel.

Tired from the excitement and nervous strain, Jack went to bed, sighing with relief at the thought that all was so promising.

In about an hour or so he awakened from a deep sleep. The night was sultry, and there was a strange calmness in the atmosphere seemingly weighed with grave and impending events.

Jack could not resist an impulse to leave his room and wander out into the deserted streets of Louvain.

He had not taken a dozen steps when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Before he could turn to see his assailant, he was whisked from the ground and swept onward to a great height.

Still dead silence reigned.