Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators with the Air Raiders: A Story of the Great World War», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XIII.
NOT CAUGHT NAPPING
Frank was perfectly satisfied with the promise given him by Major Nixon. He knew the bluff British soldier would keep his word to the letter. While the man who had been caught hiding in the hangar of the young American aviators would be taken to a place of security and kept carefully guarded, in order to prevent his knowledge concerning the contemplated aërial raid from leaking out, at the same time his life would not pay the penalty of his capture.
After some more conversation covering the matter Frank, knowing the other to be very busy, took his leave.
“A last word of warning, my boy,” said the soldier, after shaking hands. “Keep on the alert wherever you go in Dunkirk. While the place itself is loyal, and is thronged now with soldiers of every type, at the same time we know there are many secret sympathizers with the other side here trying to learn the plans of our generals, so that they can communicate them to the Kaiser’s leaders.”
“But why should I be picked out for trouble?” asked Frank.
“Because they know that you are here to complete a deal entered into with the French Government in connection with your wonderful seaplane before this war was dreamed of. They would be willing to do something to prevent you from standing between their plans and the securing or destroying of the machine in the hangar.”
“I had not thought of it in that light,” said Frank, disturbed more or less.
“Pardon me for saying it,” continued the Major, “but they understand that if you could only be made to disappear your companions would be much easier to hoodwink, and their plans looking toward destroying the Sea Eagle would be crowned with success. You will be doubly careful, Frank, I hope.”
The boy promised this. Even though he might not be willing to admit that these secret agents of the Kaiser would dream of attempting any violence, at the same time he saw the soldier was really concerned about him.
So they parted with mutual good wishes.
Frank found himself again on the streets of the French seacoast city. Dunkirk was a far different place in these strenuous war times from the other days, when peace lay upon the land, and men went about their customary vocations of fishing, trading, and disposing of the products of the rich soil.
Now everywhere he looked Frank could see soldiers, and then more soldiers. They thronged the principal streets, and passed in and out of the shops buying things that appealed to their fancy. There were all manner of strange foreign troops to be met with – Gurkhas from far-away India; Canadians who resembled the Rough Riders of our own Spanish War times; Colonials from Australia or New Zealand; and many others who interested the boy very much.
Then, with the warning of Major Nixon still ringing in his ears, Frank suddenly became aware of the fact that he himself was an object of interest, though there was nothing about his make-up calculated to attract attention in all that strange collection of men from the four quarters of the globe.
Several times, on glancing hastily about him, he had noticed a certain man dressed like a citizen apparently staring into the window of a store. Frank began to believe the man was following him, and so he made a test to prove it.
“I like that, now,” he said to himself, with a chuckle when again he found that he had not shaken the unknown off his track by slipping into a certain side street, for the man was standing there on the curb as he turned, and calmly brushing his sleeve as though utterly unconcerned.
“I wonder if they would dare try to stop me on the way to the hangar,” Frank was asking himself, though he immediately added: “that’s hardly likely, for there’s really no time when I’m out of sight of soldiers on the road, because they’re going and coming constantly. I could even fall in behind a regiment if I wanted, and have plenty of company all the way to the gates of our compound.”
Just then he found himself attracted by the actions of a couple ahead of him, a man of middle age and a woman. Apparently she had been seized with some sort of vertigo, for the man was acting as though dreadfully alarmed. He had thrown an arm about her, and was looking around in an appealing way.
It happened that Frank was about the only person nearby, and it was only natural for him to hasten forward.
“Oh! please help me support my wife, young sir!” exclaimed the citizen as Frank arrived. “She is fainting, and just when we had reached our home here. Would you mind supporting her on the other side, and assisting me to get her to the door?”
An appeal like that could not be easily resisted, especially by one so ready to help others as Frank Chester had always been in the past.
Somehow it did not appear to strike him as singular that the citizen should be so fluent in his English when he was supposed to be a Frenchman. All Frank thought of then was that the man was in difficulties, and it would be next to nothing for him to lend the other a helping hand.
So he took hold on the other side of the woman who was acting as though swooning. Frank could not but notice that she appeared anything but fragile.
The door of the modest looking house was close by, and between them he and the distracted husband managed to half lead, half drag, the fainting woman up to it. The man immediately opened the door with one hand.
“Please assist me a little further, and I will be so thankful!” he pleaded.
Frank might have actually entered the house, only for a little thing that he had noticed. As they approached the door he had seen the man cast a quick glance upward toward the second story. The latticed blinds were shut, but as Frank used his eyes to advantage he believed he saw someone’s face back of the screen.
Like a flash it struck him that the man must have made some sort of quick signal to the party who was hidden up there. Frank became cautious in that second, remembering the warning given him by Major Nixon.
These spies were up to all manner of trickery in order to carry out their well-laid plans, and might not this pretended swooning of the woman be only a bait intended to coax him into a trap?
Frank immediately released his hold of the woman, and he noticed that she did not appear to be in danger of falling after he had withdrawn his support, which in itself was a suspicious sign.
“Oh! I hope you will help me just a little further!” exclaimed the man. “Inside is a chair, and if we could place her in that it is all I could ask of you. Thank you a thousand times for what you have done already; but do not leave me just yet.”
It seemed hard to refuse, but Frank steeled his heart. He was positive by now he had been made a victim to a deep-laid plot, and if he but stepped within that open door something unpleasant was sure to happen to him.
“You will have to excuse me, but I can go no further,” he said hastily.
The man said something half under his breath. Frank saw that the woman was apparently suddenly regaining her senses, for she had thrown out a hand, and seemed to be trying to clutch hold of his sleeve.
The boy had no difficulty in avoiding the contact, however, thanks to his suspicions. He dodged back, and then with a smile turned and walked quickly away. When he glanced over his shoulder a minute later the couple had vanished, evidently going into the house, which Frank could imagine must be a nest of spies.
“That was a pretty close call for me,” he was saying to himself as he walked on; “and I can imagine there’ll be a hurried exodus from that building inside of a few minutes if I cared to hang around and watch. They’ll be afraid that I may tell on them, and have the soldiers surround the place. But it isn’t my business as a neutral to have German spies arrested and shot.”
Frank sauntered on. He had a few errands to attend to, some small supplies to purchase connected with the seaplane, for new wants were constantly cropping up in that line.
The little adventure caused his blood to warm up, but Frank had been through so much in his past that he had by this time come to take such things as a matter of course, and accept them philosophically.
“If that was intended for a stall,” he said to himself presently, “it shows how desperate they’re getting about our disposing of the Sea Eagle to the French Government. Why, you’d think orders had gone out in Berlin to prevent the transfer by hook or by crook. Certain it is these people are risking their lives in the effort. But they will have to get up pretty early in the morning to best us, that’s all I can say, even if it does sound like boasting.”
Though remaining watchful, he was soon busy with his errands. No one brushed elbows with him in the stores but that Frank used his eyes to take note. Those who could arrange such an ingenious scheme as that swooning lady and the call upon him for assistance might be equal to other games of like character.
He managed to accomplish his several duties without any further cause for alarm, and was once more on the streets observing all that happened. A constantly increasing push of eager observers toward a certain point told Frank there must be something of an unusual interest taking place there, and consumed by the same curiosity he joined the throng, for he had heard someone say the ambulances with the wounded had just come in from the front.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PERIL IN THE SKY
Day after day the wounded from the front were being received in Dunkirk, Calais and other places along the coast. They were usually taken further on as soon as their immediate wants could be attended to.
In many cases the stricken soldiers would be carried by train to the large Red Cross hospitals in and around Paris. Then besides this, on many a night a steamer would start from Dunkirk across the Channel bearing hundreds of British back to their own shores, where they could receive the best of care among their people. These voyages were made when possible in the gloom of night, and at full speed, in order to avoid the risk of having the vessel torpedoed by lurking German submarines, ready to deliver crushing blows to her enemy’s ships.
Frank stood in the crowd and watched the transfer of the poor fellows to the temporary hospital. They were mostly British soldiers who had received their injuries while trying to hold the trenches against some fierce drive on the part of Bavarians or Prussians.
As he saw one after another swathed figure borne on stretchers from the ambulance motors into the hospital, Frank felt a sense of pity for all these who were suffering on account of this terrible war, no matter on which side they chanced to be.
He finally turned away, not caring to see any more such pitiful sights. He marveled at the brave front displayed by even the most dreadfully wounded men, who tried to greet the crowd and smiled through the mud that plastered their faces.
Remembering what he and Billy had discovered in connection with the gathering of a new army back of the German trenches, Frank expected that in a few days there was bound to be a greater stream of wounded pouring into Dunkirk than ever before, because a desperate attack was doubtless contemplated.
When he learned from Major Nixon that some of the Allies’ aviators had brought in the news concerning that gathering host of gray-clad soldiers, Frank realized that he could speak of it without reservation, since it would not be giving information as to the enemy’s contemplated plans.
Remembering one more errand which needed his attention, Frank, after leaving the vicinity of the Red Cross hospital, had immediately started to look after it. He was through with it and actually starting for the hangar when once again he became aware of the fact that a sudden confusion had broken out. People were shouting in an excited manner, as though a mad dog had broken loose and was coming down the main street of Dunkirk.
There was no difficulty in learning what was the matter. That wild cry of alarm was becoming very familiar to the ears of the worried citizens of Dunkirk these stormy days.
“The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!”
In French and in English this shout was being carried along, constantly added to by scores of voices. People rushed pell-mell this way and that, many dodging down into cellars, as though seeking safety from some terror that was likely to descend on the coast city like a cyclone.
Those who were not yet running had their necks craned, and their eyes turned upward toward the northeast. Frank stepped over to where he could see better, and then he also “rubbered,” as Billy would have called it.
On numerous occasions the German aviators had conducted an organized raid on Dunkirk, dropping dozens of terrible bombs in what seemed like an indiscriminate fashion. Possibly these were in the main intended to damage the camps or accumulated stores of the British legions; but if so the aim of the men in the Taubes was singularly bad, for the majority of the bombs had thus far either exploded in the open streets, or shattered private houses.
Many innocent persons, including women and children, had suffered from these explosives, and it was not singular then that whenever the cry was raised that the “Germans were coming,” meaning a raiding flock of aëroplanes, there would ensue a mad panic in the streets of the French city.
“There are several moving things over there away up in the heavens,” Frank told himself as he gazed in more or less excitement. “Even without a glass I’m almost ready to say they can’t be Taubes.”
He stood there watching and waiting until the soaring objects drew closer, when their true identity could be discovered.
Frank, being an aviator himself, quickly detected certain things that the common observer might never have discovered; and which told him the half dozen specks in the sky that February morning were birds and not aëroplanes.
“Some gulls flying high,” he murmured as he watched. “Yes, there they circle around, which aviators bent on bombarding the city and then running off in a hurry would never think of doing.”
He told those near him that there was nothing to fear, as the suspected Taubes were only harmless birds. The cheering word was passed along from mouth to mouth, and some of those who only a few minutes before were looking very peaked and white commenced to laugh, trying to make out that they knew all along the advancing specks were only birds.
By degrees even the shivering inmates of the cellars learned that it was a false alarm, and ventured to appear again.
“And I suppose this happens several times every day,” Frank mused as he watched the arteries of traffic once more begin to flow naturally. “While little damage that amounts to anything has been done by the bombs, the coming of the Germans is looked forward to with dread. I suppose if a flier happened to be brought down with a well directed shot from a gun it would give the people more pleasure than anything they could wish for.”
It struck him that possibly the other boys might have heard something of all this excitement and would be worried about him. So Frank stepped into a store he knew of and proceeded to get the hangar on the wire. There was some little difficulty at first, as though a good many people were trying to communicate with their homes for some purpose or other. Finally a voice called in good English:
“Hello! that you, Frank?”
“Yes, that’s who it is, Billy. I only called you up thinking you might have heard all the shouting, and wonder what it was.”
“Oh! some of the guards here guessed it, and we’ve been watching the gulls through our field glass. But how about the other business, Frank; is it all fixed?”
“I’m coming back right away,” Frank told him. “Soon after I join you, there will be something doing. I’ll tell you the rest when I get there; but everything is going on O. K. So-long, Billy. Keep watching, for they’re ready to try everything under the sun to gain their end. I’ve got a new story for you when I come.”
Frank by this action had not only accomplished his purpose of relieving the minds of his chums, but at the same time he had made sure that things were unchanged at the hangar.
Determined not to take any risks that could be avoided, Frank waited until he saw a battery of field-pieces moving along the road that led close by the gate of the hangar. Perhaps the guns had come over from England on the previous night, and being badly needed at the front, were starting forth.
This was the opportunity he wanted. By keeping alongside the guns and caissons he could defy any hidden danger. If there were spies waiting to waylay him in some rather lonely spot, just as they had Pudge on the preceding night, the presence of those young khaki-clad warriors seated on the gun carriages and ammunition carts would foil them.
There was no trouble. Possibly Frank might not have been held up even though he chose to take the walk without any protection; but when in doubt it was always his policy to “play safe.”
When he again found himself in the hangar, the others were eager to hear what he had promised to tell them.
“You’ve been having another scrape of some sort, like as not,” ventured Billy, pretending to look morose, as though he begrudged his comrade that privilege while he and Pudge were only sitting there killing time.
Frank thereupon related how he had been drawn into rendering assistance when the said-to-be wife of an apparent citizen of Dunkirk, who spoke excellent English without a French accent, appeared to faint close to the door of her own home.
The other boys were thrilled by what seemed like a narrow escape on the part of their comrade.
“Ganders and gridirons, Frank!” exploded Pudge after listening with distended eyes to the account given by the returned chum. “That was a narrow squeak for you, as sure as anything.”
“Yes,” added Billy, “they had it all laid out to trap you. If you’d dared to step inside that open door I reckon you’d have been tapped over the head, and when you came to again it would be to find yourself in some old damp and moldy cellar. I give you credit for tumbling to their smart game, Frank.”
“Bayous and bullfrogs, they certainly do want to get hold of this bully machine of ours the worst kind, and that’s a fact!” spluttered Pudge.
“But tell us about the Major, and what he agreed to do?” asked Billy.
“It’s all fixed just as we figured it,” replied Frank. “I want this man here to understand what has been done, so come over to where you’ve got him.”
The prisoner had been watching them eagerly. He must have guessed that Frank had been gone to settle about his fate, and, if ever a man looked nervous, he did, as the three boys advanced toward him.
“Listen to something I want you to hear,” said Frank. “We know what you are, and that if you were given in charge as a spy you’d likely be shot by to-morrow morning. But we are American boys, and not at all inclined to have the blood of a German honestly serving his Fatherland on our hands. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes, go on,” muttered the man, brightening up, though still anxious.
“I have arranged it with the authorities that you will only be looked on as a petty thief. You will be held in close confinement for a few days until it is certain that any information you may have picked up while here in this building will be useless. Then they will take you out of the city and set you free, with a warning never to be seen here again if you value your life.”
Now the man’s face lighted up in a smile.
“That is much better,” he said, after drawing a long breath of relief. “We thought you were on the side of the Allies, because you meant to turn it over to the French Government.”
“You must remember,” said Frank impressively, “that this machine had been over here, boxed but not assembled, for months before the war opened. My company had a contract with the French people, who insisted on representatives being sent across to demonstrate the new flier; otherwise they threatened to seize it, and make duplicates without our receiving any remuneration – the necessities of war. That is why we have come, and are even now trying to carry out the terms of that agreement. You can tell your people that only for this our company would not dream of making aëroplanes for one side or the other. They could not be shipped out of the United States, anyway.”
“I understand your position,” said the man; “and while it explains many things it does not change our design to prevent the enemy from profiting by your improved type of machine. If by any means it can be stolen or destroyed we believe we are only doing our duty by the Fatherland in risking our lives to attempt it.”
“Well, here comes the patrol to take you to the city prison; and, remember, you are to insist that you entered our hangar to steal, not to spy on us,” Frank told him.
