“You will restore to me my papers, I hope?” remarked the man.
“If you mean the naturalization papers that stamp you as one Hans Larsen, formerly of Sweden,” replied Frank, “I am going to put them in your inside pocket. But they will be taken by the officials, and I doubt if you ever see them again. They must know they are either stolen, bought, or forged, and that you only carry them to give trouble in case you are arrested.”
He was as good as his word, for he had taken the papers to show the Major in case any proof were desired after his story had been told.
Then came the file of British soldiers, direct from Major Nixon. They brought a note from the officer to Frank and his chums, desiring that the prisoner be turned over, and also stating that the word he had given Frank would be religiously kept.
The spy walked away in the midst of his guards, who had orders not to let him communicate with anyone on the way. In order to make more positive of this, they had a covered wagon close by, in which he was to be conveyed to the jail.
“I’m glad we’re free from him,” said Billy, after they had watched the party leaving the stockade.
“You don’t think there would be any attempt made at trying to rescue him while they’re on the way?”
“Sugar and sandwiches, but I should hope not!” exclaimed Pudge.
Frank did not seem to be worrying about such a remote possibility.
“No, I don’t think they’re numerous enough to risk an encounter with a dozen armed Tommies looking for trouble, just as Pudge here would look for his breakfast,” he observed.
“Now we’ve got the place all to ourselves,” said Billy. “There’s such a thing as being overcrowded, as the backwoodsman remarked when he heard that another family had started a clearing three miles away from his shack. But I’d like to have been down in Dunkirk when they sighted those gulls coming sailing along, ever so high up in the air.”
“Dories and dingbats, but I warrant you there was some excitement to the square inch,” Pudge insinuated.
Frank laughed as he stretched himself out on a bench to rest.
“You missed a grand sight,” he told them.
“Lots of people scared, I take it?”
“Well, they were fairly crazy,” he was told. “If a menagerie of wild animals had broken loose and come to town it could hardly have created more of a panic than when that cry sounded through the streets: ‘The Germans are coming!’ Men, women and children all ran this way and that. Some dodged down into cellars, while others crawled under front door-stoops, as though that would save them in case a bomb burst close by. It was a panic, all right, and I never saw anything like it in all my experience.”
“They must have felt silly after they found out what it really was?” Billy went on to say.
“Oh, not so very much,” he was told by the one who had been on the spot, and was in a position to relate things at first hand. “You see a good many started to make out they knew the dots must be birds, and said they had just been carrying on in that excited way for a lark.”
“To be sure,” declared Billy, “that’s the way lots of people always try to crawl through a little hole when caught with the goods on. Some of the others, I reckon, laughed it off, and admitted that they didn’t care to be blown up; that they got plenty of that sort of thing at home, as it was. But, Frank, how about our own program?”
“You mean about staying here and being ready to start off when we get the word—is that it, Billy?”
“Yes; shall we stick it out here the rest of the day?”
“I think,” said Frank, “none of us have any need to leave the place again until we start the motors and open up on the second trial spin, this time with some of the best British aviators along to observe how the Sea Eagle carries herself.”
“Do you think there will be a representative of the French Government aboard to take notes along the way?” asked Billy.
“That’s my understanding of the case,” he was told.
“Well, it ought to settle the matter of our business, Frank.”
“Just what it must,” came the reply. “We’ll give an exhibition of all the Sea Eagle is capable of doing in a way to make those other seaplanes look sick. Then we’ll expect to have the deal closed. That’s my understanding of the bargain.”
“But, Frank, whatever are we going to do for eats between now and to-morrow, when we come back from the raid up the coast?” asked Pudge, with a despairing expression on his fat face that would make anyone believe he had lost his last friend; or else just heard the news that he was to be hanged in three hours.
“I’ve fixed all that,” the other told him, “and right now I think I see the wagon coming with a lot of good stuff, such as can still be had in Dunkirk if you’ve got the francs to buy it with.”
Pudge was comforted by hearing such glorious news. He immediately took up his position outside the door from where he could keep an eye on the road close to the stockade gates.
“What are you doing out there, Pudge?” called Billy.
“Sandwiches and sauerkraut, but you wouldn’t want to run the risk of having that grocery wagon miss the place and drive past, would you, Billy?” demanded the sentinel; and the others let him alone, knowing full well that Pudge would not allow any accident of that sort to come about as long as his voice held good.
It turned out that Frank had bought a whole assortment of things to eat; indeed, Billy declared he believed they could stand a siege of a whole week with that lot of foodstuffs to fall back on.
“Three days, anyhow,” assented Pudge, who evidently had a different viewpoint from Billy when it came to sizing up the lasting qualities of edibles.
With the aid of the little stove they prepared a lunch, and really enjoyed it immensely. Pudge seemed to be reminiscent, for he brought up numerous half forgotten times of the past when in company with Harry Chester they had enjoyed many a similar repast, cooked under strange conditions it might be, but never to be wholly forgotten by those who took part in the feast.
Then the afternoon came and it was a long one to the three chums shut up for the most part in the hangar. The fire was kept up in the stove, because there was a tang to the February air so close to the Channel.
Frank went carefully over every part of the seaplane to make certain it was in the best shape possible for the long journey they had before them under conditions that no one could possibly foresee. He did not mean to neglect the slightest thing that could add to their comfort and safety.
Pudge had managed to make himself a pretty cozy nest with a couple of blankets, and he put in part of the afternoon “making up for lost sleep,” he told them. It was a standard joke with them that the fat chum was always far behind in his customary allotment of sleep; somehow or other he never did seem able to fully catch up.
Billy and Frank often stepped outside and took an observation. This not only included the weather but the conditions existing on the harbor, where there were boats of various descriptions to be seen, for the most part unloading war material sent from Great Britain in spite of Germany’s submarine warfare.
“This has been a pretty good day for aërial work, Frank,” suggested Billy. “What about the prospects for to-morrow?”
“I think we can count on it holding about as it is for another twenty-four hours,” came the answer, “and then a change is about due. It’s still cold enough to snow, and I expect we’ll meet a lot of snow squalls when we’re making that trip up the Belgian coast.”
“Do you really believe there’ll be that many seaplanes in the bunch—thirty or more, the Major told us?”
“They have planned to make this raid a record breaker, it looks like,” said Frank, “and will try to get out every machine they have a pilot for. It’s going to be a feather in our caps to be able to say we accompanied them, no matter what amount of damage they manage to inflict on the submarine bases, or railway stations and gas or oil tanks of the German army.”
“Well, I think we’re in great luck to get the chance to go along, Frank; though, of course, we don’t mean to throw a single bomb, or do the least thing to harm the Kaiser’s army. As I look at it the main purpose of our being allowed to accompany the squad of raiders is to let them see what cards we’re holding in this invention of Dr. Perkins. The French Government officials want to be shown, just as if they were from Missouri.”
“They’ll see a few things calculated to make them open their eyes, unless I miss my guess,” said Frank, with quiet confidence; for he knew what the Sea Eagle type of hydro-aëroplane was capable of doing when properly handled, and only longed for the opportunity of showing those British aviators, some of them well-known air pilots, the crowning triumph of Yankee ingenuity.
“It’s getting on toward evening now, with the sun near setting time,” remarked Billy, as though he felt that a load was taken from his shoulders with the passing of that almost interminable day.
“There’s a steamship coming in,” Frank said. “It’s taking all sorts of chances of being torpedoed, even if the Germans have said they are holding back until the eighteenth to start the reign of terror.”
“Do you really think the submarine blockade is going to work?” asked Billy.
“Honestly I don’t see how it can,” Frank replied. “They have only a certain number of the latest undersea vessels capable of staying away from a base for a week. These can’t be everywhere, and are liable to be sunk by torpedo boats. I’ve no doubt the Germans will punch holes in a good many small steamers; but as a rule the big ones can run away from them. I guess it’s a whole lot of a bluff, between you and me.”
“Will Great Britain dare them to do their worst, do you think, Frank?”
“Yes, even knowing that they threaten to sink merchant vessels and their crews of noncombatants without giving warning. Somehow or other it does seem to me that Germany is doing everything possible to make outsiders distrust her. But I suppose we can’t look at things the same way they must from inside, especially since England threatens to starve Germany into submission.”
“There’s the sun going to set,” remarked Billy.
They stood and watched it go down, and the gray of evening begin to creep across the cold sea. So that night in February closed in. Like a grim phantom the steamer came stealing into the harbor, with few lights showing.
“Let’s go in where it’s warm and comfortable,” said Billy. “Frank, since we have plenty of stuff along with us why not make an allowance of coffee for the men who are standing guard over our plant here. A mug of hot coffee would take the chill out of their bones, I’m thinking.”
“A good idea, Billy, and thank you for suggesting it. We’ll find what Pudge says, and carry it out. With the lantern we can make the rounds, and see that no sentry is omitted.”
With such sentiments spurring them on, the boys entered the hangar and found that Pudge was already deep in the pleasing duty of getting supper ready. Hardly had they mentioned the subject of treating the guards to a cup of hot coffee than he announced that he was heartily in accord with the scheme.