UNDER SHRAPNEL FIRE.
"Have we anything to eat along with us, Frank?"
"Why, hello! are you awake, Billy? I was just thinking of calling you,
or sending a bell hop up to pound on your door. It's morning, you see."
"Yes, I noticed that light over there in the east, and was thinking how
the poor fellows in the trenches must feel when they see it creeping on,
knowing as they do that it means another day of hard work and fighting.
But how about my question, Frank? Did we think to fetch that pouch of
ship-biscuit along with us?"
"Yes, it's tied just back of you," the other informed him with a laugh.
"But I'm surprised to hear you so keen for a bite, Billy. If it had been
Pudge, now, I wouldn't have thought so much about it, because he's
always ready for six meals a day."
"I don't know what ails me," acknowledged the other, as he reached for
the little waterproof bag in which Frank always tried to keep a pound or
so of hardtack, with some cheese as well, to provide for any emergency
like the present, "it may be this sea air, or perhaps it's due to the
excitement we've gone through; but I'm as hungry as a wolf in winter."
"Perhaps I may take your appetite away then," suggested Frank, with a
chuckle.
"In what way?" demanded Billy, with a round ship biscuit halfway to his
mouth.
"Oh! by making a stunning proposition I've been considering while I sat
here, that's all."
"Gee! it takes you to think up things, Frank. Now, as for me, I've been
badgering my poor brains about how we would astonish the people of
Dunkirk when we came sailing into the harbor and made for our hangar.
There'd be as much excitement as if a dozen of those little Taube
aëroplanes of the Germans had hove in sight, just as they did on that
day of the last air raid. Now tell me what the game is, please, Frank."
"Suppose, then, we weren't in such a big hurry to go back to our
moorings?" said the other. "Suppose, that having broken away, we took
that trial spin we've always been promising ourselves when things were
ready!"
Billy became so excited that he actually forgot to eat.
"Wow! that's a brilliant scheme, Frank, let me tell you!" he exclaimed.
"Say, for a wonder, all the conditions favor aëroplane work. The wind
that has kept up during the last three days seems to have blown itself
out, and we're likely to have a quiet spell. They'll be on the watch for
another raid of those Taubes from up Antwerp way on such a calm day as
this. Frank, shall we try it?"
"Wait for another half hour," replied the other. "By then it will be
broad daylight, and we can see what the signs promise. If things look
good we'll start up and take a run to the northeast."
"Over the trenches, do you mean, and perhaps far into Belgium?" cried
Billy, to whom the prospect of seeing something of the terrible fighting
that was daily taking place in the lowlands along the canal appealed
with irresistible force; for the old reporter spirit had never been
killed when he gave up newspaper work for aëroplane building.
"We'll see how the land lies," was all Frank would say. Billy knew very
well the other was bound to be just as keenly interested in the warlike
scenes below them as he could be, hence he was willing to check his
impatience, leaving everything to Frank.
Both of them munched away on the ship-biscuit and cheese. It was pretty
dry fare, but then there was a bottle of water at hand if they felt
choking at any time.
The half hour passed and they could see from the growing light in the
eastern sky that the sun would soon be making its appearance. Around
them there was nothing but an endless succession of rollers, upon which
the buoyant seaplane rose and fell with a continual gurgling sound.
"If this low-hanging fog would only lift," remarked Billy, as he put
away the hardtack bags, "we could tell just where we were. As it is,
there's no such thing as seeing land, which must be over there to the
east."
"The sea fog is rising and will disappear as soon as the breeze comes,"
Frank observed sagaciously. "By then we want to be several thousand feet
up, and taking a look through the glasses at the picture we'll have
spread out below us."
"Let's start now," suggested Billy. "I'm wild to see what the country up
across the border of Belgium looks like. To think of us being able to
glimpse all the German defenses as we go sailing over so smoothly."
Frank laughed.
"You are counting your chickens again before they're hatched, Billy, an
old failing of yours. It may not be the smooth sailing you think.
Remember that the Germans are always ready-primed with their wonderful
anti-aëroplane guns for hostile raiders. We may have a dozen Taubes,
too, buzzing after us, or find ourselves chased into the clouds by a big
Zeppelin."
If Frank thought to alarm Billy by saying this, he immediately saw that
he had failed to shake the other's nerve.
"Gee! that would make it interesting, for a fact!" the other exclaimed,
his face beaming with eagerness. "Frank, you can take my word for it, no
Taube, or Zeppelin either, for that matter, can catch up with our good
old _Sea Eagle_, once you crack on all of her two thousand revolutions a
minute with both motors. They haven't got a thing over on this side of
the big pond that is in the same class with Doctor Perkins's invention."
"I think you're pretty near right there, Billy," said the pilot, as he
proceeded to press the button that would start things humming.
Immediately they were beginning to move along on the surface, the
peculiar spoon-shaped bow preventing the water from coming aboard.
Faster went the huge seaplane as Frank gave increased power, until when
he tilted the ascending rudder they left the water just as a frightened
duck does after attaining sufficient momentum.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed the delighted Billy, as soon as he realized, from
the change in motion, that they no longer rested on the water, but were
cleaving the air.
Mounting in spirals, as usual, the two boys soon began to have a
splendid view, not only of the sea, but of the nearby land as well.
"Oh! look, Frank, over there in the west; those must be the famous white
chalk cliffs of Dover across the channel we see. To think that we are
looking down at France, and even Belgium, and on England at the same
time."
"That's about where the Kaiser is aiming to throw those monster shells
from his big forty-two centimeter guns, after he has captured Calais,
you know," remarked Frank.
"I guess that dream's been smashed by now, and there's nothing in it,"
Billy was saying. "Not that the Germans didn't try mighty hard to get
there, and tens of thousands of their brave fellows gave up their lives
to carry out a whim of the commander, which might not have amounted to
much, after all. Oh! Frank, with the glass here I can see our hangar as
easy as anything."
"That's good, Billy. I was just going to ask you to look and see if
those disappointed spies had done anything to it. I'm glad to hear you
say it's still there in good shape. I expect we'll have more or less
need of that shed from time to time."
"Well, we don't mean to spend many nights paddling around on the sea,"
affirmed Billy, now beginning to turn his glass upon the country they
were approaching, and which lay to the north of Dunkirk.
Frank had changed their course so that they were now over the land. They
could easily see the camps of the British troops, though they were so
far above them that moving companies looked like marching ants. The
tents could not be concealed, and there were besides numerous low sheds,
which doubtless sheltered supplies of every description, needed by the
army fighting in the trenches further north.
As Frank drew more upon the motors that were keeping up a noisy chorus,
the huge seaplane rushed through the air and gave them a change of
landscape every little while.
The sun was in plain sight, although just beginning to touch things
below with golden fingers. Covering land and water, they could see over
a radius that must have been far more than fifty miles.
Billy kept uttering exclamations, intended to express the rapture that
filled his breast. In all his experience he had never gazed upon
anything to compare with what he now saw spread out below him as though
upon a monster checkerboard. African wilds, Western deserts and Polar
regions of eternal ice were all dwarfed in interest by this spectacle.
Again and again did he call the attention of his chum to certain
features of the wonderful picture that especially appealed to him. Now
it was the snakelike movements of what appeared to be a new army heading
toward the front, accompanied by a long line of big guns that were drawn
by traction engines. Then the irregular line of what he made out to be
the opposing trenches riveted his attention. He was thrilled when he
actually saw a rush made by an attacking party of Germans, to be met
with volleys that must have sadly decimated their ranks, for as Billy
gazed with bated breath he saw the remnant of the gallant band reel back
and vanish amidst their own trenches.
"Am I awake, Frank, or asleep and dreaming all this?" Billy exclaimed,
as he handed the glasses to his chum.
This Frank could readily do because they were running along as smoothly
as velvet, and long habit had made him perfectly at home in handling the
working parts of the seaplane.
"I wonder what they think of us?" wondered Billy. "You may be sure that
every field glass and pair of binoculars they own is leveled at us right
now. They must think the French or the British have sprung one on them,
to beat out their old Zeppelins at the raiding business! Oh! wouldn't I
give something to be close enough to the commanding general to see the
look on his face."
Frank was looking for something else just then. Although they were
flying at such a great height, he fancied that the present security
would hardly last. The Germans were only waiting until they had gone on
a certain distance; then probably a dozen of their hustling little Taube
machines would spring upward and chase after the singular stranger like
a swarm of hornets, seeking to cut off escape, and hoping by some lucky
shot to bring it down.
The barograph was in plain sight from where Frank sat, and perhaps the
quick glance he gave at its readings just then had some connection with
this expectation of coming trouble.
Billy interpreted it otherwise. He was afraid Frank, thinking they had
gone far enough, was sweeping around to start back toward the British
trench line.
"Just a little further, Frank," pleaded Billy. "There's a big move on
over yonder, seems like, where that army is coming along; and I'd like
to see enough to interest our good friend Major Nixon when we get back."
"I don't know whether I'll let you say a single word, Billy," the air
pilot told him, as he relinquished the glasses to the eager one. "That
wouldn't be acting neutral, you know. Besides, there are plenty of the
Allies' machines able to fly, and those airmen like Graham-White ought
to be able to pick up news of any big movement."
They could see patches of snow in places, and much water in others where
the low country had been inundated by the Belgians. This was done in
hopes of hastening the retreat of the invaders, who despite all had
stuck to their trenches and the unfinished canal for months, as though
rooted there.
All at once there sounded a loud crash not far below the young air
pilots, and a puff of white smoke told where a shrapnel shell had burst.
"Frank, they're firing at us!" exclaimed Billy, who had made an
involuntary ducking movement with his head as the sharp discharge burst
upon his ears.
Even as he spoke another, and still a third crash told that the Germans
had determined the time was at hand to try their anti-aëroplane guns on
the strange seaplane that was soaring above the camps.