Round the World in Seven Days Part 18

"The aeroplane."

"An aeroplane! You don't say so."

"It's a fact. Wonder you didn't hear it. It made a noise like a thousand humming birds, and came down not half-a-mile over yonder.

Some German fellow, I shouldn't wonder, from Constantine or Finsch.

Hope we're not in for trouble; I'm off to see."

"So will I. Go straight on, stranger; you see that constable there?

Well, turn down by him, and you'll come to the Administrator's in about five minutes."

Smith had taken off his overalls, so that his appearance attracted no more than a pa.s.sing glance from the sailors, clerks, merchants, and natives whom he met hurrying towards the spot where the aeroplane had descended. He found the Administrator's house without difficulty. Not having a card, he gave his name and rank at the door. The Administrator was at breakfast with his family when Lieutenant Smith was announced. Imagining that a war vessel had unexpectedly put in at the harbour, he rose and went to the door to greet his visitor and invite him to his table. A look of disappointment crossed his face when he saw a dirty, unshaven object before him, dressed in stained brown serge, offering no resemblance to the trim spick-and-span officer he had expected to see.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, sir," said Smith, "I'm in need of some petrol, and--"

"I don't keep petrol," said the Administrator shortly. "You've come here by mistake, no doubt. There's no petrol for sale in the port, to my knowledge."

"That's awkward. I'm afraid I must go on without. The aeroplane uses--"

"The aeroplane! What aeroplane?"

"I've come from Port Darwin in my aeroplane, and am going on at once to the Solomon Islands. I think I can just about manage it, so I won't detain you any longer, sir."

"Come now, let me understand. You have come from Port Darwin--by aeroplane! Where is it?"

"About half-a-mile beyond the town, sir."

"But--from Port Darwin--across the sea?"

There was nothing for it. Once more Smith retailed the outline of his story, the Administrator listening with growing amazement. In the midst of it a young Englishman came up, out of breath with running.

"Good morning, sir," he panted. "An aeroplane has just come down; people say it is a German. What had we better do?"

"Keep our heads, I should think," said the Administrator. "Mr.

Williams--my secretary--Mr. Smith. The aeroplane is Mr. Smith's, and has come from Port Darwin in ten hours. Just run down to the harbour, Williams, and tell Captain Brown to send up all the petrol there is in the launch, and a few gallons of machine oil as well. Be as quick as you can."

The secretary opened wide eyes.

"Where's it to be taken, sir?"

"To the aeroplane, as quickly as possible."

The young man ran off, looking as though he had received a shock.

"This will give us excitement for a twelve-month, Mr. Smith," said the Administrator. "It's lucky I can help you. I have just returned from a tour of inspection, and there are a few gallons of petrol in my motor-launch: not very much, I'm afraid, but better than nothing. I'm afraid I was rather short with you just now, but you'll admit that there was some excuse for me."

"Don't mention it, sir."

"It's the queerest thing I ever heard in my life; in fact, I'm only just beginning to believe it. Come in and have some breakfast; it'll be an hour or more before they get the petrol up, and I'd like my wife and youngsters to hear about it from your own lips. You'd like a wash, eh? Come along."

He led the way to his bath-room, turned on the water, arranged the towels, and bidding Smith come to the first room downstairs on the left when he was ready, he went off to prepare his family for the guest.

Smith was by this time used to the exclamations of wonder, the volleys of questions, the compliments and gusts of admiration which his story evoked. He came through the ordeal of that breakfast-table with the coolness of a veteran under fire. His hostess asked whether sailing in the air made him sea-sick; her elder son wanted to know the type of engine he favoured, the quant.i.ty of petrol it consumed per hour, and what would happen if he collided with an airs.h.i.+p going at equal speed in the opposite direction. The younger boy asked if he might have a ride in the aeroplane; the girl begged Smith to write his name in her alb.u.m. The governess sat with clasped hands, gazing at him with the adoring ecstasy that she might have bestowed on a G.o.dlike visitant from another sphere. Presently the Administrator said--

"Now get your hats on. We'll take Mr. Smith up in the buggy and see him off."

When they reached the aeroplane they found Rodier demolis.h.i.+ng some of the good things provided by Mrs. Martin, the centre of an admiring crowd of curious white men and wonder-struck natives. Two Papuan constables were patrolling around with comical self-importance. The petrol had arrived. When it was transferred to the aeroplane the Administrator insisted on drinking Smith's health in a gla.s.s of Mr.

Martin's beer, and then called for three cheers for the airmen. His daughter had brought her kodak and took a snapshot of them as they sat in their places ready to start. The natives scattered with howls of affright when the engine began sparking, the constables being easily first in the stampede, one of them pitching head first into the eucalyptus. The engine started, the men cheered, the women waved handkerchiefs, and as the aeroplane soared up and flew in the direction of the coast the whole crowd set off at a run to gain a position whence they might follow its flight with their eyes.

For some time Smith steered down the coast, intending to cross the Owen Stanley range as soon as he saw a convenient gap. After about twenty miles, however, he ran with startling suddenness into a tropical storm. It was as though he had pa.s.sed from sunlight into a dark and gloomy cavern. Rain fell in torrents, and he knew by the extraordinary and alarming movements of the aeroplane that the wind was blowing fiercely, and not steadily in one direction, but gustily, and as it seemed, from all points of the compa.s.s. For the first time since leaving the Euphrates he was seriously perturbed. It was true that the force of the wind did not appear to be so great as it had been before his meeting with Monsieur de Montause on the Babylonian plain; but his situation was more perilous than then, for he was pa.s.sing over hilly country, and the vertical wind-eddies were infinitely more difficult to contend with. To attempt to alight would be to court certain destruction; his only safety was to maintain as high a speed as possible, trusting to weather through. He judged by the compa.s.s that the wind was blowing mostly from the south-east, almost dead against him. Fearing lest the enormous air-pressure should break the planes if he strove to fly in the teeth of the wind, he decided to swing round and run before it for a time, in the hope that it would drop by and by. As he performed this operation the aeroplane rocked violently, and he thought every moment that it must be hurled to the ground; but by making a wide circle he got round safely, and keeping the engine at full speed he retraced his course, soon seeing Port Moresby again, far below him to the left. He had no means of exactly determining the rate at which he was now travelling under the joint impulse of the wind and his propellers; but from the way in which the landscape was slipping past him he thought the speed could hardly be less than two hundred and twenty miles an hour.

It occurred to him now to increase his alt.i.tude, with the idea of rising above the area of the disturbance. But he found that the mountains on his right hand rose higher than he had supposed. In proportion as he ascended, they seemed to rise with him. He saw their snow-clad tops stretching far away into the distance, and became conscious of a great difference in the temperature. He began to feel dizzy and short of breath, and presently his eyes were affected, and he saw everything as in a mist. When Rodier shouted that he was feeling sick Smith at once checked the ascent.

The aneroid indicated a height of 8000 feet, and it was clear from the greater steadiness of the machine that it had risen out of the stratum of air affected by the storm. But Smith's satisfaction at this was soon dashed by the discovery that there was something wrong with the engine. It missed sparking, recovered itself for a minute or two, then missed again. Smith looked anxiously below him. The nearest ground was about a thousand feet beneath; on his right the mountains still rose hundreds of feet above him, blocking the way to his true course.

Hoping that the failure in the sparking was only temporary, Smith swung the aeroplane round, in order to take advantage of this calm region of air and at least fly in the right direction. At the same time he looked out anxiously for a spot to which he might descend if the defect in the engine proved persistent.

In a very few moments it was clear that to continue his flight would be no longer safe, and he prepared to glide. While he was searching for a convenient landing place the sparking ceased altogether. The whole country was rugged; below, almost wholly forest land as far as the eye could reach; above, bare rocks or scrub, and at the greatest alt.i.tude, snow. The aeroplane flew on for a little by its own momentum, and Smith wasted a few painful seconds before, despairing of finding level ground, he began to descend in a long spiral.

As he neared the ground, Rodier's quick eye detected a little river cutting its way through the forest, and at one spot a widening of its bed, due, probably, to the action of freshets. Here there was a narrow s.p.a.ce of bare earth, the only clear spot in the landscape, and even this was surrounded with dense woodland. He pointed it out to Smith.

There was no room for mistake or misjudgment. Smith knew that if he did not strike the exact spot the aeroplane must crash into the forest that lined both banks of the river. Never before had so heavy a demand been made upon his nerve and skill. But the severe training of the Navy develops coolness and judgment in critical situations; his long apprentices.h.i.+p to aerial navigation enabled him to do the right thing at the right time; and, thanks to the calmness of the air in this lofty region, the machine answered perfectly to his guiding hand, and settled down upon the exact spot he had chosen, the little open stretch on the right bank of the stream, within eight or ten yards of the water.

His hand was trembling like a leaf when he stepped out on to the land.

The teeth of both men were chattering.

"Mon Dieu!" cried Rodier. "That was a squeak, mister. Le diable de machine! It seem I do nothing at all but clean, clean, all the way from London, and yet--"

"And yet down we come, 'like glistening Phaethon, wanting the manage of unruly jades,'" quoted Smith. "Still, we're safe, and I've known men killed or lamed for life getting off a horse."

"But with the horse you have the whip, with the machine you have only the rags to clean her with. Ah! coquine, I should like to flog you, to give you beans." He shook his fist at the engine.

Smith laughed.

"Beans would suit a horse better, Roddy," he said. "Let's be thankful the breakdown didn't happen while we were in the storm. That would have been the end of us. Come on, we'll soon put things to rights.

This loss of time is getting very serious."

They set to work to discover the cause of the failure. As they expected, the sparking plugs were completely clogged. Smith took these down to the stream to give them a thorough cleaning, while Rodier overhauled the other parts of the machine. When, after half-an-hour's hard work, everything appeared to be in order again, they sat down to s.n.a.t.c.h a meal, leaving the plugs to be replaced at the last moment.

While thus engaged, Smith scanned the surroundings with some curiosity. The stream, in cutting its way through the hillside, had hollowed it out in a gentle curve. The channel itself threaded the base of a huge natural cutting, most of which was covered with trees, only the middle part, where the torrent had laid bare a path, being comparatively clear. All around were trees large and small, tall and stunted, leafy and bare. As Smith's eye travelled upward, he noticed about a hundred and fifty yards distant, almost at the top of the gorge, a small ape-like form flitting across a part of the forest that was a little thinner than the rest.

"See that, Roddy?" he said.

Rodier looked round.

"What, mister?"

"An ape, I fancy, perhaps an orang-outang. I know they infest the forests of the Malayan archipelago, but I can't call to mind that they're natives of New Guinea."

"All the natives of New Guinea are apes," said Rodier viciously. "At Port Moresby they came round me like monkeys at the Zoo."