“That means we’ll have to climb higher, so that their guns can’t reach!” Frank immediately decided.
It was indeed getting rather warm around them, Billy thought. The shrapnel puffs seemed to be above, below, and on every side, and it was a wonder that neither of them received a wound.
“Only for the speed we’re hitting up, the story might be a whole lot different, according to my notion, Frank. They have a hard job to get our range, you see.”
“Yes, most of it bursts back of us, showing a faulty figuring,” the pilot explained, as he started a corkscrew movement of the seaplane calculated to cause the aircraft to bore upward in spirals.
The guns, far below, kept up a merry chorus. Billy could hear the faint noise made by the continuous discharges, and the puffs of smoke that seemed to rise in a score of places at the same time told him how eagerly the German gunners were trying to strike that elevated mark.
Now the shrapnel ceased to worry Billy, for he saw that none of it seemed to be bursting around them as before. The limits or range of the anti-aircraft guns had apparently been reached.
“We’re safe from the iron rain up at this height, Frank. What does the barometer say?” he asked, with that spirit of curiosity that had made him a good reporter in the old days.
“That’s too bad,” replied Frank, as he bent forward to look.
“Don’t tell me that the only fragment of a shell that’s struck home ruined our fine barometer!” cried Billy.
“Just what happened,” he was told. “At any rate, it’s knocked to flinders; and I think I must have had a pretty close shave. But we can buy a new one when we get back to Dunkirk. As near as I can give a rough guess we must be between three and four thousand feet high.”
“I should say it was a lot more than that,” Billy declared. “But so long as they can’t reach us any longer, why dispute over a few thousand feet?”
He thereupon once more started to make use of the glasses, and had hardly settled them to his eyes than he gave a startled cry.
“Frank, they’re coming up like a swarm of angry bees!” Billy exclaimed.
“Do you mean Taube aëroplanes, Billy?”
“Yes, I can see as many as six right now in different directions, and others are going to follow, if looks count for anything. The word must have been given to attack us.”
“I’m not worrying any,” Frank told him calmly. “In fact, I don’t believe they’ll try to tackle such a strange hybrid aircraft. They can see how differently constructed the Sea Eagle is from all other hydro-aëroplanes, and expect that we must mount at least one quick-firing gun.”
“Then what are they climbing for, Frank? I can hear the buzz of their propellers right now, and let me tell you it sounds like ‘strictly business’ to me!”
“They are meaning to get close enough to let the pilots see what kind of a queer contrivance it is that’s hanging over their camps,” Frank continued in a reassuring manner. “When we choose to turn tail and clear out, there isn’t one in the lot that can tag on after us.”
“I know that, Frank, thanks to those wonderful motors, and the clever construction of Dr. Perkins’ model. But now here’s new trouble looming up ahead.”
“I can see what you mean, Billy. Yes, that is a Zeppelin moving along down there, one of the older type, I should say, without having used the glasses.”
“But surely it will make for us, Frank. A real Zeppelin wouldn’t think of sheering off from any sort of aëroplane.”
“Watch and see what happens,” Billy was told, as Frank changed their course so as to head straight for the great dirigible that was floating in space halfway between their present altitude and the earth that lay thousands of feet below.
The firing had stopped. Probably the German gunners, having realized the utter futility of trying to reach the Sea Eagle while it remained at such a dizzy height, were now watching to see what was about to take place. Many of them may have pinned great faith in the ability of their aircraft to out-maneuver any similar fliers manipulated by the pilots of the Allies. They may even have expected to see a stern chase, with their air fleet in hot pursuit of this remarkable stranger.
If this were really the case, those same observers were doomed to meet with a bitter disappointment.
“Well, what does it look like now?” Frank asked presently, while his companion continued to keep the glasses glued to his eyes as though fairly fascinated by all he saw.
“The Zeppelin has put on full steam, I should say, Frank,” admitted Billy.
“Coming to attack us?” chuckled the other, though the motors were humming at such a lively rate that Billy barely caught the words.
“Gee whillikins, I should say not!” he cried exultantly. “Why, they’re on the run, Frank, and going like hot cakes. I bet you that Zeppelin never made faster time since the day it was launched. They act as though they thought we wanted to get above them so as to bombard the big dirigible with bombs.”
“And that’s just what they do fear,” said Frank positively. “That’s the greatest weakness of those big dirigibles, they offer such a wide surface for being hit. While an ordinary shell might pass straight through, and only tear one of the many compartments, let a bomb be dropped from above, and explode on the gas bag, and the chances are the Zeppelin would go to the scrap-heap.”
“They’re dropping down in a hurry!” declared Billy. “There, I can see a great big shed off yonder, and it must be this that the dirigible is aiming to reach. We could, however, bombard the shed as easily, and destroy it together with its contents. Frank, it makes me think of an ostrich trying to hide its head in a little patch of grass or weeds, and because it can’t see anything, believes itself completely hidden.”
“Well, as we haven’t even a gun along with us the Zeppelin is pretty safe from our attack,” remarked Frank. “We’ve proved one thing by coming out to-day.”
“I guess you mean that we’ve given the Germans something to puzzle their wits over, eh, Frank? They know now that no matter what big yarns have been told about the new Yankee seaplane they tried to steal, it’s all true, every single word of it.”
Billy seemed to be quite merry over it. The fact that the dangerous Zeppelin had fled in such wild haste, shunning an encounter, while the vicious little Taube aëroplanes darted about like angry hornets, yet always kept a respectable distance away from the majestic soaring Sea Eagle was enough to make anyone feel satisfied.
“I admit that at first I was kind of shaky about defying the whole lot, but I’ve changed my mind some, Frank,” he called out a minute later. “Yes, the shoe is on the other foot now. They’re afraid of us! Makes a fellow puff out with pride. There’s only one thing I feel sorry about.”
“What might that be?” asked the other.
“If only Harry could have been along to enjoy this wonderful triumph with us, or Dr. Perkins either. It would have completed our victory. But from here I can see that army on the move as plain as anything. They’re meaning to make one of their terrible drives somewhere along the Yser Canal, perhaps when that air raid comes off that we heard so much quiet talk about.”
“Well, that raid may be held up a while,” Frank told him. “They must believe that French or British pilots are aboard the Sea Eagle right now; and for all they know there are half a dozen just such big aircraft waiting to engage their fleet if it hove in sight of Dunkirk or Calais.”
“Every time we make a sweep around you can see the nearest Taube scuttle off in a big hurry,” ventured Billy. “Why, Frank, some of those machines are carrying a quick-firer with them, but they’ve had orders not to take risks. What would you do if they actually started to close in on us?”
Frank laughed as though that did not worry him very much.
“Why, there are several things we could do, Billy. In the first place we can go higher with the Sea Eagle than any of those flimsy Taubes would dare to venture, though I’d hate to risk it in this bitter cold air.”
“Yes, that’s true, Frank, and like you I hope we will not have to climb any further. It isn’t so bad in the summer, but excuse me from doing it now. We would need two more coats on top of the ones we’ve got, and another hood to keep our ears from being frozen stiff. What’s the other idea?”
“A straight run-away,” explained Frank. “If I really saw that any of them meant business, I could crack on all speed until we were making the entire two thousand revolutions per minute. That would leave them far behind.”
“I should think so,” admitted Billy, who had the greatest possible faith in the ability of the seaplane, as well as the cleverness of its young pilot. “Once we got to going our prettiest and they would look as if they might be standing still. Who’s afraid? Set ’em up in the other alley!”
“I think I’ll show them something to start them guessing,” Frank was saying a minute later. “They haven’t yet seen what she can do under forced pressure.”
“Let her out to the limit then,” pleaded the passenger, who could never experience too much excitement.
So Frank began to turn on full speed, and the wonderful creation of Dr. Perkins’ inventive brain was soon swooping along in a manner calculated to make some of those who were staring through glasses far below gasp with astonishment bordering on awe.
After all, Frank Chester was a boy, and must have felt a natural pride in being able to thus surprise the whole of the Kaiser’s army with his amazing new aircraft. He knew that tens of thousands of eyes must be riveted upon them at that particular moment, from the officers at Headquarters to the mud-spattered and half frozen men concealed in the irregular trenches.
“See the Taubes giving us all the room they can, Frank!” cried Billy.
“Evidently they’re not hankering after an engagement with the Sea Eagle, Billy.”
“They make me think of a flock of wild ducks on a lake when an eagle poises on fluttering wings above them, picking out his dinner,” Billy went on to say. “They scatter and dive and act half crazy; but nearly every time the eagle gets what he’s after.
“Well, all we want is a clear road back over the way we came,” the pilot pursued. “Fact is, we’re not near so dangerous as we look. All we could do just now would be to ram a Zeppelin, and go down with it.”
“But they don’t know that, Frank, which is lucky for us!” declared his chum.
No doubt, Billy, in common with most other boys, must have learned at school the familiar saying that “pride always goes before a fall.” He had just been doing considerable boasting, and his heart was even then swelling with the conviction that he and his chum were virtually snapping their fingers at the whole of the Kaiser’s scattered army with every enlisted man craning his neck in wonder.
Then came the sudden shock, all the more terrifying because so utterly unexpected. It seemed to Billy that his very breath was taken away. The joyous buzz of the motors that had amounted to almost a shriek ceased as if by magic; and the Sea Eagle, shooting forward a bit under the impetus of her great speed, quickly began to volplane toward the earth, thousands of feet below!