CHAPTER X
THE SEAPLANE'S QUEST
"S' LONG, you festive blighters! Good luck!"
With this typically airman's farewell ringing in his earsFlight-lieutenant John Fuller, D.S.O., clambered lightly into thepilot's seat of Seaplane 445B.
Owing to Billy Barcroft's absence on leave a change round had beeneffected in the composition of the crews of the seaplane carrier"Hippodrome's" little nest of hornets, and as a result Fuller foundhimself in company with Bobby Kirkwood as his observer.
It was the night of the Barborough raid. The "Hippodrome," bound forthe Firth of Forth, had picked up a wireless when some where off theYorkshire coast, reporting the presence of four Zeppelins.Aeroplanes and seaplanes attached to the north-eastern bases hadalready ascended in the hope of cutting off the returningair-pirates, and in conjunction with these operations the"Hippodrome" was about to send out her airmen to grapple with theenemy in the darkness.
It was indeed a formidable and hazardous undertaking. The returningZeppelins would certainly take advantage of the stiff westerlybreeze. By keeping to a great altitude and shutting off theirengines they drift, silent and unseen, over the East Coast, until itis deemed advisable to restart the motors. Even the disadvantagecaused by the immense bulk of the vulnerable envelope would bediscounted by its invisibility in the darkness of the night.
The Zeppelins could keep "afloat" by the buoyancy of theirhydrogen-charged ballonets; the aeroplanes, being heavier than air,could not, except for a comparatively brief vol-plane, without theaid of their propellers, The roar of the latter would betray theirpresence to the watchers on the silent airship.
Altogether the seaplane's task savoured of a wild goose chase, onlyby a pure fluke might one of the aeroplanes "spot" one of thereturning raiders, but on the remote chance of being able to do sothe "Hippodrome's" aerial flotilla set out on its hazardous flight.
For three-quarters of an hour No 445B flew to and fro parallel tothe coast. It was bitterly cold. At a minimum height of fivethousand feet was a vast bank of clouds that drifted steadilyeastwards.
Occasionally Kirkwood took down a wireless report from the parentship and handed it to the pilot. Hardly a word was spoken. The voicetube was resorted to only once in that forty-five minutes.
"I'm going further out," announced Fuller. "We'll clear that patchof clouds."
With her motors purring rhythmically and the pistons throbbing inperfect tune the seaplane swung round and settled in an easterlydirection, the while climbing steadily. Behind her was the tail endof a nimbus; above, through a vast rift the stars twinkled in thecold sky; beneath, thousands of feet down, was the sea, its vicious,steep waves invisible in the kindly darkness.
Suddenly, from the enshrouding masses of cloud, a dark,symmetrically elongated shape shot rapidly into the starlight. Itwas a Zeppelin in full flight. Columns of smoke were issuing fromher exhausts, but the throb of the seaplane's motors drowned thedrone of her powerful engines.
"Good!" ejaculated Fuller, actuating the rudder bar with his feetand elevating the ailerons. "That's our bird. If they don't spot usbefore they gain that bank of clouds, she's ours."
Eagerly yet methodically Kirkwood brought the Lewis gun ready foraction. It was to be the last resource in attack, to be used only ifthe seaplane failed to gain the aerial "weathergage"--a superioraltitude to that of her bulky antagonist.
For the present the odds were level as regards speed. The seaplane'sgreater rate of flight was counterbalanced by the fact that she hadto climb in order to get above her intended prey and drop a bombupon the immense and fragile bulk of the Zeppelin's envelope.
And Fuller was achieving his object. Already Seaplane 445B waspassing diagonally upwards through the raider's smoking trail, theoil tinged vapour from her exhaust pipes. Every moment tended tobring the protruding stern portion of the Zep, betwixt her crew andthe steadily climbing aeroplane, thus diminishing the risk ofdetection.
Fuller was about to check the upward climb and overhaul hisantagonist when the Zeppelin appeared almost to stand on end. Thewhole of her upper surface was exposed to the British airmen's view.Then, almost simultaneously the seaplane seemed to be following.
It was a form of optical delusion. She was still climbing steadily.The Zeppelin had spotted her small and dangerous foe. Dropping aquantity of ballast _en bloc_ the airship shot vertically upward toa terrific height. It was this motion that had given Fuller theimpression that the seaplane was dropping.
"She's twigged us!" he shouted through the voice tube. "Let her haveit."
The A.P. promptly began to let loose a whole drum of ammunition. TheZeppelin was instantly enveloped in a cloud of smoke. Into the pallof vapour the Lewis gun pumped its nickel missiles, yet no crippledflaming fabric crashed helplessly to the surface of the sea.
The smoke was a "blind." Fuller realised that. Screening herself bythe dense vapour the Zeppelin had ascended almost vertically untilsafe from observation in the dense clouds overhead.
"Missed her, by Jove!" ejaculated the flight-lieutenant.
"More than she did us," replied Kirkwood coolly, in spite of hiskeen disappointment, for a small-calibre bullet had ripped theear-pad of his airman's helmet. Whether his ear was hit he knew not.The intense cold had numbed all sense of feeling. The shot wasevidently from a Maxim and one of many, but in the darkness it wasimpossible to see whether the seaplane had sustained any damage.Judging by her behaviour Kirkwood thought not.
Yet Fuller was loath to discontinue the chase. On and on he flew,further and further away from the "Hippodrome" and the shores ofBritain, vainly hoping to pick up his quarry when the Zeppelin againemerged from the cloud banks.
"I'll swear she's shut off power and is floating somewhere in thatcloud," he soliloquised. "Well, I'll have a shot at it, even if wecharge smack into the brute."
With this desperate yet praiseworthy resolution theflight-lieutenant swung his frail command about and began to climbsteadily towards the mass of dark clouds. Ten minutes later theseaplane entered the lower edge of the nimbus. It was like tearingthrough a dense fog. All sense of direction was lost. Whether themachine was climbing, banking or descending was a matter ofconjecture, since the darkness and the moisture made it impossibleto consult the aeronautical instrument. Ahead was nothing but anopaque curtain of mist. On either side the tips of the planes mergedinto invisibility. Only astern were there any light-sparks from thehot exhaust throwing a faint, ruddy glare upon the wisps of trailingvapour that followed, circling and writhing, in the wake of theswiftly-moving machine.
"If the Huns are anywhere in this stuff they'll get in a rare funkeven if we don't run across them," thought Fuller, Unmindful of thedanger of his own seeking he mentally pictured the panic-strickencondition of the raider, as hearing the roar of the seaplane'smotors and unable to locate its position, they were in momentaryperil of being rammed by an object tearing at ninety miles an hourthrough an optically impenetrable darkness.
Kirkwood, too, realised the risk. With nerves a-tingle he awaiteddevelopments. Faith in Fuller's prowess gave him confidence. Withone hand resting lightly on the lever operating the bomb-droppinggear he waited, ready at the first signal to release the missiles ofannihilation.
Suddenly the muffled roar of the exhaust gave place to a series ofrapid explosions. Instinctively Kirkwood likened it to a boy raspinga stick along a row of iron palings. At the same time a successionof spurts of flame streaked overhead. The seaplane had only justscraped the underside of her antagonist. The upper planes had missedthe Zeppelin's 'midship gondola by inches, and the flashes he hadseen were from the airship's machine-gun as the Huns blazedfuriously and erratically at their unseen but unpleasantly audiblefoe.
Up spun 445B, until she seemed to stand almost on her tail. Thentilting until she was in imminent danger of side-slipping, shesought to make good her discovery. Vainly Fuller circled andcircled, striving to pierce the vault of inky blackness. TheZeppelin was no longer there. Whether she had thrown out some more
ballast or had trusted to her motors to bear her away from theunseen terror he knew not.
He was not a man to admit defeat readily.
"I'll make 'em have cold feet in any case," he decided, as heremoved his mist-dimmed goggles and peered into the luminous compassbowl. "Due east till we get out of this cloud, and then I'll waitfor the brute."
Unfortunately, as far as he was concerned, Fuller's decision couldnot be carried out, for from no apparent cause the motors raced atunprecedented speed for a brief instant and then stopped.
The contrast from the noise of the engine to the stillness of theupper regions was the feature that impressed him most. The seaplane,at a height of ten thousand feet, and in the midst of a dense cloud,was beginning to fall. Vainly the pilot strove to avoid thenerve-racking "tail-spin." His sense of direction gone he could onlyjiggle the joy-stick in the hope that the terrific headlong, erraticdownward rush might be checked.
Kirkwood, secured by the broad leather safety strap, also realisedthe danger. He was conscious of being whirled round and round withhis body in a horizontal position. He could feel the rush of air asthe seaplane dropped, otherwise silently, towards the sea. Unlessthe machine could be got under control their fate was sealed. Thefrail floats would be pulverised and splintered with the terrificimpact, and the wreckage, weighted down by the heavy motor, wouldsink like a stone.
For sixty seconds--it seemed like sixty hours--the uncontrollableplunge continued, then like a flash the tail-spinning machineemerged from the under side of the cloud into the comparativelyclear atmosphere. With an almost superhuman effort Fuller readjustedthe sorely tried ailerons. The resistance on the planes wastremendous, but the fabric and the tension wires were British made,with a sickening jerk the seaplane described a complete loop. In thenick of time the resourceful pilot caught her on the "swing" andflattened out.
Once the motion was sufficiently retarded he commenced a vol-plane.It was, perhaps, prolonging the agony, since there could be littlehope of rescue on a dark night, even if the waves did not overwhelmthe frail craft.
"Stand by!" shouted Fuller. "Look down--on your right."
The A.P., well nigh breathless through the pressure of the belt uponhis ribs, leant over the side of the chassis. Two thousand feetbelow, with her drawn-out shape glittering dully in the starlight,was another Zeppelin. The first, silhouetted against the faintlight, had presented a black shape; this one showed up clearly inher aluminium garb against the darkness. She was proceeding rapidlyat a height of about three thousand feet, and now less than athousand beneath the vol-planing British craft.
"Our luck's in!" exclaimed the flight-lieutenant, his thoughts onlyfor the immediate present. It would be sufficient to consider theend of that terrific vol-plane when the moment arrived. For thepresent it was not even a secondary matter--it did not enter intothe intrepid airman's calculation.
"Stand by!" roared Fuller again. "For Heaven's sake don't miss."
Down swept the noiseless biplane upon its unsuspecting prey.According to Fuller's plans he would approach the Zeppelin in thesame vertical plane but at an acute angle--both aircraft proceedingin the same direction. This would give the bombs a better targetthan if the seaplane was cutting across the path of the airship.
So swift was the descent that the Zeppelin appeared to be rising inthe air to meet her opponent. Her huge, long-drawn-out mass grewbigger and bigger until it seemed as if a miss would be animpossibility.
"Now!" shouted the flight-lieutenant.
With a swift, decided movement Kirkwood thrust over thereleasing-gear lever. There was no resistance. Unaccountably theflexible wire operating the release catch had been detached. Withouta moment's hesitation the A.P. unbuckled his belt and, bending,groped on the floor of the fuselage for the business-end of thewire. Just then the Zep, opened fire with her machine-gun.
Fuller, leaning over the side waited in eager expectation of theanticipated explosion, quite prepared to find the seaplane capsizedunder the blast of the terrific detonation. But there was none, andalready the vol-planing machine was beyond and on a level with theZeppelin. Without the aid of the motor it was impossible to returnto the attack.
Savagely Fuller swung round with the intention of demanding thereason of his observer's blunder. To his surprise the A.P., was notto be seen.
"Plugged!" ejaculated the pilot. "Well, here goes; another twominutes will decide."
The Zeppelin was now out of his mind. His whole attention wasdevoted to the impending impact with the surface of the water. Everything depended upon his skill and judgment, with a fair element ofluck thrown in. In the darkness it was impossible to gauge with anydegree of certainty the height of the descending machine above thesea. If the pilot "flattened out" too soon the seaplane would falllike a stone; if, on the other hand the vol-plane were maintainedthe fraction of a minute too long the impact would either result inthe shattering of the floats or in the machine describing asomersault--possibly both.
With a double plash the flat-bottomed floats smacked the waves. The"landing" was successfully accomplished, but the unpleasant factremained that Fuller and Kirkwood were afloat in a frail cockleshellin a fairly "jumpy" sea and on a pitch-dark night. Without water andprovisions and with no aid in sight and already sixty miles or morefrom land they were rapidly drifting out to sea nearer and nearerthe hostile shores of Germany.