Facing the German foe Part 19

"He'll come through the air!" he cried.

"Yes, in one of their big Zeppelins!" said Harry. "I suppose she has been cruising off the coast. She's served as a wireless relay station, too. The plant here at Bray Park could reach her, and she could relay the messages on across the North Sea, to Helgoland or Wilhelmshaven. She's waited until everything was ready."

"That's what they mean by the red light markers, then?"

"Yes. They could be on the roofs of houses, and masked, so that they wouldn't be seen except from overhead. They'd be in certain fixed positions, and the men on the Zeppelins would be able to calculate their aim, and drop their bombs so many degrees to the left or the right of the red marking lights."

"But we've got aeroplanes flying about, haven't we?" said Jack. "Wouldn't they see those lights and wonder about them?"

"Yes, if they were showing all the time. But you can depend on it that these Germans have provided for all that. They will have arranged for the Zeppelin to be above the positions, as near as they can guess them, at certain times--and the lights will only be shown at those times, and then only for a few seconds. Even if someone else sees them, you see, there won't be time to do anything."

"You must be right, Harry!" said Jack, nervously. "There's no other way to explain that message. How are we going to stop them?"

"I don't know yet, but we'll have to work out some way of doing it. It would be terrible for us to know what had been planned and still not be able to stop them! I wish I knew where Graves was. I'd like--"

He stopped, thinking hard.

"What good would that do?"

"Oh, I don't want him--not just now. But I don't want him to see me just at present. I want to know where he is so that I can avoid him."

"Suppose I scout into Bray?" suggested Jack. "I can find out something that might be useful, perhaps. If any of them from Bray Park have come into the village to-day I'll hear about it."

"That's a good idea. Suppose you do that, Jack. I don't know just what I'll do yet. But if I go away from here before you come back, d.i.c.k will stay.

I've got to think--there must be some way to beat them!"

CHAPTER XVII

A CAPTURE FROM THE SKIES

Jack went off to see what he could discover, and Harry, left behind with d.i.c.k, racked his brain for some means of blocking the plan he was so sure the Germans had made. He was furious at Graves, who had discredited him with Colonel Throckmorton, as he believed. He minded the personal unpleasantness involved far less than the thought that his usefulness was blocked, for he felt that no information he might bring would be received now.

As he looked around it seemed incredible that such things as he was trying to prevent could even be imagined. After the early rain, the day had cleared up warm and lovely, and it was now that most perfect of things, a beautiful summer day in England. The little road they had taken was a sort of blind alley. It had brought them to a meadow, whence the hay had already been cut. At the far side of this ran a little brook, and all about them were trees. Except for the calls of birds, and the ceaseless hum of insects, there was no sound to break the stillness. It was a scene of peaceful beauty that could not be surpa.s.sed anywhere in the world. And yet, only a few miles away, at the most, were men who were planning deliberately to bring death and destruction upon helpless enemies--to rain down death from the skies.

By very contrast to the idyllic peace of all about them, the terrors of war seemed more dreadful. That men who went to war should be killed and wounded, bad though it was, still seemed legitimate. But this driving home of an attack upon a city all unprepared, upon the many non-combatants who would be bound to suffer, was another and more dreadful thing. Harry could understand that it was war, that it was permissible to do what these Germans planned. And yet--

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change in the quality of the noisy silence that the insects made. Just before he noticed it, half a dozen bees had been humming near him. Now he heard something that sounded like the humming of a far vaster bee. Suddenly it stopped, and, as it did, he looked up, his eyes as well as d.i.c.k's being drawn upward at the same moment. And they saw, high above them, an aeroplane with dun colored wings.

Its engine had stopped and it was descending now in a beautiful series of volplaning curves.

"Out of essence--he's got to come down," said Harry, appraisingly, to d.i.c.k.

"He'll manage it all right, too. He knows his business through and through, that chap."

"I wonder where he'll land," speculated d.i.c.k.

"He's got to pick an open s.p.a.ce, of course," said Harry. "And there aren't so many of them around here. By Jove!"

"Look! He's certainly coming down fast!" exclaimed d.i.c.k.

"Yes--and, I say, I think he's heading for this meadow! Come on--start that motor, d.i.c.k!"

"Why? Don't you want him to see us?"

"I don't mind him seeing us--I don't want him to see the car," explained Harry. "We'll run it around that bend, out of sight from the meadow."

"Why shouldn't he see it?"

"Because if he's out of petrol he'll want to take all we've got and we may not want him to have it. We don't know who he is, yet."

The car was moving as Harry explained. As soon as the meadow was out of sight Harry stopped the engine and got out of the car.

"He may have seen it as he was coming down--the car, I mean," he said. "But I doubt it. He's got other things to watch. That meadow for one--and all his levers and his wheel. Guiding an aeroplane in a coast like that down the air is no easy job."

"Have you ever been up, Harry?"

"Yes, often. I've never driven one myself, but I believe I could if I had to. I've watched other people handle them so often that I know just about everything that has to be done."

"That's an English monoplane. I've seen them ever so often," said d.i.c.k.

"It's an army machine, I mean. See its number? It's just coming in sight of us now. Wouldn't I like to fly her though?"

"I'd like to know what it's doing around here," said Harry. "And it seems funny to me if an English army aviator has started out without enough petrol in his tank to see him through any flight he might be making. And wouldn't he have headed for one of his supply stations as soon as he found he was running short, instead of coming down in country like this?"

d.i.c.k stared at him.

"Do you think it's another spy?" he asked.

"I don't think anything about it yet, d.i.c.k. But I'm not going to be caught napping. That's a Bleriot--and the British army flying corps uses Bleriots.

But anyone with the money can buy one and make it look like an English army 'plane. Remember that."

There was no mistake about that monoplane when it was once down. Its pilot was German; he was unmistakably so. He had been flying very high and when he landed he was still stiff from cold.

"Petrol!" he cried eagerly, as he saw the two boys. "Where can I get petrol? Quick! Answer me!"

Harry shot a quick glance at d.i.c.k.

"Come on," he said, beneath his breath. "We've got to get him and tie him up."

The aviator, cramped and stiffened as he was by the intense cold that prevails in the high levels where he had been flying, was no match for them. As they sprang at him his face took on the most ludicrous appearance of utter surprise. Had he suspected that they would attack him he might have drawn a pistol. As it was, he was helpless before the two boys, both in the pink of condition and determined to capture him. He made a struggle, but in two minutes he was lying roped, tied, and utterly helpless. He was not silent; he breathed the most fearful threats as to what would happen to them. But neither boy paid any attention to him.

"We've got to get him to the car," said Harry. "Can we drag him?"

"Yes. But if we loosened his feet a little, he could walk," suggested d.i.c.k.

"That would be ever so much easier for him, and for us, too. I should hate to be dragged. Let's make him walk."

"Right--and a good idea!" said Harry. He loosened the ropes about the aviator's feet, and helped him to stand.