DISABLED
IT was indeed well that the battleplane was already flying "down the
wind." Locking the wings, and trimming them at the furthermost limit
of the bent actuating rod, Blake made the comforting discovery that
the planes were in the best possible position for a prolonged glide.
Aided by the following gale, the velocity of which was not far short
of seventy miles an hour, the battleplane ought to cover a distance
of from fifty to sixty miles before alighting. In that case he hoped
to effect a landing in the bleak and sparsely-populated district
drained by the sluggish River Warthe.
Nursing the volplaning craft with the utmost care, Desmond Blake was
getting every possible foot of space out of the involuntary glide.
Perfectly calm and collected he bade Athol find a particular section
of the map of Prussia and Posen and fix it in the celluloid holder in
front of him.
Dick, having shut down the motors, since they were no longer of
service, clambered into his seat, and made good use of his
binoculars; while Sergeant O'Rafferty deliberately fixed a time fuse
under the row of crank-cases so that in the likely event of the
presence of German troops, the battleplane would never fall into
their hands except as a twisted and tangled mass of metal.
Fortunately the clouds of smoke issuing from the burning buildings
had prevented the Huns from observing the result of their chance
shot; and now the battleplane was at frequent intervals hidden in the
masses of scudding clouds.
Apart from that there was little in her favour, for it was now two
hours before midday. The twilight that had afforded protection on the
occasion of the raid upon the Zeppelin sheds at Olhelt was denied
her.
The manometer now registered a thousand feet. No longer the clouds
afforded protection. The country had the aspect of being fiat, and
almost destitute of trees; nor were there any signs of human
habitation. On the distant eastern horizon could be discerned the
smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town. To prolong the flight much
further would be literally throwing away the chances that the airmen
already held.
"We'll descend here," announced Blake, turning the battleplane head
to wind. "Stand by to jump for it if the wind threatens to capsize
her on landing."
The warning was necessary, for, owing to the jamming of the wing
mechanism, the wings could not be folded immediately upon contact
with the ground. The now rigid expanse of planes would have to
withstand the full force of the gale, and everything depended upon
the angle of inclination--whether it was sufficiently small to enable
the weight of the machine to pin it to the ground.
Down planed the mechanical bird at a tremendous rate. Although it
cleft the air at nearly seventy miles an hour its progress over the
ground and against the wind was practically nil. In point of fact the
battleplane was dropping vertically earthwards at a rate of fifteen
feet per second.
Quickly the almost uniform motion gave place to a series of erratic
jerks. The falling machine was in the influence of the rebound of the
wind from the irregular surface of the ground. The motion reminded
the lads of a small boat encountering the "wash" of a huge steamer.
With a double bump the battleplane struck the ground, reared until
her landing-wheels were three feet in the air, and bumped again. Then
rocking violently she showed every inclination to capsize, until
Athol and the sergeant, sliding to terra firma at the risk of life
and limb, clung tenaciously to the partly-tilted wings.
"Good men!" shouted Blake encouragingly, as he depressed the aerilons
to counteract as much as possible the lifting tendency of the wind
upon the wings. "A spanner there, Dick: shift those two nuts as sharp
as you can."
Dick swarmed over the side, and clinging with one arm and both feet
to one of the vibrating trellis girders, set desperately to work on
the nuts and bolts securing the bent rod to the underside of the left
wing. With the removal of the metal bar the wings were folded, and
for the time being all danger of the battleplane being overturned by
the gale was at an end.
"No signs of our friends the enemy," said Blake, standing erect upon
the deck of the fuselage and sweeping the treeless plain with his
binoculars. "There's a small village about three miles away. I can
see the church spire and the roofs of the houses; the place lies in a
hollow. Beyond that there are no signs of human habitation."
"Don't you think, sir," asked Sergeant O'Rafferty, "that if we pushed
the machine a couple of hundred yards in that direction there would
be more shelter in that dip in the ground? It's not deep enough to
hide the battleplane entirely, but it may help things a bit."
"Certainly, sergeant," agreed Blake. "Every little helps, and we'll
be less exposed to the wind in the hollow."
It was a strenuous task pushing the machine dead in the eye of the
wind, but on gaining the spot that the sergeant had pointed out, the
airmen found that there was almost complete shelter from the full
force of the gale, while the highest part of the crippled machine
showed only a couple of feet above the high ground surrounding the
natural hollow.
Heavy rain was now falling. The stranded aviators faced the
discomfort with rising spirits, for they knew that should the
downpour continue the ground would quickly become a quagmire, and
that the rain would keep the villagers within doors. Nevertheless all
precautions were taken against surprises, since it was quite possible
that workers in the fields had noticed the battleplane's descent, and
had set off to warn the military.
Enveloped in their weather-proof coats, Athol and Sergeant O'Rafferty
mounted guard, taking care to avoid the sky-line. From their
respective posts they could command a vast tract of the neighbouring
countryside, so that, unless the battleplane was stalked by practical
scouts the danger of a surprise was completely obviated.
Meanwhile Blake and Dick were hard at work removing the bent rod.
Upon examination the metal showed no sign of fracture, but it was
essential that it should be straightened before the wing-mechanism
could again be operated.
"We've a tough job here, Dick," observed the inventor as he gazed
upon his damaged handiwork. "Now, if we were at home or at the flying
ground it would be a simple matter. A forge and a blacksmith's anvil
would enable us to rectify the injury in less than an hour."
In vain they applied pressure to the bent rod. They jumped on it,
battered it with the heaviest spanners they possessed. The tough
metal sturdily refused to respond to the treatment. For the first
time since Dick had made Desmond Blake's acquaintance the inventor
showed signs of despair.
"I have an idea!" suddenly exclaimed Dick. "It may work; it may not.
In either case there can't be much harm done."
"Well, what is it?" enquired Blake hopefully. He had already good
cause to appreciate the intelligence of his young assistant, and a
ray of hope flashed across his mind at the lad's words.
"Suppose I take the rod into the village and get them to straighten
it out," began Dick.
Blake frowned. He was on the point of telling the lad not to be
idiotic, when Dick, reading his thoughts, hastened to explain.
"I can speak German well," he continued. "You see, I was three years
at school in Mecklenburg--jolly rotten time I had, too!" he remarked
in parenthesis. "In this great coat and flying helmet I don't suppose
the simple villagers would guess that I was anything but a Hun
aviator. I could try the Kopenick hoax over again. You see, we are
bound to be captured if we can't get the job done, so it's all the
same in the long run."
"There may be soldiers quartered in the village," objected Blake.
"Hardly likely," said Dick. "It is not on a railway line, and
consequently troops are not likely to be stationed there. There might
be some of the Landwehr or Landsturm. If so, they are Prussians. By
passing myself off as a Saxon or a Badener I think that would account
for my slight difference in accent."
"I'll go with you," said Athol.
"No, you don't," objected Dick with a laugh. "This is my show. You
had your time the other day. If I pull it off all right, well and
good; if not, well, we'll most likely have the pleasure of one
another's society in a German prison camp."
"Very well, carry on," said Blake cordially. "And jolly good luck to
you."
The already torrential rain was in itself an excuse for Dick to wear
his aviator's coat buttoned tightly from his neck downwards, while
his padded helmet pulled down over his face left little of his
features exposed. As a precautionary measure he carried his revolver
in its holster conspicuously displayed outside his coat.
Shouldering the bent bar, which, although remarkably tough, weighed
less than seven pounds, Dick bade his comrades "au revoir," and set
off on his three-mile tramp to the village.
It was slow progress. There was no beaten path. The coarse grass-land
was ankle-deep in tenacious mud. The rain blotted out everything
beyond a distance of two hundred yards. Not only was there the risk
of missing the little hamlet, but the more serious danger of losing
touch with the stranded battleplane, which at a distance of a hundred
yards was an almost inconspicuous "hump" in the midst of a monotonous
terrain devoid of anything in the nature of "bearings."
Trudging with his back to the gale Dick held on doggedly. Unless the
wind veered or backed he could be fairly certain of his direction.
With a change of wind, coupled with the fact that the sun was
completely overcast, there would be no means of finding his way.
Before he had covered a mile and a half the lad encountered the first
inhabitant of that dreary district. An old peasant, his bent form
enveloped in a tattered cloak, was tending swine. Dick made no effort
to avoid him. This man's attitude towards him might be taken as a
specimen of the reception he would be likely to receive in the
village. On approaching, the peasant regarded the flying officer with
the undisguised curiosity that dwellers in rural districts invariably
bestow upon strangers; until, realising that the newcomer was one of
the military "caste," the old fellow bared his head, standing stock
still in the downpour until Dick, who curtly acknowledged the act of
homage, had walked past.
A little further on the lad struck a lane, so deep in slime that it
was of no use as a means of progression. Worn several feet below the
surface of the adjoining ground it resembled a stagnant ditch of
liquid mud. However, guessing that it must lead to the village, Dick
struggled gamely on, keeping to the slightly firmer ground by the
side of the primitive by-way.
In another quarter of an hour he descried the misty outlines of the
little village looming up through the mirk.
With a quickening pulse the lad pressed on, and gained the outskirts
of the straggling hamlet. The road, even in the village, was little
better than the quagmire without. At first there were no signs of
human beings. A few ducks revelled in the slush and rain. A gaunt pig
wallowed in the mud, nosing amidst the garbage in search of food.
Peat-reeking smoke was issuing from some of the chimneys, and, beaten
down by the rain, was driving over the saturated ground in eddying
wisps.
Dick hastened onwards in the direction of the church, the only
building with a pretence of importance in the squalid village. At the
same time he kept his eyes and ears on the alert in the hope of
finding some sort of a place where he could get the important work
carried out. There was almost a total absence of shops in this
particular quarter. Commercial intercourse, if any, must be carried
on in a very meagre fashion, he argued.
Presently the lad's quick ear distinguished the clang of a
blacksmith's hammer--not the quick, merry ring that characterises the
smith's activity in Merry England, but the slow, listless hammering
of a toiler whose heart is not in his work.
Guided by the sounds Dick turned down a narrow street until he came
to a low stone and plaster building, through the two glazeless
windows of which bluish smoke was issuing. Over the open door was a
sign, setting forth that Johannes Müller was a skilled worker in
iron-work, especially in connection with agricultural implements.
Striding pompously to the door as well as the slippery nature of the
ground permitted, Dick entered the low smithy. Within were two men,
neither of whom, owing to the hiss of the bellows-fanned flames, had
heard him approach. The elder of the twain was a short, thick-set man
in a grey shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers reaching but a
few inches below his knees, a pair of rusty boots and a paper cap.
His hairy chest and gnarled arms betokened great strength, although
his lower limbs were ill-developed, and seemed scarcely able to
support the weight of his body. His features were coarse and brutal,
the sinister effect being heightened by his soot-stained face and
yellow protruding eyes. He had just set aside a light hammer and was
resting upon the heavy "striker," while his assistant coaxed a mass
of iron into a state of white heat.
The second man's features were hard to judge, for the lower part of
his gaunt face was hidden by a bushy, unkempt beard of a light brown
colour. His clothing consisted of a ragged shirt and trousers; his
toes, innocent of socks, peeped through rents in an odd pair of boots
that in England would look out of place anywhere except on a rubbish
heap. His movements were listless and dejected, and as, for the first
time, he caught sight of Dick, he shot a glance of mingled hatred and
contempt. He made no attempt to attract the smith's attention to the
new-comer, and it was not until the young officer stamped imperiously
upon the cobbled stone floor that the old fellow was aware of the
presence of his uniformed visitor.
The conscript habits of by-gone years were still latent in the
smith's mind. Dropping his hammer, he brought his heels together,
drew himself up as far as his bent frame would allow, and saluted
smartly in the Prussian style.
"I want this straightened out instantly, smith," said Dick, returning
the salute. "It is work of imperial importance."
"Certainly, herr leutnant," replied the man, relieving Dick of his
burden. "A part of one of our incomparable flying machines? An
accident has taken place?"
"Yes," replied Dick, then, realising that he would have to account
for the fact that an officer had to perform the menial work of
bringing the rod to the smithy, he added, "and my sergeant has broken
his leg--the idiot.... So I must needs fetch and carry. ...And not a
single peasant did I meet to relieve me of this weight. The mud and
rain, too, are vile."
"There are few men left here," said the smith. "We are even obliged
to----. But how is this to go, herr leutnant? Are the two slotted
ends to remain in line or across each other, so?"
He traced a rough diagram upon a board by means of a piece of chalk,
at the same time signing to his assistant to get to work with the
bellows.
The man, his face working with anger, merely folded his arms. Again
the smith motioned to him. Dick began to think the assistant was deaf
and dumb, or, perhaps, of weak intellect.
Still meeting with refusal the smith grasped a round bar of iron. The
other, stepping back to the wall snatched up a formidable pair of
tongs.
"Hanged if I do a stroke of work to the job!" exclaimed the man in
unmistakable English. "Let the Bosche do a bit. It will do him good.
Nothin' doing here, old sport."