For hours Billy had been stationed as lookout on the stranded hydroplane. He was taking cat-naps, for it had been quite a while since he last enjoyed a bed. While an expected round-shot from the[14] shore did not come to disturb the tired airmen, something else happened just about as startling. In a waking moment Billy happened to look up, and there he saw a great dirigible circling above the harbor. The boy’s eyes were wide open now. “Henri,” he loudly whispered, prodding his sleeping chum with a ready foot. “Look alive, boy! They’re coming after us from the top side!”
Henri, alive in a jiffy, passed a friendly kick to Captain Johnson, and he in turn bestowed a rib jab upon Freeman. Then all eyes were glued on the hovering Zeppelin.
A mile seaward, from the armored side of a gunboat, burst a red flash wreathed by smoke; then a dull boom. The Zeppelin majestically swerved to southwest course, all the time signaling to masked batteries along the shore.
“There is bigger game around here than us,” said Captain Johnson. “If only those tanks were chockfull of petrol again we’d show them all a clean pair of heels.”
“If we don’t move somehow and soon,” gloomily put in Freeman, “we’ll be dead wood between two fires.”
The Zeppelin was now pushing skyward, buzzing like a million bees. Just then a Taube a?roplane, armored, swooped toward the gunboat, evidently British, which had endeavored to pot the Zeppelin. The scout-ship below turned its anti-aircraft cannon[15] and rifles against the latest invader, cutting its wings so close that the Taube hunted a higher and safer level. The Zeppelin had again lowered its huge hulk for the evident purpose of dropping on the gunboat some of the bombs stored in its special armored compartment.
Another sputtering jet of flame from the gunboat and one of the forward propellers of the airship collapsed and a second shot planted a gash in her side. Sagging and wabbling, the dirigible headed for the Belgian coast. When the black mass loomed directly above the stranded sea-plane, Freeman gave a warning shout:
“Down with you! She’s trailing her anchor!”
By quick thought, in that thrilling, fleeting moment, Billy grabbed the swinging anchor as it was dragged along near to him and deftly hooked one of its prongs under the gun carriage at the sea-plane’s bow.
With jerks that made every strut and wire crackle under the strain, the hydroplane, on its polished floats, skipped over the waves, pulled this way and that, now with elevated nose, now half under water, but holding firmly to the trailing cable.
Henri, with head over the wind-screen, keenly watched the shore for a likely landing-place. The men in the cars of the disabled Zeppelin did not seem to notice the extra weight on the anchor—they[16] had troubles of their own in getting the damaged dirigible to safe landing.
Billy crouched in the bow-seat, his eyes fixed on the straining cable. In his right hand he clutched a keen-edged hatchet, passed forward by Freeman. Half drowned by the spray tossed in his face he awaited the word from Henri.
“Say when, old pard,” he cried, slightly turning his head.
“If she pulls straight up and down,” remarked Captain Johnson in Freeman’s ear, “it’s good night.”
The coast line seemed rushing toward the incoming sea-plane, bouncing about in the wide wash.
Henri sighted a friendly looking cove, and excitedly sang out the word for which his chum was waiting:
“Now!”
With the signal Billy laid the hatchet with sounding blows upon the cable—and none too soon the tough strands parted.
The sea-plane with the final snap of the hacked cable dashed into the drift and plowed half its length in the sandy soil. The Zeppelin bobbed away into the gathering dusk.
Following the bump, Captain Johnson set the first foot on the sand. Stretching himself, he fixed a glance of concern on the sea-plane.
“I wonder if there is a joint in that craft that[17] isn’t loose?” he questioned. “But,” he added, with a note of sorrow, “it’s not likely she will ever see her station again, and so what’s the difference?”
“It was some voyage, though,” suggested Freeman in the way of comfort.
“It was bully,” maintained Billy. “If we had traveled any other way, Henri there would no doubt by this time have been wearing red trousers and serving the big guns around Paris, and I might have been starving while trying to get change for a ten-dollar bill in that big town.”
“Do you think you will like it better,” asked Freeman, “to stand up before a firing squad with a handkerchief tied ’round your eyes?”
“I should worry,” laughed Billy.
“There’s no scare in you, boy,” said Captain Johnson, giving Billy an affectionate tap on the back. “Now,” he continued seriously, “it’s hard to tell just what sort of reception we are going to get hereabouts. Old Zip and I” (turning to Freeman) “certainly made the people on the paved ‘boardwalk’ stare with some of our flying stunts. But that was last year.”
“That reminds me,” broke in Billy, “that I have given the high ride to several of the big ‘noises’ on all sides of the war, and they one and all promised me the glad hand if I ever came to see them.”
“That, too,” said Freeman, with a grin, “was a year or more ago.”
[18]
“Speaking of time,” put in Henri, “it also seems to me a matter of a year or two since I had anything to eat. I’m as hungry as a wolf.”
“I’m with you on the eat proposition,” Billy promptly cast his vote. “Where’s the turkey hid, Captain?”
“It’s a lot of turkey you’ll get this night,” grimly replied the captain. “There’s a little snack of sandwiches in the hold, cold roast, I believe, but that’s all. We didn’t equip for a sail like this.”
Billy and Henri lost no time rummaging for the sandwiches, and while the meat and bread were being consumed to the last crumb by the hungry four, Billy furnished an idea in place of dessert:
“We don’t want to lose ten thousand dollars’ worth of flying machine on this barren shore. Henri and I are going to do a bit of scouting while the soldier crowd are busy among themselves up the coast. If there is any petrol to be had we are going to have it.”
Fitting action to the words, the two boys moved with stealthy tread, Indian fashion, toward the ridge that shadowed and concealed the temporary camp of the airmen. Captain Johnson did not wholly approve of this venture on the part of the boys, but they did not give him time to argue against it, and were soon beyond recall.