THE SEAPLANE'S QUEST
"S' LONG, you festive blighters! Good luck!"
With this typically airman's farewell ringing in his ears
Flight-lieutenant John Fuller, D.S.O., clambered lightly into the
pilot's seat of Seaplane 445B.
Owing to Billy Barcroft's absence on leave a change round had been
effected in the composition of the crews of the seaplane carrier
"Hippodrome's" little nest of hornets, and as a result Fuller found
himself in company with Bobby Kirkwood as his observer.
It was the night of the Barborough raid. The "Hippodrome," bound for
the Firth of Forth, had picked up a wireless when some where off the
Yorkshire coast, reporting the presence of four Zeppelins.
Aeroplanes and seaplanes attached to the north-eastern bases had
already ascended in the hope of cutting off the returning
air-pirates, and in conjunction with these operations the
"Hippodrome" was about to send out her airmen to grapple with the
enemy in the darkness.
It was indeed a formidable and hazardous undertaking. The returning
Zeppelins would certainly take advantage of the stiff westerly
breeze. By keeping to a great altitude and shutting off their
engines they drift, silent and unseen, over the East Coast, until it
is deemed advisable to restart the motors. Even the disadvantage
caused by the immense bulk of the vulnerable envelope would be
discounted by its invisibility in the darkness of the night.
The Zeppelins could keep "afloat" by the buoyancy of their
hydrogen-charged ballonets; the aeroplanes, being heavier than air,
could not, except for a comparatively brief vol-plane, without the
aid of their propellers, The roar of the latter would betray their
presence to the watchers on the silent airship.
Altogether the seaplane's task savoured of a wild goose chase, only
by a pure fluke might one of the aeroplanes "spot" one of the
returning raiders, but on the remote chance of being able to do so
the "Hippodrome's" aerial flotilla set out on its hazardous flight.
For three-quarters of an hour No 445B flew to and fro parallel to
the coast. It was bitterly cold. At a minimum height of five
thousand feet was a vast bank of clouds that drifted steadily
eastwards.
Occasionally Kirkwood took down a wireless report from the parent
ship and handed it to the pilot. Hardly a word was spoken. The voice
tube was resorted to only once in that forty-five minutes.
"I'm going further out," announced Fuller. "We'll clear that patch
of clouds."
With her motors purring rhythmically and the pistons throbbing in
perfect tune the seaplane swung round and settled in an easterly
direction, the while climbing steadily. Behind her was the tail end
of a nimbus; above, through a vast rift the stars twinkled in the
cold sky; beneath, thousands of feet down, was the sea, its vicious,
steep waves invisible in the kindly darkness.
Suddenly, from the enshrouding masses of cloud, a dark,
symmetrically elongated shape shot rapidly into the starlight. It
was a Zeppelin in full flight. Columns of smoke were issuing from
her exhausts, but the throb of the seaplane's motors drowned the
drone of her powerful engines.
"Good!" ejaculated Fuller, actuating the rudder bar with his feet
and elevating the ailerons. "That's our bird. If they don't spot us
before they gain that bank of clouds, she's ours."
Eagerly yet methodically Kirkwood brought the Lewis gun ready for
action. It was to be the last resource in attack, to be used only if
the seaplane failed to gain the aerial "weathergage"--a superior
altitude to that of her bulky antagonist.
For the present the odds were level as regards speed. The seaplane's
greater rate of flight was counterbalanced by the fact that she had
to climb in order to get above her intended prey and drop a bomb
upon the immense and fragile bulk of the Zeppelin's envelope.
And Fuller was achieving his object. Already Seaplane 445B was
passing diagonally upwards through the raider's smoking trail, the
oil tinged vapour from her exhaust pipes. Every moment tended to
bring the protruding stern portion of the Zep, betwixt her crew and
the steadily climbing aeroplane, thus diminishing the risk of
detection.
Fuller was about to check the upward climb and overhaul his
antagonist when the Zeppelin appeared almost to stand on end. The
whole of her upper surface was exposed to the British airmen's view.
Then, almost simultaneously the seaplane seemed to be following.
It was a form of optical delusion. She was still climbing steadily.
The Zeppelin had spotted her small and dangerous foe. Dropping a
quantity of ballast _en bloc_ the airship shot vertically upward to
a terrific height. It was this motion that had given Fuller the
impression that the seaplane was dropping.
"She's twigged us!" he shouted through the voice tube. "Let her have
it."
The A.P. promptly began to let loose a whole drum of ammunition. The
Zeppelin was instantly enveloped in a cloud of smoke. Into the pall
of vapour the Lewis gun pumped its nickel missiles, yet no crippled
flaming fabric crashed helplessly to the surface of the sea.
The smoke was a "blind." Fuller realised that. Screening herself by
the dense vapour the Zeppelin had ascended almost vertically until
safe from observation in the dense clouds overhead.
"Missed her, by Jove!" ejaculated the flight-lieutenant.
"More than she did us," replied Kirkwood coolly, in spite of his
keen disappointment, for a small-calibre bullet had ripped the
ear-pad of his airman's helmet. Whether his ear was hit he knew not.
The intense cold had numbed all sense of feeling. The shot was
evidently from a Maxim and one of many, but in the darkness it was
impossible to see whether the seaplane had sustained any damage.
Judging by her behaviour Kirkwood thought not.
Yet Fuller was loath to discontinue the chase. On and on he flew,
further and further away from the "Hippodrome" and the shores of
Britain, vainly hoping to pick up his quarry when the Zeppelin again
emerged from the cloud banks.
"I'll swear she's shut off power and is floating somewhere in that
cloud," he soliloquised. "Well, I'll have a shot at it, even if we
charge smack into the brute."
With this desperate yet praiseworthy resolution the
flight-lieutenant swung his frail command about and began to climb
steadily towards the mass of dark clouds. Ten minutes later the
seaplane entered the lower edge of the nimbus. It was like tearing
through a dense fog. All sense of direction was lost. Whether the
machine was climbing, banking or descending was a matter of
conjecture, since the darkness and the moisture made it impossible
to consult the aeronautical instrument. Ahead was nothing but an
opaque curtain of mist. On either side the tips of the planes merged
into invisibility. Only astern were there any light-sparks from the
hot exhaust throwing a faint, ruddy glare upon the wisps of trailing
vapour that followed, circling and writhing, in the wake of the
swiftly-moving machine.
"If the Huns are anywhere in this stuff they'll get in a rare funk
even if we don't run across them," thought Fuller, Unmindful of the
danger of his own seeking he mentally pictured the panic-stricken
condition of the raider, as hearing the roar of the seaplane's
motors and unable to locate its position, they were in momentary
peril of being rammed by an object tearing at ninety miles an hour
through an optically impenetrable darkness.
Kirkwood, too, realised the risk. With nerves a-tingle he awaited
developments. Faith in Fuller's prowess gave him confidence. With
one hand resting lightly on the lever operating the bomb-dropping
gear he waited, ready at the first signal to release the missiles of
annihilation.
Suddenly the muffled roar of the exhaust gave place to a series of
rapid explosions. Instinctively Kirkwood likened it to a boy rasping
a stick along a row of iron palings. At the same time a succession
of spurts of flame streaked overhead. The seaplane had only just
scraped the underside of her antagonist. The upper planes had missed
the Zeppelin's 'midship gondola by inches, and the flashes he had
seen were from the airship's machine-gun as the Huns blazed
furiously and erratically at their unseen but unpleasantly audible
foe.
Up spun 445B, until she seemed to stand almost on her tail. Then
tilting until she was in imminent danger of side-slipping, she
sought to make good her discovery. Vainly Fuller circled and
circled, striving to pierce the vault of inky blackness. The
Zeppelin was no longer there. Whether she had thrown out some more
ballast or had trusted to her motors to bear her away from the
unseen terror he knew not.
He was not a man to admit defeat readily.
"I'll make 'em have cold feet in any case," he decided, as he
removed his mist-dimmed goggles and peered into the luminous compass
bowl. "Due east till we get out of this cloud, and then I'll wait
for the brute."
Unfortunately, as far as he was concerned, Fuller's decision could
not be carried out, for from no apparent cause the motors raced at
unprecedented speed for a brief instant and then stopped.
The contrast from the noise of the engine to the stillness of the
upper regions was the feature that impressed him most. The seaplane,
at a height of ten thousand feet, and in the midst of a dense cloud,
was beginning to fall. Vainly the pilot strove to avoid the
nerve-racking "tail-spin." His sense of direction gone he could only
jiggle the joy-stick in the hope that the terrific headlong, erratic
downward rush might be checked.
Kirkwood, secured by the broad leather safety strap, also realised
the danger. He was conscious of being whirled round and round with
his body in a horizontal position. He could feel the rush of air as
the seaplane dropped, otherwise silently, towards the sea. Unless
the machine could be got under control their fate was sealed. The
frail floats would be pulverised and splintered with the terrific
impact, and the wreckage, weighted down by the heavy motor, would
sink like a stone.
For sixty seconds--it seemed like sixty hours--the uncontrollable
plunge continued, then like a flash the tail-spinning machine
emerged from the under side of the cloud into the comparatively
clear atmosphere. With an almost superhuman effort Fuller readjusted
the sorely tried ailerons. The resistance on the planes was
tremendous, but the fabric and the tension wires were British made,
with a sickening jerk the seaplane described a complete loop. In the
nick of time the resourceful pilot caught her on the "swing" and
flattened out.
Once the motion was sufficiently retarded he commenced a vol-plane.
It was, perhaps, prolonging the agony, since there could be little
hope of rescue on a dark night, even if the waves did not overwhelm
the frail craft.
"Stand by!" shouted Fuller. "Look down--on your right."
The A.P., well nigh breathless through the pressure of the belt upon
his ribs, leant over the side of the chassis. Two thousand feet
below, with her drawn-out shape glittering dully in the starlight,
was another Zeppelin. The first, silhouetted against the faint
light, had presented a black shape; this one showed up clearly in
her aluminium garb against the darkness. She was proceeding rapidly
at a height of about three thousand feet, and now less than a
thousand beneath the vol-planing British craft.
"Our luck's in!" exclaimed the flight-lieutenant, his thoughts only
for the immediate present. It would be sufficient to consider the
end of that terrific vol-plane when the moment arrived. For the
present it was not even a secondary matter--it did not enter into
the intrepid airman's calculation.
"Stand by!" roared Fuller again. "For Heaven's sake don't miss."
Down swept the noiseless biplane upon its unsuspecting prey.
According to Fuller's plans he would approach the Zeppelin in the
same vertical plane but at an acute angle--both aircraft proceeding
in the same direction. This would give the bombs a better target
than if the seaplane was cutting across the path of the airship.
So swift was the descent that the Zeppelin appeared to be rising in
the air to meet her opponent. Her huge, long-drawn-out mass grew
bigger and bigger until it seemed as if a miss would be an
impossibility.
"Now!" shouted the flight-lieutenant.
With a swift, decided movement Kirkwood thrust over the
releasing-gear lever. There was no resistance. Unaccountably the
flexible wire operating the release catch had been detached. Without
a moment's hesitation the A.P. unbuckled his belt and, bending,
groped on the floor of the fuselage for the business-end of the
wire. Just then the Zep, opened fire with her machine-gun.
Fuller, leaning over the side waited in eager expectation of the
anticipated explosion, quite prepared to find the seaplane capsized
under the blast of the terrific detonation. But there was none, and
already the vol-planing machine was beyond and on a level with the
Zeppelin. Without the aid of the motor it was impossible to return
to the attack.
Savagely Fuller swung round with the intention of demanding the
reason of his observer's blunder. To his surprise the A.P., was not
to be seen.
"Plugged!" ejaculated the pilot. "Well, here goes; another two
minutes will decide."
The Zeppelin was now out of his mind. His whole attention was
devoted to the impending impact with the surface of the water. Every
thing depended upon his skill and judgment, with a fair element of
luck thrown in. In the darkness it was impossible to gauge with any
degree of certainty the height of the descending machine above the
sea. If the pilot "flattened out" too soon the seaplane would fall
like a stone; if, on the other hand the vol-plane were maintained
the fraction of a minute too long the impact would either result in
the shattering of the floats or in the machine describing a
somersault--possibly both.
With a double plash the flat-bottomed floats smacked the waves. The
"landing" was successfully accomplished, but the unpleasant fact
remained that Fuller and Kirkwood were afloat in a frail cockleshell
in a fairly "jumpy" sea and on a pitch-dark night. Without water and
provisions and with no aid in sight and already sixty miles or more
from land they were rapidly drifting out to sea nearer and nearer
the hostile shores of Germany.