A CAPTURE FROM THE SKIES
Jack went off to see what he could discover, and Harry, left behind with
Dick, racked his brains for some means of blocking the plan he was so
sure the Germans had made. He was furious at Graves, who had discredited
him with Colonel Throckmorton, as he believed. He minded the personal
unpleasantness involved far less than the thought that his usefulness
was blocked, for he felt that not information he might bring would be
received now.
As he looked around it seemed incredible that such things as he was
trying to prevent could even be imagined. After the early rain, the day
had cleared up warm and lovely, and it was now the most perfect of
things, a beautiful summer day in England. The little road they had
taken was a sort of blind alley. It had brought them to a meadow, whence
the hay had already been cut. At the far side of this ran a little
brook, and all about them were trees. Except for the call of birds, and
the ceaseless hum of insects, there was no sound to break the stillness.
It was a scene of peaceful beauty that could not be surpassed anywhere
in the world. And yet, only a few miles away, at the most, were men who
were planning deliberately to bring death and destruction upon helpless
enemies--to rain down death from the skies.
By very contrast to the idyllic peace of all about them, the terrors of
war seemed more dreadful. That men who went to war should be killed and
wounded, bad though it was, still seemed legitimate. But his driving
home of an attack upon a city all unprepared, upon the many
non-combatants who would be bound to suffer, was another and more
dreadful thing. Harry could understand that it was war, that it was
permissible to do what these Germans were planned. And yet--
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change in the quality of the
noisy silence that the insects made. Just before he noticed it, half a
dozen bees had been humming near him. Now he heard something that
sounded like the humming of a far vaster bee. Suddenly it stopped, and,
as it did, he looked up, his eyes as well as Dick's being drawn upward
at the same moment. And they saw, high above them, an aeroplane with dun
colored wings. Its engine had stopped and it was descending now in a
beautiful series of volplaning curves.
"Out of essense--he's got to come down," said Harry, appraisingly, to
Dick. "He'll manage it all right, too. He knows his business through and
through, that chap."
"I wonder where he'll land," speculated Dick.
"He's got to pick an open space, of course," said Harry. "And there
aren't so many of them around here. By Jove!"
"Look! He's certainly coming down fast!" exclaimed Dick.
"Yes--and, I say, I think he's heading for this meadow! Come on--start
that motor, Dick!"
"Why? Don't you want him to see us?"
"I don't mind him seeing us--I don't want him to see the car," explained
Harry. "We'll run it around that bend, out of sight from the meadow."
"Why shouldn't he see it?"
"Because if he's out of petrol, he'll want to take all we've got and we
may not want him to have it. We don't know who he is, yet."
The car was moving as Harry explained. As soon as the meadow was out of
sight, Harry stopped the engine and got out of the car.
"He may have seen it as he was coming down--the car, I mean," he said.
"But I doubt it. He's got other things to watch. That meadow for
one--and all his levers and his wheel. Guiding an aeroplane in a coast
like that down the air is no easy job."
"Have you ever been up, Harry?"
"Yes, often. I've never driven one myself, but I believe I could if I
had to. I've watched other people handle them so often that I know just
about everything that has to be done.
"That's an English monoplane. I've seen them ever so often," said Dick.
"It's an army machine, I mean. See it's number? It's just coming in
sight of us now. Wouldn't you like to fly her though?"
"I'd like to know what it's doing around here," said Harry. "And it
seems funny to me if an English army aviator has started out without
enough petrol in his tank to see him through any flight he might be
making. And wouldn't he have headed for one of his supply stations as
soon as he found out he was running short, instead of coming down in
country like this?"
Dick stared at him.
"Do you think it's another spy?" he asked.
"I don't think anything about it yet, Dick. But I'm not going to be
caught napping. That's a Bleriot--and the British army flying corps uses
Bleriots. But anyone with the money can buy one and make it look like an
English army plane. Remember that."
There was no mistaking about the monoplane when it was once down. Its
pilot was German; he was unmistakably so. He had been flying very high
and when he landed he was still stiff from the cold.
"Petrol!" he cried eagerly, as he saw the two boys. "Where can I get
petrol? Quick! Answer me!"
Harry shot a quick glance at Dick.
"Come on," he said, beneath his breath. "We've got to get him and tie
him up."
The aviator, cramped and stiffened as he was by the intense cold that
prevails in the high levels where he had been flying, was no match for
them. As they sprang at him his face took on the most ludicrous
appearance of utter surprise. Had he suspected that they would attack
him he might have drawn a pistol. As it was, he was helpless before the
two boys, both in the pink of condition and determined to capture him.
He made a struggle, but in two minutes he was laying roped, tied, and
utterly helpless. He was not silent; he breathed the most fearful
threats as to what would happen to them. But neither boy paid any
attention to him.
"We've got to get him to the car," said Harry. "Can we drag him?"
"Yes. But if we loosen his feet a little, he could walk," suggested
Dick. "That would be ever so much easier for him, and for us too. I
should hate to be dragged. Let's make him walk."
"Right--and a good idea!" said Harry. He loosened the ropes about the
aviator's feet, and helped him to stand.
"March!" he said. "Don't try to get away--I've got a leading rope, you
see."
He did have a loose end of rope, left over from a knot, and with this he
proceeded to lead the enraged German to the automobile. It looked for
all the world as if he were leading a dog, and for a moment Dick doubled
up in helpless laughter. The whole episode had it's comic side, but it
was serious, too.
"Now we've got to draw off the gasoline in the tank in this bucket,"
said Harry. The German had been bestowed in the tonneau, and made as
comfortable as possible with rugs and cushions. His feet were securely
tied again, and there was no chance for him to escape.
"What are you going to do?" asked Dick. "Are you going to try to fly in
that machine?"
"I don't know, yet. But I'm going to have it ready, so that I can if I
need to," said Harry. "That Bleriot maybe the saving of us yet, Dick.
There's no telling what we shall have to do."
Even as he spoke, Harry was making new plans, rendered possible by this
gift from the skies. He was beginning, at last, to see a way to
circumvent the Germans. What he had in mind was risky, certainly, and
might prove perilous in the extreme. But he did not let that aspect of
the situation worry him. His one concern was to foil the terrible plan
that the Germans had made, and he was willing to run any risk that would
help him to do so.
"The Zeppelin is coming here to Bray Park--it's going to land here,"
said Harry. "And if it ever gets away from here there will be no way of
stopping it from doing all the damage they have planned, or most of it.
Thanks to Graves, we wouldn't be believed if we tell what we know--we'd
probably just be put in the guard house. So we've got to try to stop it
ourselves."
They had reached the Bleriot by that time. Harry filled the tank, and
looked at the motor. Then he sat in the driver's seat and practiced with
the levers, until he decided that he understood them thoroughly. And, as
he did this, he made his decision.
"I'm going into Bray Park tonight," he said. "This is the only way to
get in."
"And I'm going with you," announced Dick.