CHAPTER XXI.
SAVED BY SEAPLANES.
The boy pilots completed their many hours of trying vigil at the wheels of the largest aeroplane ever built by guiding the immense craft to housing place on the shore, and in the first night period of relaxation were drowsily dead to the world.
“We’ll be twisting the heads off one another if we lie this close,” jollied Billy, when his chum and himself rolled into blankets on the verge of dreamland, “for I’m still bow-legged in the arms from holding those spokes, and the motion won’t leave me.”
This humor was lost on Henri, for he had gone over the border, and no return until next sunrise.
No need to awaken the youngsters from the eight hours of slumber due them, for the morning will do well enough for an interesting discovery coming their way.
Anticipating this awakening and a grand surprise, however, it may be stated that among the operators of the war-planes identified with the superdreadnaught “Warspite,” then lying off Tenedos island, were a couple of airmen of some renown along the coast of the North Sea. They answered to the names of the Leonidas Johnson, with complimentary title of captain, and Josiah Freeman, one time of Boston, U. S. A.
Then, again, in the British submarine E-14, even then returning from a reconnoissance in the Dardanelles mine field, there was a sailor lad from Dover, Jimmy Stetson, surely remembered in the live days when our Young Aeroplane Scouts were campaigning in France and Belgium.
Stirring times in front when these time-tried, powder-burned excitement seekers get together once more!
Lieutenant Moppa was exhibiting the fine points of the “Sikorsky” to a group of British naval officers and war-plane experts when Billy and Henri sauntered in that direction, sound sleep and a good breakfast having restored them to normal condition.
Something that the Russian said caused a turning of all eyes upon the approaching lads.
Two of the group opened their mouths as well as their eyes.
“Jumping Jehoshaphat,” cried one of the pair, breaking the spell that bound him, “if it isn’t our long-lost flying boys!”
“By the great hornspoon,” almost shouted the other, “the dead is alive!”
While all the rest of the party looked on in astonishment, the coming couple and the waiting two indulged in a veritable war dance, accompanied by handshaking and shoulder-slapping, until the four were breathless and compelled to desist.
“I’m not a bit surprised now, sir,” declared Captain Johnson, addressing the Russian officer; “these kids are the candy in that game, born to it, sir; born to it!”
Lieutenant Moppa, while somewhat puzzled as to the “candy” qualification, nevertheless appreciated the spirit of the hurrah indorsement.
“Set up a sky contest, sir,” added Freeman, “and they wouldn’t have space on their clothes for all the medals they would capture.”
“Oh, you fellows dry up,” laughed Billy, “or you will get us arrested for false pretense. My first duty is to Henri; he must be kept out of jail at all hazards.”
Henri was about to retort in kind when he received a slap on the back that startled the idea out of his mind.
“Jimmy!”
Billy and Henri spoke in one breath, and the onlookers were amused by another animated walk-around.
Then the insistent call of duty broke in upon the reunion. Johnson and Freeman climbed into a war-plane for the morning reconnoitering flight over the straits, and the submarine upon which Jimmy served put out to sea on mission unknown.
Our boys looked to Lieutenant Moppa for some stirring order that would put them again in action, but that officer made no sign that would indicate immediate movement of the big airship. The surmise was that the mighty craft would be held in reserve for the allies’ next concentrated effort to force the Dardanelles.
It occurred to Billy and Henri that they could obtain permission to serve with Johnson and Freeman in the war-planes in case of emergency—and to their eminent satisfaction such leave was granted, for aviators were in constant demand. The heavily mined waters made close scouting in surface boats an exceedingly precarious proposition, and inside the straits the fort guns speedily put anything but a submarine out of business. Even the underwater craft had short shrift when exposed.
A day passed with no call for the services of the young pilots, but when the summons did come it was in a hurry-up manner, and involved a venture perilous to the extreme.
Submarine E-14 was aground on Kephez point!
The submarine boat had started from Tenedos island at midnight, entered the Dardanelles at 2:20 in the morning and dived at 2:30 to avoid the searchlights. Carried forward by the strong current it grounded four hours later, with the conning tower showing out of the water.
Picket boats reported at Tenedos that the stranded submarine was under fire from the Turkish batteries, and that there was little or no chance of the crew escaping annihilation.
Captain Johnson, engaged in conversation at the time with Billy and Henri, upon hearing the direful news, cried out:
“That’s Jimmy Stetson’s boat!”
“Can’t we do anything?” was Billy’s frantic query.
“We can volunteer to make a try,” replied the captain, as he raced to the water front, closely followed by the excited boys.
Freeman was standing near the seaplane station when the runners arrived.
Captain Johnson reeled off the story of the submarine mishap with telegraph speed.
“I’m in it every minute,” stoutly declared Josh, when advised of the rescue movement.
The volunteers instantly received the orders they sought, and with equal celerity set out on a mission that literally meant flying in the face of death.
They rode in two seaplanes that many times before had weathered storms of shot and shell.
Captain Johnson, himself, veteran of the air, acted as pilot in the lead, for he knew the direct route to the scene of the submarine disaster, and with Henri at the motor end. Billy guided the escort machine, with Josh behind him.
The seaplanes, of the very largest type, had capacity to carry, in a short run, at least a dozen of the submarine crew, if, indeed, that many had survived the pitiless fire to which they had for nearly an hour been exposed, and which fusillading had crippled the electric power appliance of the underwater craft.
Sweeping around the point, the shattered submarine was located by upstanding bridge and periscope, but the crew had been obliged to leave the boat and crawl out into the mud which held the bow aground.
Through an atmosphere dense with powder smoke, the seaplanes sped like bolts, and then striking the water with a force that tossed spray in every direction.
The submarine captain and three of the crew had been killed, and of those still alive seven were wounded. To cover the movement of the seaplanes, the “Warspite” and other British warships kept a rain of shells falling in the vicinity of the Turkish battery.
When the seaplanes lifted from the water, the wounded members of the submarine crew were crowded inside, and others clung to the rigging. The powerful motors responded wonderfully to the test.
Reaching the turn of the point without being brought down by the parting shots from the Turkish battery, the overloaded aircraft soon settled in the shelter of the warships outside the entrance of the straits.
“Glory be!”
Billy’s high note of rejoicing had been sounded.
And there was Jimmy Stetson, without a mark, astride the bow of the seaplane!
Other aviators in lighter machines now hovered over the submarine, dropping bombs on the works above water, with the purpose of rendering the lost vessel absolutely useless to the Turks.
“That was a scary come-through, all right,” said Jimmy to Billy, when once within the safety line. “I saw my finish out on that mud pile, and I guess I didn’t care much after Captain Gardiner fell dead on the bridge. But somehow, when I saw those seaplanes swooping down, and glimpsed Captain Johnson, I took a fresh hold on hope. And, lo and behold, when I splashed out to the planes who should be sitting in there as large as life but you and Henri. It was the spirit again of the brave old days.”
“We surely have had some close calls together, come to think of it,” recalled Billy.
“Well, now that the good boat, E-14, has gone by the board, I am out of a job,” sighed Jimmy; “I knew that craft like a book, and no better diver than she is in the service.”
“Brace up, Master James,” was Billy’s word of cheer, accompanied by a slap between the shoulders of the Dover boy.
Jimmy, it proved, had no reason to complain of enforced leisure; indeed, the only change in his line of duty was that by boat register he moved ahead a couple of numbers, hereafter to travel in E-16—and this underwater craft happened to be the very one detailed to attempt the difficult and hazardous task of cutting a submarine cable.
Billy and Henri were to have a share in this same risky enterprise, but without knowledge in advance of what was coming to them.