Kitabı oku: «Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils», sayfa 6
Not six feet from the door she tripped over something. It was a cord stretched taut across the passage, fastened at a height of about a foot from the deck!
Helplessly, with her hands full and the blanket over her right arm, Ruth pitched forward on her face. She struck her head on the deck with sufficient force to cause unconsciousness. With a single groan she rolled over on her back and lay still.
CHAPTER XIV – A BATTLE IN THE AIR
The first few seconds which passed after Ralph Stillinger and Tom Cameron descried the huge envelope of the Zeppelin beneath their airplane in the fog were sufficient to allow the American ace to regain his self-possession. If his passenger was frightened by the nearness of the German airship he did not betray that fact.
The thundering of the motors of the great airship, as well as the clatter of their own engine, made speech between the two Americans quite impossible. But the meaning of Stillinger’s gestures was not lost on Tom.
Immediately the latter sprang to the machine gun. The three pursuit planes with which they had been skirmishing were now out of mind, as well as out of sight. If they could cripple the Zeppelin the victory would be far greater than bringing disaster to one of the Tauben.
The Zeppelin was aimed seaward. She doubtless had started upon a coast raid along the English shore. If the Americans could bring her down they would achieve something that would count gloriously in this great work of fighting the Hun in the air.
To pitch down upon the envelope of the great machine and empty a clip of cartridges into it might do the Zeppelin a deal of harm, but it would not wreck it. A complete wreck was what Stillinger and Tom wished to make of the German airship.
The American pilot’s intention was immediately plain to Tom. He shut down on the speed and allowed the airplane to fall behind the German ship. The object was to trail the Zeppelin and pour the machine-gun bullets into the steering gear of the great airship – even, perhaps, to sweep her deck of the crew.
The fog was thinning – No! they were shooting out of the cloud. The sunlight suddenly illuminated both Zeppelin and airplane. Both must have been revealed to observers on the ground and in the air.
The presence of the American airplane, if unsuspected before by the crew of the Zeppelin, was now revealed to them. Tom, bending sideways to look down past the machine gun, saw the entire afterdeck of the Zeppelin. There were at least a dozen men standing there, staring up at the darting airplane.
Tom shot a glance back at Stillinger. The machine tipped at that instant. The pilot waved an admonishing hand. Tom seized the crank of the gun and turned to look down upon the German airship.
In that instant the crew of the latter had sprung to action. Their surprise at the nearness of the airplane was past. Their commander stood, hanging to a stay with one hand and shouting orders through a trumpet held in the other hand. At least, Tom Cameron presumed he was shouting.
All he could hear was the thuttering roar of the Zeppelin’s motors and the clash of their own engine. These noises, with the shrieking of the rushing wind made every other sound inaudible.
The American machine was tipping. She was not far behind the Zeppelin, nor far above it. The muzzle of the machine gun would soon come into line with the after deck of the Zeppelin. Then —
Suddenly a flash of flame and a balloon of smoke was spouted from a small mortar amidships of that deck. Instantly a shell burst almost in Tom’s face and eyes.
If the young fellow cringed as he crouched behind the machine gun, it was no wonder. That was a very narrow escape.
He glanced back at Stillinger. The pilot had dropped one of the levers and was holding his left wrist tightly. Tom could see something red running through Stillinger’s fingers – blood!
Shrapnel was flying all about the airplane. There was a second puff of smoke and flame from the mortar on the Zeppelin. Tom heard the twang of a cut stay. The airplane rolled sideways with a sickening dip – but then righted itself.
This was a kind of fighting Tom Cameron knew nothing about. He did not know what to do. Pivoted as the machine gun was, he could not depress the muzzle sufficiently to bring the Zeppelin’s deck into range. Was the machine out of control? If the nose of it dipped a bit more he could do something.
Another burst of shrapnel, and he felt something like a red-hot iron searing his right cheek. He put up his gloved hand and brought it away spotted with crimson. The Hun certainly was getting them!
He looked back at Stillinger. To his horror he saw that the man was slumped down in his seat, held there by his belt. Tom Cameron did not know the first thing about driving an airplane!
Again a shell burst near the rocking machine. It did no harm; but it showed that the Germans were getting an almost perfect range.
Tom Cameron was not a coward. He gripped his even upper teeth on his full lower lip, and by that sign only showed that he knew disaster was coming. Indeed, it had come the next second!
The tail of the airplane shot up and the nose pitched to a sharp angle. He heard the explosion of the shell even as he started the chatter of the machine gun. In that short breath of time the muzzle of his weapon was pitched to the right angle, and a swarm of bullets swept the afterdeck of the Zeppelin.
He knew the tail of the airplane had been splintered and that the machine was bound to fall. But as it poised on its wings for a few moments, he poured in the shot – indeed, he finished the clip of cartridges.
The man at the Zeppelin shell-thrower fell back and rolled into the scuppers. Another – plainly an officer from his dress – crashed to the deck. He saw the other members of the crew running to try to escape the hail of bullets. Ah, if he could only have accomplished this before the airplane was wrecked!
And that it was wrecked, he could see. He glanced over his shoulder. Stillinger was no longer in his seat. Indeed, the seat itself was not there! The entire rear part of the airplane was torn away, and his friend and college-mate had fallen.
Those next few seconds were to be the most thrilling of all Tom Cameron’s life.
The airplane was plunging downward, seemingly right on top of the Zeppelin. Then intuitively he realized that it would just about clear the German airship.
He held no more guarantee for his life if he clung to the airplane than poor Stillinger had in falling free. It was a swift spin and a crash to the earth – death beyond peradventure!
The spread wings of the airplane still held the wrecked machine poised. But in a moment it would slip forward, nose down, and “take the spin.” Tom scrambled over the gun and over the armored nose of the airplane. He swung himself through the stays. The airplane plunged – and so did he!
But he flung himself free of the stays. Like a frog diving from the bank of a pool, the American cast himself from the airplane, full thirty feet, to the deck of the German airship!
A taut stay of the Zeppelin broke his fall. He landed on all fours. Before he could rise two of the Germans leaped upon him and he was crushed, face-downward, on the deck.
The fellows who had seized him seemed of a mind to cast him over the rail. They dragged him to his feet, forcing him that way. He expected the next minute to be spinning in the track of the airplane toward the earth, five thousand feet or more below.
But suddenly there appeared out of the cabin, or “dog-house” slung amidships of the great envelope, the officer that Tom had first seen with the trumpet. Through that instrument he now roared an order in German that the American did not understand.
The latter was released. He staggered to the middle of the deck, panting and with scarcely strength remaining to hold him on his feet. He saw the officer beckoning him forward.
He could not see what any of these fellows looked like, for they were all masked, as he was himself. They were dressed in garments of skin, with the hair left on the hide – a queer-looking company indeed. Tom staggered toward the officer.
He was motioned to go into the cabin. The officer came after him and closed the door. At once the American realized that the place was – to a degree – soundproof.
The German removed his helmet and Tom was glad to unbuckle the straps of his own. The first words he heard were in good English:
“This is the first time I have taken a prisoner. It is a notable event. Will you drink this cordial, Mein Herr? It is an occasion worthy of a libation.”
His captor had opened a small cabinet fastened to the wall and produced a screw-topped decanter. He poured a colorless liquid into two tiny glasses, and presented one to Tom. The latter would have taken almost anything just then. The stuff was warming and smelled strongly of anise.
“Yes, you are the first prisoner I have heard of taken in this way. And, oddly enough, I may be bearing you homeward, only I shall be unable to allow you to land upon the ‘tight little isle’ – you so call it, no?”
“You are making one mistake,” Tom said, finally finding his voice. “I am not an Englishman. I am American.”
“Indeed? But it matters not,” and the German shrugged his shoulders. “You will go back with us to Germany as a prisoner. But first you will accompany us on our bomb-dropping expedition. London is doomed to suffer again.”
Tom said no more. This ober-leutnant was a fresh-faced, rather dandy-like appearing person – typical of the Prussian officer-caste. His cheerful statement that he purposed dropping his cargo of bombs over the city of London brought a sharp retort to Tom’s tongue – which he was wise enough not to utter.
A subordinate officer looked in at the forward entrance to the cabin, and asked a question. The leutnant arose.
“I go to con the ship. We shall soon be over the sea. You, Mein Herr, must be placed in durance, I fear. Come this way.”
He did not even take the automatic pistol from Tom’s holster. Really, he knew, as did Tom, that to make any attempt against the lives of his captors would have been too ridiculous to contemplate. Tom Cameron arose quietly to follow the leutnant.
At the forward end of this cabin, or car, there was a door beside the one which gave exit to the forward deck. The German opened this narrow door, and Tom saw a small closet with a barred window. There was a cushioned seat, which might even serve as a berth, but very little else in the compartment.
He was ordered into this place, and entered. The door was closed behind him and bolted. He was left to his own devices and to thoughts which were, to say the least, disheartening.
He pitched the padded helmet and goggles he had taken off into a corner and pressed his face close to the glass of the barred window. Again they were smothered in fog. He could not see to the prow of the great ship. He wondered how the officer could steer the Zeppelin save by compass. This fog was a thick curtain.
Yet the Germans would cross the sea, of course, and find their way over London. He had heard Englishmen talk of the damage done and the lives sacrificed – mostly those of women and children – in these dreadful raids. And he was to be a passenger while the Zeppelin performed its horrid task!
Tom Cameron had recovered quickly from his fright and the shock of his landing on the airship. He was convinced that nobody had ever before done just what he had done. And as he had been successful in performing this hazardous venture, he began to believe that he might do more – perform other wonders.
It was not his vanity that suggested this thought. Tom Cameron was quite as free of the foible of conceit as could be imagined. He was earnestly desirous of doing something to balk these Germans in their determination to get to the English shore and bomb London and its vicinity.
Gradually his eyes grew blind to what was going on upon the forward deck of the Zeppelin. He was thinking – he was scheming. His whole thought was given to the desire of his heart: How might he thwart the wicked plans of the Hun?
CHAPTER XV – ABANDONED
Ruth Fielding came to consciousness with an instantly keen physical, as well as mental, perception of where she was, what had happened, and all that the accident she had suffered meant. Indeed, it had been no accident that cast her to the deck outside her stateroom door.
It was the result of premeditated evil. The man shouting the warning that all boats were leaving the supposedly sinking Admiral Pekhard, had intended to bring her running from her room. The cord stretched across the passage was there to trip her.
As she struggled to her knees, picked up her bag, and gained her feet, Ruth realized, as in a flash of light, that the man who had shouted was Dykman, the under officer whom she had previously suspected. He was in the conspiracy with Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man – the latter, she was sure, having hidden in the small motor boat.
And what was now ahead? She had no idea how long she had lain unconscious. Nor did she hear a sound from the deck above.
Had she been abandoned on the sinking ship, even by Mr. Dowd, the first officer? That Captain Hastings had neglected to see that all the passengers were taken off the Admiral Pekhard did not greatly surprise Ruth. She had a very poor opinion of the pompous little skipper.
But Mr. Dowd!
She stumbled out of the dark passage and found the saloon stairway. The door at the top was closed. She had to put down her bag to open it. Her shoulder pained like a toothache, and she could not use her left hand at all.
She finally stumbled out upon the open deck. Darkness had shut down on the ship. There was not a light anywhere aboard that she could see. The ship was rocking gently to the swell. It did not seem to her as though it was any deeper in the sea than it had been when last she was above deck.
But one certain fact could not be denied. The davits were stripped of boats. Every lifeboat was gone! She looked aft and saw that the big motor launch had likewise been put off. Forward the deck was clear, too. The boat in which she had observed the stowaway had disappeared.
She was trapped. She believed herself alone on a deserted ship in a trackless ocean. She had no means of leaving the Admiral Pekhard; surely had the steamship not been about to go down, it would not have been abandoned by all – passengers, crew, and officers.
Captain Hastings, the Red Cross officer, even Mr. Dowd, had all quite forgotten her. Her enemies (she must consider Irma Lentz and Dykman personal foes) had made it impossible for her to escape in any of the boats. Perhaps they feared that she knew much more of the plot than she really did know. Therefore their determination to make her escape impossible.
Suddenly she saw a flash of light far out over the sea. It bobbed up and down for several minutes. Then it disappeared. She believed it must be one of the small boats that had got safely away from the Admiral Pekhard. The disappearance of the light seemed to close all communication between the abandoned girl and humankind.
She had dropped her bag. As the steamship rolled gently the bag slid toward the rail. This brought her to sudden activity again. She went to recover the bag. And then she peered over the high rail, down at the phosphorescent surface of the sea.
It did not seem to Ruth as though the Admiral Pekhard had sunk a foot lower than before she left the deck to obtain her possessions. There was something wrong somewhere! Rather, there was something right. The ship was not about to sink. Why, hours had passed since she had fallen and struck her head below near her stateroom! If the ship had been in such danger of sinking when the alarm to take to the boats was given, why was it not already awash by the waves that lapped the sides?
There was some great error. Captain Hastings must have been terribly misled by his officers regarding the condition of the ship. Much as she disliked the pompous little man, she was sure that he would not have knowingly deserted the steamship unless he had been convinced she was going down – and that quickly.
“But Mr. Dowd knew better,” murmured Ruth. “Or he must have suspected there was something wrong. And Mr. Dowd – I do not believe he would have left the ship without making sure that I was safe.”
The thought was so convincing that it bred in her mind another and, she realized, perhaps a ridiculous one. Yet she was so impressed by it that she turned back to the open companionway. She started down into the saloon-cabin. But it was so dark there that she hesitated.
Then, of a sudden, she remembered the pocketlamp that must be in this very toilet-bag she carried. She always tried to have such a thing by her, especially when she traveled. She opened the bag and searched among its contents.
Her hand touched and then brought forth the electric torch. She pressed the switch and the spotlight of the bulb shot right into the face of the great chronometer in its glass case, hanging above the companionway steps.
It was half after nine, and she heard the faint chime of the clock on the instant – three bells. Why! she must have been more than two hours unconscious below. Of course the boats, if they had been rowed at once away from the supposedly sinking ship, would be now quite out of sight. Their lamps were hidden from her sight; and as there were no outside lights on the ship, she would, of course, be invisible to the crews of the small boats.
If the order had been given to make for the nearest point of land, the people who had abandoned the Admiral Pekhard might easily believe the steamship under the sea long since.
This thought was but a flash through her troubled mind. The keener supposition that had urged her below still inspired her. By aid of the hand lamp she could make her path through the cabins. She crossed the dining room and the writing room and library. This way was the opening of the passage on which were the doors of the officers’ cabins.
She reached Dowd’s door. She had been here before; it was she, indeed, who had roused him to the knowledge that the ship was being abandoned. Could it be possible —
She pushed open the door without opposition, for it was unlatched. She shot the spotlight of the hand lamp into the small room. The bed was empty.
Of course, it could not be possible that Mr. Dowd, chief officer of the ship, had been left behind as she had been.
Yet, she could open the door only half way. There was something behind it that acted as a stopper. Ruth peered around the door and at the floor. Her lamp shone upon the unbooted feet of a man. She shot the ray of light along his limbs and body. At the far end, almost against the outside wall of the stateroom, was the turbanned head of First Officer Dowd!
Ruth could scarcely gasp the officer’s name, and in her amazement she removed her thumb from the switch. Her lamp went out. In the darkness she heard Mr. Dowd breathing stertorously. He was, then, not dead!
Ruth Fielding was far too sensible and acute in understanding to be long overwhelmed by any such discovery. Indeed, she felt a certain satisfaction in finding the man here. Even Mr. Dowd, ill and helpless, was better than no companion at all upon the steamship. One fear, at least, immediately rolled off her mind.
Used as she had become to hospital work, she went at once to work upon the victim of this outrage. For at first she thought he must have been injured a second time. Perhaps the man who had stretched that cord to trip her and had shouted to her down the passage, had first overpowered Mr. Dowd.
It proved to be that the man was merely asleep. But he was sleeping very heavily, very unnaturally. Ruth had seen people under the effect of opiates before, and she knew what this meant. The chief officer of the Admiral Pekhard had been drugged.
When she had previously spoken to him and roused him after he was hurt, she remembered now that he had not seemed himself. It was something besides the blow on his head that troubled him. Ruth wondered who had given him the opiate, and in what form.
But of a surety, both the chief officer and she had been deliberately placed in such condition that they could not answer the call to abandon ship! Evil people had been at work here. The conspirators feared that Ruth and Mr. Dowd knew more than they really did know, and they had planned that the two should sink with the Admiral Pekhard.
Only, by the mercy of Providence, or by a vital mistake on the part of the plotters, the steamship did not seem to be on the point of sinking. Ruth believed that that danger was not immediate.
She gave her attention to Mr. Dowd while she was thinking of these facts. She bathed his head and face, slapped his hands, and finally put to his nose strong smelling-salts which she found in her bag. The man stirred, and groaned, and finally opened his eyes.
He seemed to recognize Ruth at once. But the power of the opiate was still upon his brain. He could not quickly shake it off. He struggled to his feet by her aid and by clinging to his berth. He stared at her, groping in his mind for the reason for his situation.
“Miss Fielding!” he muttered. “Yes, yes. I am coming at once. The ship is sinking, you say?”
“Oh, Mr. Dowd! everybody has gone now and left us. We are too late to go in any of the boats. But I do not believe the ship is sinking, after all.”
“They – did they blow it up?” questioned the man, striving to pull himself together. “I – I – Why, Miss Fielding, what is the matter with me? I must have neglected my duty shamefully. Captain Hastings – ”
“He has gone without us. Certainly he did not strive to be sure that everybody was off the ship before he left. He evidently must have left it to his subordinates to do that. And I am sure they were not all trustworthy.”
She swiftly repeated her own experience. The bruise gained by her fall over the taut cord was quite visible on her forehead. But the smart of it Ruth did not mind now. There were many other things of more importance.
“It looks like treachery all the way through,” groaned Mr. Dowd. “I remember now. I fell down the companionway – and I could not understand why, for the ship was not rolling. You say you suspect Dykman? So do I. He was right there when I fell, and it seemed to me afterward that I was tripped by something at the top of the steps.
“But I was so confused – why, yes, you came and aroused me once, did you not, Miss Fielding?”
“Yes. Somebody must have given you an opiate. Who bandaged your head, Mr. Dowd?” she asked.
“The surgeon. He was here and fixed me up. He – he gave me a drink that he said would fix me all right.”
“It did,” the girl returned grimly. “It may have been he meant you no harm. Possibly he thought a long sleep was what you needed. But, then, why did he not remember you when the ship was abandoned? He must have known you would be helpless.”
“It seems strange,” admitted Mr. Dowd. “Kreuger is the surgeon’s name. Of course, the name smacks of Germany. But – but if we are going to distrust everybody with a German name, where shall we be?”
“Safer, perhaps,” Ruth said, with rather grim lips. “In this case, at least, the doctor seems to have done quite as the conspirators would have had him. They plainly feared that both you and I suspected too much, and they did not intend that we should escape from this ship.”
“Come!” he said, having struggled into his vest and coat and seized his uniform cap. “Let us go up on deck and see what the promise is. Here! I will light this lantern; that will give us a steadier light than your torch.
“I am glad you are such a plucky young woman, Miss Fielding,” he added, as he lit his lantern. “One need not be afraid of being wrecked in mid-ocean with you. We’ll find some way of escape from this old barge, never fear.”
Thus speaking cheerfully, he led the way out of the room and into the open cabins of the saloon deck. Ruth followed, glad enough to give up the leadership to him.
