Billy Barcroft, R.N.A.S.: A Story of the Great War

  CHAPTER VI

  KIDNAPPED

  IT will now be necessary to set back the hands of the clock to thehour of ten on the evening of the Zeppelin's visit to Barborough.

  At that hour Mr. Andrew Norton was knocking on the door of LadybirdFold, and vainly endeavouring to restrain the boisterous attentionsof Ponto and Nan.

  "Good evening, Mrs. Carter," he said as the door was openedrevealing the domestic stopgap with her head covered by a shawl--therecognised head-dress of the working-class women of industrialLancashire. "Any one at home?"

  "Only mysen, master," was the reply. "An' in another minute youwould be findin' me gone. Mr. Barcroft he's out, but he'll not belong, I'm thinkin'. An' young Mr. Barcroft--'im as is in theNavy--is expected home to-night. But come in, you're kindlywelcome."

  "And at what time is young Mr. Barcroft expected?" he asked in atone that implied mild curiosity, as he stepped over the threshold.

  "I'm not for sayin' for certain. Master had a telegram. You'll notbe wantin' anythin', sir?"

  Norton shook his head. Accompanied by the two dogs he entered thestudy and switched on the lights. As he did so he heard the doorslam and Mrs. Carter's retreating footsteps on the hard path.

  He knew how to make himself at home during his friend's absence. Hewas one of those men who have the happy knack of forming quickfriendships, and the somewhat easy-going Peter was a good subject inthat respect.

  Andrew Norton was a man of forty-five, although he lookedconsiderably younger. He was of medium height, full-featured andinclined to stoutness. A keen motorist, he had attracted Barcroft'sattention on the very first day of his taking possession of "TheCroft," when he was endeavouring to take a large car up thedifficult lane beyond Ladybird Fold. Since there was plenty ofaccommodation in the outbuilding utilised as a garage at Barcroft'shouse Peter's suggestion that it would be easier for the newcomer toThe Croft to keep his car there and thus save a steep and looseascent was accepted with profuse gratitude.

  From that moment the friendship ripened. Almost every evening afterthe literary man's strenuous labours were completed for the dayAndrew Norton would drop in for a smoke and a yarn.

  "Rotten nuisance!" mused the hostless guest as he settled himself inan easy chair. "If only I knew what time he was returning. Theuncertainty will probably make a regular mess of presentarrangements."

  It might have been idle curiosity that prompted him to cross over tothe desk and examine Peter's uncompleted work; sheer anxiety thatled him to the open window to listen intently for the sound of hisabsent friend's footsteps.

  Through the uncurtained window three shafts of brilliant light wereflung upon the closely-cropped lawn, the limit of the rays beingdefined by a thick hedge dividing the lawn from the rose-garden.

  "No signs yet," he muttered, as he glanced at the clock for thetwentieth time. "Friend Barcroft's regrettable absence is spoilingmy evening. I'll get back to The Croft."

  He drew the curtains with deliberate care, so that no stray ray oflight should escape. Lighting restrictions were lax in that part ofLancashire, as the twinkling glimmers from the houses in the valleytestified; for in the district where he had previously lived for twoyears there were drastic observances on that score, and now thehabit of conforming to the requirements of the authorities was notlightly to be dropped.

  "I'll give him five minutes more," he soliloquised as he drew a pipefrom his pocket and charged it with great deliberation. This heproceeded to light, making use of a paper spill. Here he showed amarked contrast to the easygoing methods of the occupier of LadybirdFold. In spite of their high price, Peter invariably usedmatches--and plenty of them. Usually the hearth was littered withthe burnt-out stumps, for Barcroft always had a pipe in his mouthwhen he was writing. It might go out twenty times before the tobaccowas expended, but every time a fresh match was struck and flung awayto augment the already numerous accumulation in the fireplace.

  Just then the two dogs sat up and barked. Norton started nervously.He was only just beginning to get used to the sturdy, shaggyanimals.

  "Quiet!" he shouted.

  A peremptory knock sounded on the door. The still burning spill fellfrom the man's fingers. He made his way into the hall, shutting thestudy door upon the dogs. Vainly he groped for the switch operatingthe front door light.

  "Who's there?" he demanded.

  "Telegram for Mr. Barcroft," replied a deep voice.

  Had Norton paused to consider the likelihood of a telegram beingdelivered at a very late hour in a remote country district he mighthave saved himself from a great deal of personal inconvenience. Buthe did not.

  He threw open the door. His eyes, still dazzled by the quicktransition from the brilliant light within to the intense darknesswithout, stared vacantly into the night, while his right hand gropedfurtively for the expected orange coloured envelope.

  As he did so a pair of powerful hands grasped his ankles. Hisinvoluntary exclamation of mingled astonishment and indignation wasstifled by a thick cloth twisted over his mouth and round his head,while simultaneously his arms were pinioned to his sides.

  Unable to move a limb, much less to struggle, he found himselflifted from the ground and borne away as helpless as an infant.

  "Fools!" he spluttered. "Fools! You'll be sorry for this."

  Whether his captors heard his muffled protests or not they paid noheed save to give the cloth that encircled his head an extra twist.The pressure upon his nose was painful. He had difficulty inbreathing, so, realising that his stifled exclamations were futile,he wisely held his peace from a vocal point of view, althoughinwardly he was raging furiously.

  He could hear the boots of his captors clattering on the cobblesuntil the crisp-sounding footfalls told him that the men had gainedthe cinder path on the east side of the house. Then, withconsiderable effort on the part of his bearers, he was lifted up aflight of four stone steps, beyond which, he knew, was an extensivegrassfield that rose gradually for the next half mile.

  Grunting and obviously short of breath the men trudged stolidlyonwards for perhaps nearly two hundred yards. Once Norton thoughtfit to make a sudden effort and wriggle from his captors' grasp, butthe attempt ended disastrously to himself. Brutally they bumped himupon the ground. The shock to the spinal system was excruciating,but it had the desired effect. The prisoner's spirit of resistancewas broken; even the stern mandate, "Quiet, or you are a dead man,"was unnecessary.

  The scarf or cloth that enveloped his head had slipped during thestruggle. He could now see. Either his kidnappers had not noticedthe fact or else they regarded it as of no consequence.

  He could discern the faces and upper portions of the bodies of thetwo men. They were tall burly fellows dressed in black oilskins. Inspite of their powerful physique they were breathing stertorously;they reeked of petrol.

  Another fifty yards and they came to a halt. Norton turned his headand saw what appeared at first sight to be the dark grey body of amotorcar. It was quivering under the application of some unseeninfluence, yet there was no purr of internal mechanism to justifythe belief that it possessed self-contained machinery.

  "Lash that schweinhund's ankles, Pfeil," ordered one of the fellowsin German. "That is right; now do you enter first and I'll heave theEnglish fool up so that you can get him inside."

  "Now is the dangerous time," commented his companion as he scrambledthrough a narrow aperture.

  "It is ever a dangerous time with us," rejoined the other gloomily.

  "Ah, yes; but now? Supposing the wire is insufficient to take thestrain?"

  "It will bear thrice our total weight," replied the first speaker,"frail though it looks. No fear of that breaking. It is thathighly-charged electric cable that worries me. We must have landednearer to it than we should have done, yet it looks further away onthe map."

  The fellow completed his difficult task of lifting Norton into theinterior of the covered-in car--the observation room of a Zeppelinfloating motionless five hundred feet or so overhead.
br />   The commander of the giant aircraft had successfully carried out adaring manoeuvre with the ultimate object of taking prisoner the manon whom his imperial master the "All-Highest" had set a price forhis capture. Taking advantage of an almost imperceptible breeze andknowing his position to an almost dead certainty by means of exactcross-bearings afforded by three reservoirs, conspicuous even in thedarkness, he had caused to be lowered the aluminium observation car.

  In flight this contrivance is slung close under the after part ofthe Zeppelin, but when necessary it can be lowered by means of afine but enormously strong flexible steel wire to a maximum distanceof two thousand feet beneath the giant envelope. Thus it is possiblefor a Zeppelin to remain hidden in a bank of clouds and lower theobservation car to within a few hundred feet of the ground. Itscomparatively small size and inconspicuous colour would render itinvisible even at that short distance, and give the observer anuninterrupted view of the country. By means of a telephone he couldthen communicate with the commander of the airship and indicate theobjects singled out for attack.

  On this occasion the aluminium box was lowered till it touched theground. The two men purposely told off for the work in hand hadanchored the car, thereby keeping the Zeppelin stationary also. Inthe event of a surprise the airship's crew would unhesitatinglysever the wire and leave the car and their two comrades to theirfate.

  And now most of this particular enterprise had been carried out. Thesupposed object of their attentions lay gagged and bound within thealuminium cage. All that remained to be done was to break out thegrapnel and signal to the men in the Zeppelin to wind in the steelcable.

  "All ready?" enquired Pfeil through the telephone. "Good! When Igive the signal will you forge ahead to the north-east? Why? Becausewe are much too close to the high tension cable which Herr Leutnantknows of."

  He leant through an aperture in the side of the cradle and listenedintently. At the first sound of the airship's propellers he jerked atripping-line smartly. The fluke of the grapnel folded as he did so,and the car, no longer held captive, slid jerkily over the grass.

  "Up!" telephoned the German.

  The next instant Norton felt himself being lifted through the air asthe car ascended swiftly at a rate of five feet a second. In lessthan two minutes the cradle's supplementary movement ceased. It washauled hard up against the immense bulk of the Zeppelin and securedwith additional lashings.

  The wind was now shrieking through the lattice work of the airship,as gathering speed she flew through the still air at a rate ofnearly fifty miles an hour, or a little more than half her maximumspeed.

  It was cold--horribly cold. Lightly clad and coming from a warm roomthe prisoner felt the change acutely. He shivered in spite of hisefforts to the contrary.

  Gripped by the ankles he found himself being dragged like a sack offlour from the detachable car to the V-shaped gangway connecting twoof the fixed gondolas. The lashings securing his lower limbs werecast off, and, thrust forward by the powerful Pfeil, he was made towalk along the narrow corridor.

  "Here is the Englishman, Herr Leutnant," announced the Germanaddressing a short, corpulent officer who stood by the bomb-droppingapparatus in the centre of the gondola.

  "Good!" was the appreciative reply. Ober-leutnant Julius vonLoringhoven squirmed in anticipation of winning more than a half ofthe promised guerdon. A share--a considerable shareunfortunately--was owing to a certain individual who, acting as anagent of the German Government, had given valuable aid in snaringthe proscribed Englishman. His assistance was necessary, of course,but that meant a sensible reduction of the sum of paper money withwhich von Loringhoven hoped to restore the fortunes of hisimpoverished house.

  "Good!" he repeated. "Remove that covering and let me look at thepig."

  Pfeil obeyed smartly. With a savage jerk he exposed the face of hiscaptive.

  "Utter idiot!" shouted Andrew Norton in German. "Imbecile! You'veblundered and spoilt everything."