Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XIII.
FRANK TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE
So utterly unexpected was the mysterious sound that even the steady-nerved Frank lost his wits for a moment and the Golden Eagle gave a dangerous swoop downward as he pulled the wrong plane-control in his agitation. In a second, however, he had righted his error and she soared on again on a level keel doing better than thirty miles an hour under the steady driving of her powerful engine.
Driving an aeroplane at night is a strange sensation. Neither of the boys was new to it entirely, having made night flights up the Hudson from New York to Poughkeepsie when they were experimenting with their ship and wished to keep its performances secret as far as possible.
It is a very different thing, however, to driving along the air above lit-up towns and a boat-thronged river to be soaring through the blackness above a dense tropical forest whose only inhabitants are wild beasts and venomous snakes and, more dangerous than either, tribes of wandering Indians who would be likely to show small mercy to the young aviators if they fell into their hands. Both boys were filled with a sense of isolation and loneliness as the Golden Eagle bore them through the dark silence toward the distant camp-fires. Moreover both were thinking of the moment of parting that was to come when they had arrived near enough to the camp for Frank to put his bold plan into execution. Both the young aviators realized that a more dangerous undertaking could not well be imagined but it was not at the danger they flinched but the idea that this might be the last voyage they would ever make together.
The fires grew brighter and brighter as the Golden Eagle rushing through the upper air at express speed drew nearer to them. Frank called Harry to the wheel and busied himself with the rope-ladder. It was about thirty feet in length and formed of the best manila hemp rope with tough lignum vitae rounds. The tops of the ladder were roughened so as to afford a better hand and foot grip.
Frank’s first step in making his preparations was to hook the two leather loops at one end of the ladder securely into two hooks screwed into the edge of the trap-door in the floor of the pilot-house for the purpose. He then folded it so that the second he was ready to descend he could throw it out and it would fall in a straight line without snarling. He then opened the trap and, lying flat on his stomach carefully scanned through the night-glasses the character of the country over which they were racing along. Before he did this he gave a sharp order to Harry.
“Put out the light.”
There was a snap of the switch and the Golden Eagle’s bright eye grew black.
“Slow down the engine! Muffle her way down!” was the next command, “we don’t want to have to open her up, with the consequent noise, till we have to.”
As Harry obeyed, the sharp rattle of the exhaust, which had made the whole craft quiver under the strain of the hard-driven engine stopped and became a gentle purr hardly audible.
“That’s better,” commented Frank.
“How does she head for the fires now?” was his next question.
“South-by-a-quarter east,” replied Harry, switching on the binnacle light for a second and squinting at the compass.
“Bear up two points to the east,” ordered Captain Frank.
Harry obeyed and the Golden Eagle slid away from her straight course for the lights, – leaving them off on her starboard side.
“Just circle round a few times,” commanded Frank as they grew nearer and nearer, “the moon ought to be up shortly and then we can get some light on the subject.”
“It will make us a target for them if they see us,” he went on, “but that can’t be helped. We must trust to luck and their bad aim.”
As Frank had prophesied the moon shoved the edge of her rim above the low hills that surrounded the encampment a short time later. From his lookout place on the floor of the car Frank could see far below him the silvery radiance that flooded the tree-tops getting stronger and stronger. It showed him too, to his great delight, that there was a big space of ground, covered with what seemed to be short scrub, near to the camp, but separated from it by a dense grove of trees. It looked as if it would be feasible to swoop down to the earth at this spot close enough for the daring boy to drop to the ground from the end of the swinging rope ladder.
“Raise her a hundred feet or so,” said Frank, as soon as he had completed his survey. “Steer her right over the camp,” he ordered a second later.
“What?” demanded Harry; not sure that he had heard aright.
“Steer her over the camp,” repeated Frank, “It’s taking a long chance, – but I’ve got to know the lay of the ground.”
If Frank ordered a thing done Harry was accustomed to obey him without a word; so he put the Golden Eagle about and pulling the raising plane levers shot the craft up, till Frank cried.
“She’ll do at that.”
As the Golden Eagle swept high in the air over the sleeping camp Frank noticed with exultation by the flag seen in the light of the bivouac fires it was indeed Zelaya’s camp. He also observed that they kept a very poor watch. Several men, evidently supposed to be doing sentry duty were asleep round the blaze of one of the outer fires, and only in front of a small tent detached from a group of several that Frank assumed to be those of the officers, was there a guard patrolling. This fellow walked up and down unceasingly with his rifle over his shoulder and from time to time pulled open the tent-flap and peered in.
“He’s guarding a prisoner,” thought Frank, noticing these actions, and, he added to himself, “if the prisoner isn’t Billy I shall be much surprised.”
His survey of the camp completed, Frank had a pretty good mental photograph of it fixed in his mind. The next step in the rescue of Billy Barnes was to be the most dangerous; except the actual dash for freedom.
“Now keep cool Harry,” wound up Frank, after the boys had selected the spot on which the Golden Eagle was to be brought near enough to the ground in a low curve for Frank to swing himself off onto terra-firma.
“All right Frank,” replied the boy, as he manipulated the needful levers for the downward swoop. He did not trust himself to say more. The next minute he felt Frank’s firm grip on his shoulder.
“Don’t take your hand off the wheel,” remonstrated Frank, as Harry prepared to grip his brother’s hand in farewell. “Good-bye old fellow and good luck to us all three.”
A few seconds sufficed to throw down the ladder and Frank slid down it to its lowest rung with the agility of a cat. He hung there on the plunging contrivance while the Golden Eagle swept downward like a pouncing hawk. Suddenly there was a jerk and Frank felt the end of the ladder hit the ground. The Golden Eagle’s impetus had almost ceased at this lowest point of her swoop and Frank, as he let go with a whispered prayer, could feel the vibration, even where he hung as Harry, opened the engine up for the ascent, – without which the Golden Eagle would have been dashed to pieces.
Frank landed in a pile of low bushes which broke his fall and saved him from possible serious injury. Harry in performing the ticklish evolution had been unable to check the speed of the air-craft sufficiently to avoid giving Frank a severe tumble when he dropped off, as Frank learned later the Golden Eagle had, in fact, very nearly refused to answer her helm.
As soon as he collected his senses Frank ducked down behind the clump into which he had fallen and lay very still. He wanted to ascertain if the solitary sentry had noticed anything unusual. Apparently he had not, for the relieved boy could catch the sound of his regular footfalls as he paced to and fro in front of the tent in which, Frank was pretty certain, Billy lay a prisoner.
Reassured, Frank crept cautiously through the brush up to the edge of the grove of trees already mentioned as separating the camp from the bit of open ground on which he had landed. The solitary tent stood on the opposite edge of this clump and Frank’s plan was to creep up near to it under cover of the dark shadow cast by the grove, before he made his presence known to the occupant.
He threw a glance up from time to time as he made his way carefully over the ground. Far above him the Golden Eagle was soaring, and Frank knew that the boy at her helm was at that moment wondering with all his might how their daring adventure was to turn out. Frank noted with satisfaction that the Golden Eagle was not nearly as conspicuous as he had imagined she would have been. In fact if he hadn’t known that she was up there, he concluded that he would have had to search the sky for some time before he made her out.
It took him what seemed to be an interminable length of time to reach the edge of the clump of trees and wriggle his way up to the back of the tent, but at last he accomplished it, and lay behind the rear flap of the shelter with nothing to shield him from the eye of the sentry but a patch of deep shadow cast by the trees behind him.
Slowly Frank extended an arm and cautiously raised the edge of the flap. He was running a terrible risk he knew. It was, after all, pure assumption on his part that Billy was in there at all. It might as well be Rogero’s tent. This thought made Frank pause for a minute but he determined to go ahead as he had planned. If the worst came to the worst he had his pistol and he could make a dash for the open and trust to Harry’s being able to pick him up before they were riddled with bullets by the machine guns that he could see packed in another part of the camp.
With fast beating heart he waited till the solitary sentry had reached the farthest point of his patrol. Then he raised the flap a few inches and whispered:
“Billy, are you there? It’s me – Frank.”
The answer that came back almost made him forget the terrible risk he ran and cry out aloud with joy.
“What’s left of me;” came back a whispered rejoinder in Billy’s well-known tones, “I’d got a hunch you’d come.”
CHAPTER XIV.
SAVED BY AN AEROPLANE
The sentry paced by the tent as these greetings were exchanged, and both boys held their breath as he hesitated in front of it but, to their unspeakable relief, he passed on.
“You’ll have to cut me loose,” murmured Billy, as the sentry’s retreating footsteps informed them that he had got a safe distance away, “I’m tied hand and foot and my head feels as if it had a hole in it like the crater of a volcano.”
In a flash, as Billy spoke, Frank conceived a daring plan. He would wait till the next time the sentry passed and then slip bodily into the tent under the rear flap. As a matter of fact the most risky part of this business would be the actual creeping in. Once inside there was not much chance of discovery unless the sentry should take it into his head to come right inside – a thing which Frank thought was not likely to happen. His brief inspection of the room when he first lifted the flap had shown him that the unfortunate Billy lay on a cot. It would be, then, an easy matter to slip under this in case the sentry took it into his head to lift the front flap periodically, – as Frank had seen him do from the Golden Eagle.
Waiting till the man had once more passed and was swinging down to the end of his post Frank wriggled under the tent-flap and into it.
“You seem to take a personal delight in risking your life to save mine,” whispered Billy with a pitiful attempt at humor as Frank whipped out his knife and stood waiting till the sentry should have passed again, before cutting the ropes that were bound round the unfortunate reporter’s feet and hands so tightly as to cut into the flesh.
As a measure of precaution Frank crawled under the cot as the man’s footsteps drew near once more and it was a lucky thing that he did so for this time the vigilant sentry pulled aside the front flap and peered around the dim place. He saw nothing unusual, however, and dropped it again with a grunt and fell to pacing up and down.
“Now, Billy, we’ve got no time to lose,” snapped out Frank, slipping from under the bed. With a swift slash he released the reporter’s hands. A second later the ropes about his feet fell to the floor cut through.
“If he peeks in this time we are goners,” whispered Frank as the heavy, regular tread drew near once more; but the man passed by and as his footsteps died away the reunited boys clasped hands warmly.
“You can tell me all that has happened when we get away from here,” whispered Frank, cutting short the narrative of his adventures the irrepressible Billy had plunged into, “we’ve got all our work cut for us now.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Billy helplessly, “I’m so stiff from those ropes that I can hardly run and when they knocked me down they gave me this bump that doesn’t make my head feel any too good.”
“Rub your joints, to get the circulation going again,” was Frank’s rejoinder. “You’ll soon feel all right.”
“Yes, but then what are we going to do?” repeated Billy, “We can’t get off through the forest. They’ll discover that I’ve gone in a short time and Rogero will send his whole army through the woods to find us. It would never do for him to lose me now, you see. I know too much.”
“We are going to get away by aeroplane,” was the startling answer. “Once we get up aloft, I don’t think that even Rogero can get us.” Billy used as he had recently become to the boys’ resourcefulness gasped out:
“What?” in such an amazed tone that, grave as was their position, Frank couldn’t help laughing.
“That’s the idea,” rejoined Frank, then hastily he sketched out to Billy their plan. He also pointed out to him the absolute necessity of keeping a cool head when the crucial moment came.
“There will be no second chance,” he warned impressively, “even to bring the Golden Eagle so near to the earth once, is a desperate measure. If we don’t make the ladder on the first jump it’s goodnight, remember.”
To Billy’s credit, be it said, that he listened to Frank’s amazing proposal without batting an eyelid. Indeed, he had come to have such faith in the younger boy’s ingenuity and ability that he would willingly have jumped over a precipice if Frank had told him it would be all right. All he said was then:
“Count on me, Frank, if this thing gets ‘pied’ it won’t be my fault.”
“Or ours either, I can promise you that,” returned Frank earnestly.
“Now,” he went on, to Billy, who had been vigorously chafing his numbed ankles all this time, varying the performance by rubbing his wrists alternately; “if you’ve got some of the stiffness out the sooner we are on the move the better.”
“All right, Frank,” bravely whispered Billy. “It feels like every step I took somebody was jabbing a knife into me,” he went on in a rueful tone, “but I guess I can do my part of this job.”
“Bully for you,” whispered Frank in reply. “Now then,” as the sentry’s footsteps died away, “it’s now or never.”
As he spoke he slipped under the tent-flap closely followed by Billy who, plucky as he was, couldn’t suppress a slight groan at the pain his wounded head and rope-grazed joints gave him as he moved.
A second later both boys were in the dark shadows of the clump of trees and in comparative safety. That is they were safe till the sentry looked in the tent again and discovered that his prisoner had vanished, a fact they both fully realized.
“We’ll have to sacrifice caution to speed,” counseled Frank, gliding swiftly along with wonderful speed and making very little noise. Poor Billy with his hurts and stiffness did not make such good progress.
“Come on, Billy,” whispered Frank grabbing him by the arm, and half dragging him along, “it won’t be long now.”
“I don’t think I can last much longer, Frank,” groaned Billy. “You’d better get out and leave me here. I don’t suppose they’ll dare to do anything much to me.”
“They won’t, eh?” returned Frank, “well you don’t know as much of these people as I do. No, Billy, we’ll stand or fall together. Come on, buck up, and in a few minutes we’ll be safe in the good old Golden Eagle.”
Frank’s words and his bold determined manner had the effect he intended. Billy put on a stiff upper lip and a few minutes later they emerged into the moonlight at the edge of the clearing. Frank fumbled in the bosom of his shirt for the signal light as they cautiously crept across the brilliantly moonlit patch in which Frank and Billy both felt that they must be as conspicuous objects as a pair of bull elephants.
When he found the tiny flash-light with which he was to give the signal to Harry in the Golden Eagle, that both boys could now see hovering above them, Frank pressed the button twice. Harry, scanning the ground below him anxiously, saw the tiny flashes instantly and with a feeling of relief, that, so far, the enterprise was going well. The boy set the downward planes of the Golden Eagle and muffled down the engine for the peril-filled descent.
Crouching in the brush Frank and Billy, one of them at least with a queer, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach – watched the great aeroplane swoop down on them like a bird of prey. It was small wonder that they felt apprehensive. What they had to do was to grasp the end of a swinging rope-ladder as, for but the fraction of a minute, it brushed by them – yet neither of them dared entertain the thought of missing it. To do so would have been to unnerve them when they most needed every ounce of presence of mind and cool calculation they could muster.
“Now!” cried Frank suddenly as the air-craft’s black shadow enveloped them.
Bracing every muscle till they were tense as steel springs Frank made a leap for the lashing end of the ladder as it tore by him at what seemed to be terrific speed. It was about three feet above the earth. As he jumped and caught it, bracing his foot on the lowest rung, he felt the aeroplane sag down with the sudden weight.
“Open up!” he yelled to Harry, fearing that if she sagged any more the Golden Eagle might lose her equilibrium altogether. At the same instant he realized that Billy was making a desperate effort to haul himself onto the ladder also. The reporter had caught it all right but his fingers, – weakened under the tightness of his recent bonds – refused to grip it firmly. Already he had let go with one hand and was gazing with a piteous white face up at Frank.
As the welcome roar of the powerful engine came to his ears and Frank felt the good ship respond nobly to its impetus the youthful aviator reached down and seized the reporter just as Billy’s grasp was about to relax altogether. He managed with a desperate effort to haul him up till Billy’s foot rested on the lower round.
“You’ll have to let me drop, Frank, I can’t hold on any longer,” he gasped.
“Put your leg through the lower round,” commanded Frank sharply. With a last effort, that almost cost him his place on the ladder, the reporter obeyed the order and found that he had at least a chance of holding on with his leg hooked firmly over in this position.
At this moment, – and as the Golden Eagle gave a sickening leap upward that made Billy’s head swim and would undoubtedly have been the last of the reporter but for the firm grip Frank had of his arm – a shot flashed out from the camp. Instantly there was a turmoil in the place that reached the boys’ ears even above the roar of the laboring engine’s exhaust.
Lights could be seen moving rapidly about below, and shouted commands rang sharply out on the night. With the additional weight she was carrying, at an angle to which she was not accustomed, – and for which she had not been designed, – the Golden Eagle behaved erratically. Despite Harry’s most skilful handling and jockeying she refused to rise at her usual rapid pace. In fact she seemed as sluggish as a snail and yawed and lurched in a manner that swung Frank and the reporter about as if they had been suspended at the end of a pendulum.
In this urgent crisis the men in the camp perceived the unaccustomed sight of the struggling aeroplane and, shouting in Spanish, made a dash through the grove of trees into the open space above which the Boy Aviators’ craft was struggling bravely to attain the upper air.
Frank, as if in a dream, saw from his perilous perch a dozen rifles leveled at them and, in the glare of a kerosene torch, perceived Rogero hurrying about giving orders and striking men with the flat of his sword in his fury at losing his prisoner.
It seemed as if it was all over when suddenly from the car above them Harry’s clear voice rang out.
“Stand clear; or I’ll throw the bomb!”
The effect of his words was instantaneous. The boys, clinging to the swaying ladder, saw the soldiers dash back as if terror-stricken and Rogero himself – crazed with fury – seemed to have ordered the men not to fire for they dropped their rifles.
Like a flash Frank saw his opportunity. If they could reach the top of the ladder the lurching aeroplane would answer her helm.
“Climb, Billy. Climb! It’s your last chance!” he cried. “Climb with every drop of strength in your body! – Quick Harry – the picric acid!”
As though galvanized into a last spurt of life by Frank’s emphatic words, Billy’s tired muscles came into play and slowly, with what difficulty he never knew, for to this day the young reporter says he doesn’t know how he did it – he managed to follow Frank up the ladder. As they did so Harry emptied the acid into the gasolene tank and urged by the tremendous impetus this gave her engines, the ship began to rise.
As they climbed desperately higher, the Golden Eagle gradually regained her equilibrium and began to respond to her riding planes as Harry frantically manipulated them. Frank crawled after what seemed an hour through the trap in the pilot-house floor. Instantly stretching himself out – he reached down to Billy. He seized the reporter by the wrists and fairly lifted him into safety beside him.
Of this brave struggle, however, Billy knew nothing; for as he was pulled through the trap his overwrought nerves gave way and, as the Golden Eagle shot into safety at thirty miles an hour, the young reporter lay in a dead faint on her pilot-house floor.
“Bravely done, Harry,” cried Frank, grasping his younger brother’s hand in a firm grip which you may be sure was heartily returned.
“That’s all right. All’s well that ends well” – replied Harry, – with a grin, “it was just a bit of bluff, Frank, but it worked.”
“What did you do?” demanded Frank.
For reply Harry pointed to the brightly-polished cylinder of the searchlight that, detached from its socket lay on the floor.
“You heard me call, ‘Lookout for the bomb!’ or words to that effect?” he inquired.
“Yes,” replied Frank, puzzled, “but those fellows don’t understand English.”
“Well, they understood what it meant when they saw me raise that searchlight over my head as if I was going to chuck it down and blow them all to Kingdom Come,” replied Harry, cheerfully.
