OFF WITH THE AIR RAIDERS.
"Zip! we're off!" cried Billy, as he heard the familiar whir of the
motors, and felt the forward push of the sea and air craft.
Pudge was not so accustomed to being aboard one of the _Sea Eagles_ when
starting out on a cruise. His father, knowing the customary clumsiness
of Pudge, had preferred as a rule that the fat boy stay upon the solid
ground while his more agile chums attempted the aërial stunts.
But Pudge complained so much that Frank had thought it best to let him
accompany them on this wonderful journey. It was likely to eclipse
anything they had ever experienced before, and must ever remain as a
memory worth while.
The speed increasing, they were soon rushing over the surface of the
harbor at a furious rate. Then, as Frank slanted the ascending rudder,
they left the water to course upward at a low angle, which, however,
could be increased as they circled the harbor.
Loud cheers came to their ears from the shore, where that crowd had been
standing. They were echoed, too, from several other points, showing that
all Dunkirk must be on the alert this morning, as though it might be in
the air that wonderful things were about to transpire.
"Are those cheers for us, do you think, Frank, or because they've
discovered the fleet coming along?" Billy asked, although he had already
waved his hand toward the shore.
"It's hard to tell," Frank replied. "Though they must have glimpsed the
bunch heading this way, and guessed what it all means. I don't see any
person running to hide in a cellar, as they do when the Taubes are
around."
Mounting higher, they waited for the arrival of the fleet. It was a
sight never before witnessed. The air was fairly filled with buzzing
seaplanes of various patterns, jockeying for position much as is seen on
the race course before the signal to start is given by the firing of a
pistol.
"Listen to all the racket, will you?" cried Pudge, and indeed the noise
of so many motors and whirling propellers did sound strangely.
"It's like a young Niagara, that's what I'd call it!" declared Billy.
"Why, sometimes you can't hear yourself think for the Bedlam that's
broken loose. Say, tell me what the Germans up the coast will think has
struck them when this flock descends on Zeebrugge, and batters away at
the docks and the submarine bases."
"They're all under the charge of a central seaplane, too," added Frank.
"For, if you notice, the signals are always sent from that one just
passing us now."
One of the muffled figures in the other aircraft waved a hand at them.
Something was said at the same time, which Frank took for granted must
be a question as to whether they expected to accompany the raiders.
He nodded his head in the affirmative, at the same time displaying a
little red, white and blue flag he carried, and which must have
considerably astonished the pilot of the British seaplane, evidently the
chief controller.
"I did that so he might know we didn't expect to drop any bombs, or have
a part in the raid itself," Frank explained, turning to his companions.
"They're all worked up over seeing such a whopping big seaplane here,"
remarked Pudge, with a touch of the old pride in his voice. "They're
having the surprise of their lives right now, let me tell you. I'm glad
they know that it's a Yankee machine."
"But, Frank, as we understand it, all these bomb-droppers don't intend
to go to one place, do they?" asked Billy, as he watched the whirring
machines flit past like so many big dragon flies.
"No," came the ready answer. "When up the coast a piece, there'll be a
division starting inland to damage the railway station and try to get at
the supplies the Germans have gathered at Bruges, as well as some other
points."
"Well, what about us then?" asked Billy.
"Yes," added Pudge, also deeply interested; "do we go on with the
seaplanes and keep tabs of what they do up around Ostend and Zeebrugge,
or else switch off and go over the land the same as you and Billy did
yesterday?"
"I've fixed all that with M. Le Grande here," Frank told them. "He
expressed the wish that we might see fit to keep with the main body
along the shore, because it is expected the most spectacular feats will
be attempted there."
"Gee! I was hoping you'd say that, Frank!" Billy exploded.
"Suits me to a dot, too!" Pudge followed by saying.
"I hope they are going to start right away," added Billy.
"There's a message being sent up by heliograph," explained Frank. "Of
course, we can't read the flashes, but it's meant for the man in the
leading plane. I expect it will tell him everything is all right for the
start."
He proved a true prophet, for immediately afterward some signal was
given that caused the entire assemblage of aëroplanes to cease their
evolutions and head in a long double string up the coast.
The boys, despite the clattering of propellers and the humming of many
striving motors, could catch the distant wild cheers that the assembled
people of Dunkirk sent after them. It was a benison of good wishes, and
a hope that the object of the great raid might be fully accomplished.
Frank kept somewhat above most of the aircraft. He had several objects
in doing this, chief of which was the design to show that he was in a
class by himself, and not to be included in those who had come forth to
fight. Besides, it allowed them to observe all that was going on below;
as well as being in a position to show the pilots of the fleet a few
little things connected with the strange looking _Sea Eagle_ that would
cause them to feel more or less astonishment, and envy as well.
"Will you show them something, Frank, now that we have the chance?"
asked Pudge.
"It will have to be before we get to the first place they expect to
bombard, then," Frank replied, meaning, of course, that once the work of
the fleet began there would be no time for any of them to manifest any
interest in the evolutions of the American built aircraft.
When Frank had moved a lever that called for all speed, and the motors
were working at the astonishing rate of almost two thousand revolutions
a minute, it seemed as though they had left the rest of the fleet far in
the lurch. Green flames spouted from the exhausts, for Frank had opened
the muffler in order to get every ounce of speed out of the motors.
They could see the pilots of the other seaplanes looking up at them in
mingled wonder and admiration, for, like the jockeys of race horses, it
is the ambition of every aviator to possess the fastest going machine on
the market.
Having secured a free section of space to himself, Frank proceeded to
put the wonderful _Sea Eagle_ through her paces. He showed what could be
done in various ways, and while possibly most of those other craft were
capable of accomplishing similar tricks, the fact was made patent that
the superior size of the American made hydro-aëroplane did not act as a
bar to the ability of the _Sea Eagle_ to maneuver in a dexterous fashion
while going at that tremendous rate of speed.
"Now we'll have to stop, and mount a little higher," Frank remarked,
having circled around and found himself once more back of the leaders in
the procession.
"There go several aëroplanes off to the right!" announced Billy. "I
reckon that's the detachment told off to tackle Bruges and other
interior places."
"We're coming to Ostend!" Frank told them, pointing down to where the
city of the celebrated bathing beach could be seen, with the houses and
hotels close to the famous sandy stretch of shore.
There were boats in the harbor, and they must be German owned or they
could not have come there. Billy, using the glasses, could see that the
most tremendous excitement had seized upon every one in sight. People
were rushing in every direction, soldiers as well as civilians; the rays
of the sun glinted on cannon that were being hastily changed, so as to
point upward.
"There goes the first anti-aircraft gun!" called Billy, as a faint boom
reached their ears from far below.
"Watch what the fleet pilots do!" Frank told them.
Apparently the plan had been well worked out, and every pilot knew
exactly what was expected of him. Maps of the region had been carefully
studied in order that the position of each vulnerable point of attack
might be known.
If there was a railway depot which the Germans used every hour of the
day, and the loss of which would cripple their transportation
facilities, that was picked out to be an object of attack. Here was a
mole alongside of which possibly submarines tied up, and its destruction
would deprive the enemy of a valuable station. Further on a large shed
marked the spot where great stores had been gathered, and if a bomb
could only be exploded in the midst, it was going to mean that there
would later be a shortage of provisions. An oil tank, an ammunition
magazine, a forty-two centimeter gun, such as battered the forts at
Liège to pieces, all such were fair objects of attack wherever they
could be found. The one order that had been given to every pilot was to
avoid destroying the property of civilians as far as possible.
As Frank and his chums looked down from their higher level they saw a
sight such as had never before been witnessed by human eyes. The air was
filled with a flock of circling, dodging aëroplanes, with puffs of white
smoke breaking above, below, and in some cases amidst them, as the guns
on the ground were fired again and again in hopes of bringing one or
more of the venturesome craft down.
Various explosions far beneath proclaimed that the bombardment from the
sky was in full blast. Most of their ammunition, however, would
doubtless be kept for the more important base at Zeebrugge, where
raiding submarines were wont to start forth on their daring excursions
through the waters of the Channel, seeking to destroy British and French
merchant vessels or ships of war.
Already the leading seaplanes had passed over the watering place known
as Ostend and which before the war had been a famous summer resort.
Doubtless their departure would be watched with mingled feelings by the
thousands of German soldiers who had been interested observers of this
wonderful sight in the heavens. They would also doubtless wonder what
was going to happen when the aërial fleet returned, as it surely must,
to its base at Dunkirk.
"How about Antwerp?" asked Billy. "Think they'll take a turn up there,
and drop a few reminders on the railway station, or some of the forts
they say the Germans have been building up again?"
"I hardly think so," Frank replied. "This is a raid on sea coast places,
as I understand it. They want to strike at the submarine bases so as to
upset the plans of the Germans for next week, when the blockade of the
coasts of Great Britain and Northern France goes into effect. They'll do
some damage at Bruges and Blankenberghe I expect, just as we shied a few
at Ostend; but the main thing will happen when we get to Zeebrugge."
"I think that must be the place just ahead of us right now, Frank!"
called out Billy, who was again using the glasses, bent on seeing
everything that occurred; for he realized that they were highly favored
by fortune in being given a chance to witness such strange sights.
"Yes, that is Zeebrugge," Frank admitted. "Now we'll see something worth
while, if no snow squall comes along to shut out our view!"
"Pirates and parachutes," cried Pudge, "but I hope that doesn't happen
to us."