CHAPTER XIX
A DUEL WITH A ZEPPELIN
"THE gale must have backed to the south'ard," explained DesmondBlake. "It has carried us well northward of our proper course.There's a large vessel almost immediately beneath us, Athol. Get yourbinoculars and see if you can make out her nationality, and, what isequally important, the direction of the wind."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Athol, after a brief investigation. "It is not avessel--it's a Zepp. She's not so very far above the surface; I cantell that by the position of her shadow on the waves."
"Here, take the helm," said Blake, handing over the steering wheel tothe lad. "Let her volplane in spirals. I must see what this game is."
It did not take Blake long to form a pretty accurate idea of thesituation. The sea was fairly calm, showing that here, at least, thegale had blown itself out. The water, too, was clear andcomparatively shallow, the bed consisting chiefly of white sand.Visible against the bottom of the sea was a long grey object,sufficiently distinct to enable Blake to decide that it was asubmarine.
Less than three hundred feet above it hovered the Zeppelin, flyingslowly dead into the eye of the light breeze and thus endeavouring tokeep almost stationary over the submerged craft.
On her part the submarine was creeping over the sandy bottom,sometimes backing astern and striving to hide herself in thedisturbed water from the watchers on the Zeppelin.
The airship, intent upon the destruction of the submarine, had nowdescended to within two hundred feet and was dropping speciallyshaped bombs resembling aerial torpedoes. On striking the surface ofthe water these diabolical contrivances would plunge to the bottomunder their own weight and momentum, then exploding with sufficientforce to destroy any craft within fifty feet. Up to the present,however, the Zepp had not scored, although the crew were gettingnearer their objective with each missile they dropped.
A sharp order and Athol and the sergeant manned the two automaticguns. Although the weapon did not fire shells, the peculiar nature ofthe bullets would enable them to rip up the airship's envelope likea jagged knife once the gun could be brought to bear.
All intent upon the destruction of the submarine the crew of thegas-bag had no inkling of the presence of the battleplane until aregular sheaf of bullets struck the Zeppelin well for'ard. In acouple of seconds the pilot's gondola was completely wrecked; but theballonets came off comparatively lightly. There was a rush on thepart of the Zeppelin's crew to man their guns, while with a bound theairship shot vertically upwards, intent upon gaining a greateraltitude than that of her attacker.
But for once the commander of the airship had underrated the climbingcapacity of a "heavier-than-air" machine; for, anticipating themanoeuvre, Blake set the battleplane to climb at her maximum speed.
With her fuselage pointing almost vertically the battleplane roseunder the powerful beats of her wings. Thanks to the balanced gear ofthe seats, all four of her crew felt no inconvenience. Athol andSergeant O'Rafferty were pumping in hundreds of nickel bullets, untilit seemed as if the Zeppelin must be riddled through and through.
Still the gas-bag rose. Two of her guns were replying to those of thebattleplane, firing a sort of combined high explosive and shrapnelthree-pounder shell.
Long rents were now visible in the glistening sides of the envelope,as the shower of bullets completely penetrated the frail covering tothe numerous gas-filled sub-divisions of the air-ship. Yet she showedno tendency to drop. Her upward motion seemed uninfluenced by theloss of hydrogen; but whether this was owing to the great reserve ofbuoyancy or to the immense quantities of ballast thrown overboard,none of the battleplane's crew could decide.
While the British automatic guns were making hit upon hit the Germanfire was becoming more and more erratic. The first few shells hurtledperilously close to the battleplane; fortunately the time fuses hadbeen badly adjusted, for the missiles burst harmlessly a couple ofhundred yards beyond their objective. But after a few rounds a kindof panic must have seized the Hun air-pirates. Perhaps they realisedthat they were "up against" something that was their superior inmanoeuvring and offensive powers, for they blazed away recklesslywithout scoring a single hit.
Throughout the race skywards the battleplane easily held theascendancy, and as the Zeppelin reached a great altitude theincreasing rarefaction of the air, in addition to the loss ofhydrogen through the perforation of the ballonets, began to tell.
"She's dropping," exclaimed Dick, enthusiastically, as the hugefabric began to drop stern foremost.
Right above the now doomed Zeppelin flew the battleplane. In thisposition she could no longer give or receive blows, for the Zeppmounted no guns on the upper side of the envelope while thebattleplane's automatic weapons could not be sufficiently depressedto bear upon her antagonist. Had Blake any bombs in reserve he couldhave easily destroyed the airship with one properly-placed missile,but his last had already been used to good purpose in the raid uponthe German capital.
In almost absolute silence the battleplane dropped in short spirals,following the downward plunge of her defeated foe.
Suddenly the British machine gave a terrific lurch. To the lads itseemed as if the whole bulk of the mechanical bird was being hurledsideways. They were dimly conscious of the fuselage turning rapidlyand erratically around the gimballed seats, while the air was rentwith vivid flames and pungent volumes of black smoke.
In vain Blake attempted to lock the wings, The controls, fixed to adashboard on the coaming in front of his seat, were moving toorapidly past his outstretched hand as the body of the machine rolledover and over.
The horrible thought that the battleplane was rushing headlong todestruction gripped the minds of all on board, yet not a cry burstfrom their tightly set lips.
With a rending crash something penetrated the floor of the fuselage,and, missing Athol's feet by bare inches, vanished outwards throughthe deck, tearing a jagged gash through which the lurid smoke-ladenclouds could be plainly discerned. Fragments of metal, none of themof any size, began to patter upon the aluminium framing.
All this took but a few seconds, for with a rush like that of anexpress train emerging from a dark tunnel, the battleplane, stilltilted on her side, shot into the pure sunlit air. Then, graduallyrecovering her normal trim, she allowed herself to come once moreunder the control of her designer, builder and pilot.
Shaken and well-nigh breathless, for the atmosphere through which themachine had plunged was highly charged with poisonous fumes, it wassome minutes before Athol and Dick fully realised that they werestill alive. Almost their first thoughts were concerning theZeppelin. In vain they looked over the side of the chassis in thehope of seeing a tangible proof of their victory. The airship was nolonger in existence. An explosion, either the result of an accidentalignition of the escaping hydrogen or of a deliberate act on the partof the crew, had literally pulverised the huge and frail structure.The battleplane, almost immediately above the source of detonation,had narrowly escaped destruction, having been enveloped in theterrific up-blast of the fiery gases. The sliver of metal that hadonly just missed Athol's legs was a piece of aluminium sheeting fromthe dismembered Zeppelin, for it was afterwards found bent round oneof the girders of the landing-wheel framework.
"I'd like to wait till the submarine reappears," remarked Blake, "butit's getting too late to-day. We are, I should imagine, less than ahundred miles from Riga, and it wants but an hour and a half tosunset. By the by, has any one seen anything of Private Smith?"
No one had. When last heard of the ex-prisoner had been sleepingsoundly in one of the bunks.
"See where he is, sergeant."
O'Rafferty descended from his perch and entered the interior of thefuselage. The bunk was empty. A couple of blankets hitched up uponsome hooks in the ceiling trailed forlornly to the floor.
"You there, Smith?" shouted the sergeant.
"Here, sergeant," replied a drowsy voice from the very after end ofthe tapering body. "Have they finished strafing us yet?"
We
dged in so as to be incapable of moving hand or foot was theimperturbable Private Thomas Smith. When the battleplane hadcommenced her almost vertical leap in her encounter with the Zepp,the Tommy had been shot from his bunk. Alighting on the floor he hadslid aft to the position in which O'Rafferty had discovered him.There, throughout the erratic and violent motions of the battleplanefollowing the explosion of the airship, he had lain, too sleepy torealise what was taking place, and when roused by the Sergeant'svoice he was still under the impression that he was in a dug-outsomewhere in France during a heavy bombardment by hostile guns.
The sun had dipped behind the waters of the Baltic as the battleplaneflew serenely across the broad waters of the Gulf of Riga. A thousandfeet beneath the airmen lay a powerful Russian squadron, includingdreadnoughts, armoured cruisers and destroyers.
Keenly alert to the possibilities of hostile vessels from the air theCzar's sailormen were quick to discern the approach of a strange andaltogether remarkable battleplane. Soon the distinctive tri-colouredcircles could be discerned. All doubt as to the nationality of themysterious aircraft was now at an end, and the British machine wasgiven three ringing cheers, the volume of sound being easily heard byher crew.
Five minutes later the battleplane came to earth upon the RuskiAviation Ground, a few miles eastward of the Slavonic stronghold ofRiga.
Upon alighting Blake and his companions were warmly greeted by agroup of Russian staff officers, some of whom spoke English fluently,while all could converse with the utmost ease French.
"You are slightly beyond the scheduled time, Monsieur le CapitaineBlake," remarked a courteous colonel of the Preveski Guards. "Wetrust that you met with no misfortune?"
"Slight mishaps that proved blessings in disguise," replied Blake, ashe proceeded to give a brief outline of the battleplane's adventures.
"Extremely gratifying," declared the Russian. "And your compatriotshave done well in the raid, although, alas, they have lost heavily.Of the number that left the soil of France for this lengthy flightonly six have contrived to arrive here."
"And one cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs," added anotherof the Czar's officers. "_Ma foi!_ From all accounts you British havemade a fine hash of Berlin."