THE FLYING MACHINE TO THE RESCUE.
"Well, I'm glad that's over," said the luckless Codfish, as he
slipped from behind the steering wheel and hurried out in front to
see what damage had been done. "Phew! we're lucky," he continued, "to
be alive. If that shoe had gone and busted itself on the bridge half
a mile back we would probably have been two bright little angels by
now; gone and done for."
"By the looks of things, I'm done for anyway," said Frank. "We are
lost some miles from Brighton and," looking at his watch, "the train
starts in just seven minutes."
"Maybe they'll wait for you."
"Royal mail trains never wait, and that carries the mail. It's twenty
minutes' work to put that shoe on."
"Shoe, nothing. I put no shoe on. We'll pick up some wayside garage
and till that happens I'll drive on the rim. No damage is done on
our flight up the bank. Here we go, halting but steady."
Frank was silent. He was thinking of the effect his absence would
have on his teammates. It hurt him to think that his captain would
set his nonappearance down to carelessness, and so it had been in a
way. He should not have gone so far. He should have insisted that
Gleason keep away from the steering wheel. Perhaps the need for
his presence would be desperate. His absence might mean, in some
unaccountable way, the loss of the meet. These thoughts and many
others pounded through his brain as the car limped along the road,
but they all had the same refrain: "You've been a failure, you've
been a failure."
Rounding a turn in the road, Gleason caught sight of a garage sign,
and in a minute drew up at the door. "Ten shillings to put that tire
on and put it on quickly," said he. Two workmen from the garage
sprang at the wheel, but they had scarcely begun work when a clock in
a neighboring church tower boomed the half-hour. The boys looked at
each other.
"I know how you feel, Frank," said Gleason. "I was a double-barreled
jackass to take you off this morning, and seventeen times a fool for
getting lost."
"I'm in very badly with everyone," said Frank, "but growling will not
help matters. Maybe there'll be a later train which will get me there
in time."
"I've got you into this, Frank, and I'll get you out of it somehow,
don't worry. There must be another train."
With the new shoe on the front wheel and the garage men the richer by
several shillings more than the Codfish promised, the red runabout
was again headed for Brighton, this time at a more moderate pace.
It was just eleven o'clock when the car drew up at the railroad
station. Frank almost expected to see some of his teammates, but the
platform and waiting-rooms were deserted. Inquiries at the ticket
office brought the information that the next London train was at
twelve-fifteen and did not reach London till one-fifty.
"One-fifty," groaned Frank. "I might as well take the next ship back
to America. I've lost out. I'm disgraced." Both boys were the picture
of gloom.
Suddenly Gleason's face lit with high resolve "Look here, Armstrong,
I'll take you to London in this machine."
"But it isn't ours, and you have no license to drive."
"It's ours as long as we pay ten shillings an hour for it, license or
no license."
"You'd get lost again."
"No, no, it's a straight road. I looked it up once. You follow the
railroad. Look here," he added in great excitement, "the thing can
be done without a grain of doubt. Here it is a little past eleven.
We can certainly average twenty-five miles an hour. That means that
we can be there a little after one. Fortunately, the Club is but a
little ways out of our course, over in West Kensington."
"I'm game for it," said Frank, "but just the same, I don't like the
idea of your going off with a machine and no license. You'll get
jugged for sure if anything goes wrong."
"Nothing's going wrong. I got you into this trouble and I'm going to
get you out somehow. Climb in and hold onto your headgear, we are
only going to hit the high places." He shot away from the station
and swung into the great north road, sign-marked "London," with the
motor humming to the quickened pace.
"Nothing to it, Frank," boasted the confident chauffeur. "This is
the way they all should have come up, plenty of ozone and action, no
stuffy cars. We may even beat them to the club if we have luck," and
he pushed the gas lever a few notches higher, and neatly dodged a dog
curled up in the sand of the road.
Now that he was headed for London, even Frank's spirits rose. What
seemed no chance half an hour ago had been transformed into a
possibility. Well he knew that Gleason was exceeding the speed limit,
but the time was so short a chance had to be taken with tires, road,
police and everything else. The stake was worth it.
One cannot race along the roads of south-east England and race very
far. So the inevitable happened. Ten miles outside of Brighton,
when Gleason was doing something better than forty miles an hour,
he pretended not to hear a hail from the side of the road, and kept
straight on, but he could not help hearing the sharp spatter of a
motorcycle behind him a minute later, and instinctively knew it was
the police. He slowed down till he was running at about fifteen
miles an hour. The officer came alongside. He was plainly angry. "Why
didn't you stop when I called to you?" demanded the officer.
"Oh, did you call?" asked the Codfish innocently.
"We are in a great hurry," explained Frank. "We have to be there by
one o'clock or one-thirty at the latest."
"Now maybe you will and maybe you won't. Turn that car around and
come along with me."
"Look here, this chap here," indicating Frank, "is in that track meet
up at Queen's Club at two o'clock this afternoon. He lost his train
by accident and I promised to get him there. Now, let us go through."
"Can't be done. You Americans all try to tear through the country at
break-neck speed. You can't do it here, I tell you. Let's see your
license."
The Codfish began fumbling in his pockets. "Great Scott! I haven't
got the thing anywhere about my jeans, the chauffeur must have it,
bad luck to him."
"Another thing to explain to the magistrate. Come along now."
The Codfish reluctantly tacked the car around and followed his guide
to the little hamlet where the officer first hailed him from the
roadside.
To the disgust of the two American youths the magistrate could not be
found, a piece of news imparted to them by the officer after a ten
minutes' search around the little court building off the main street.
"Well, now, let us go along," insisted the Codfish. "We've made our
call, the magistrate isn't in. We've done our duty, now let's call
it off. When you come to America I'll get you a job on the police
force of Syracuse. Come on, be a good scout and let's be hitting the
gravel. This fellow here with me has to jump in the track games at
Queen's Club grounds, and it will be a great disappointment to his
friends if he can't be there, to say nothing about his own feelings.
Think how it would be if he were your own offspring and was jumping
for the English to help lick the Yankees." His cross-fire on the
officer might possibly have had some effect if affairs had not taken
a new and sudden turn for the worse. As the Codfish was making his
arguments, a messenger came up and handed the officer a note. He
read it, looked over our friends who were still seated in the car and
ran his eye over the car.
"You're a pretty slick young fellow," he said, "but both of you will
stay with us for a while. You are in pretty deep."
"How so?" inquired Frank.
"As if you didn't know! Perhaps you never heard of this," and he read
the message he had just received: "Stop and hold two young men in red
runabout Number 1664B. Stolen from chauffeur near Brighton, known to
have started for London shortly after eleven o'clock." The message
was signed by the Chief of Police of Brighton.
"A lovely kettle of fish," commented Gleason. "Do you remember once
of telling me that I could get into trouble in a desert island?"
"I do and it's true."
"It would be still true if I were alone in the middle of the Pacific.
But there's one thing about this business which cheers me: you are
now a member of the Criminal Club at Yale in good standing."
"I'd rather be in good standing up at Queen's Club. Do you realize
that the team is at London now and we are in the lock-up?"
For the greater part of an hour Frank and Gleason were held in
durance vile as automobile thieves, and as a secondary count,
breaking the speed limit. But all things finally come to an end. The
magistrate was found, and sat with great dignity on the case. One
of his first acts was to fine Gleason the sum of five pounds for
excessive speed and then to declare him still liable to the charge
of theft. Fortunately for the Codfish and Frank, who momentarily
expected to be thrown into the village jail, the chauffeur, who had
been overcome with the desire to see his parents that morning and who
had been the innocent cause of most of the trouble, appeared with
the proprietor of the garage where the little red runabout had been
obtained.
Explanations soon followed. The garage proprietor verified all that
the boys said about their being a part of the American team and
followers, and his hand being properly greased with American dollars
from the plethoric purse of Gleason, was perfectly willing that the
car should go on to London, driven by his own chauffeur.
"But remember," said the magistrate, "not over twenty miles an hour
or you'll be brought in before you get to your journey's end."
"At twenty miles an hour," said Frank, "it is no more good to us than
an ox-cart. It is nearly one o'clock now and two hours on the road
would bring us there too late. I guess it's too late all right," and
he turned away, deeply moved by the thought that his hard work, the
three thousand-mile trip across the water, the ambitions of himself
and of his friends, all went for naught. Tears of chagrin came to his
eyes.
"Nothing on earth can save us now," acquiesced the Codfish. "O Lord,
if I only had an aeroplane with about a hundred horse-power motor in
it," he wailed.
"Guess they could accommodate you down at Burtside," said the officer
who, now the incident was closed, showed a friendly interest in the
two young men.
"What do you mean?" Frank burst out.
"Oh, there's a flyin' school down at Burtside, 'bout half a mile from
here. Perhaps they'd rent one to you young chaps for the afternoon."
"Great Peter!" cried the Codfish, "let's try. Here's a chance. Here,"
to the returned chauffeur, "drive us down to that aeroplane place if
you know where it is. I'm going to buy one."
"Yes, sir," said the chauffeur, thinking that the young Americans
had better be favored for they were very likely mad as March hares.
How could they be otherwise, having first run away with his machine
and then, being deprived of that, willing to buy an air craft to
continue the journey. But he piloted the boys to Burtside which
proved to be a flying school of some importance with biplanes and
monoplanes in the hangars, and two or three beginners at the flying
game, receiving instruction. The boys quickly explained their errand.
They wanted to get to London in desperate haste, trains couldn't
accomplish it, automobiles at the rate they let them run over
English roads couldn't and there was no other way but the air. The
director of the school was not sure whether it could be done or not.
Money, Gleason told him, was no object, which played its part in the
decision. By good fortune one of the aviators in the school was a
young American who had been flying with great success in England for
a year. He heard of the plight of his compatriots, and readily agreed
to take Frank up. He would take one or the other, but not both.
"I'm willing to pay $200 if you will take Frank Armstrong to the
Queen's Club, or as near to that point as you can get, and I'll give
you an equal amount not to take me."
"You needn't be afraid," said Butler, "I have no machine that will
carry more than one passenger. It will have to be only one of you."
"That suits us both. Armstrong, here, wants to go and I don't, so
we're all satisfied."
"Have you ever been up?" inquired Butler of Frank.
"Never, but I'm determined to get to London if I can, and I don't
care how it is."
"All right," said Butler. "We have no time to lose. I'll get out the
big biplane." The plane was run out of the hangar, examined closely
by the attendants, looked over in a cursory manner by the aviator
himself. "Now," he said to Frank, "hop up here alongside of me, to
the right. Take hold of that wooden support and put your feet on this
wire. Don't look down or you may get dizzy. I'm going about five
hundred feet high. Keep your eyes straight ahead and forget you're
flying."
"Good-by, old fellow," said the Codfish, half in fun and half in
earnest, as Frank climbed to his precarious place alongside the
aviator, and then to Butler, "Where do you come down?"
"One can never tell in this business, but I will try to land in
Hendon, which is only about three miles from the Club."
"And how long will it take?"
"Somewhere about thirty minutes if the wind aloft is as steady and
strong as it seems to be down here."
"Frank, that will get you to Hendon at one-forty-five, and a taxi
will do the rest. I'll come as fast as I can in the motor, and if we
don't get pinched again I may get to dear old London in time to see
the finish."
"All ready," sang out Butler. A half dozen attendants clung fast to
the trail of the big biplane while another spun the propeller. The
engine immediately sprang into noisy life, the roar of the exhaust
drowning out all human speech in the neighborhood. Gleason saw the
hands of the aviator drop off the steering-wheel in a downward
sweeping signal which meant "let go," a signal instantly obeyed
by the attendants, who dropped flat on the ground while the great
tail of the birdlike monster swept over their heads with an ever
increasing rush. For fifty or sixty feet the running gear of the
machine kept on the ground, but, as the velocity increased and Butler
elevated his plane, the machine gradually cleared the earth and
soared aloft. The Codfish watched it as it rose and followed it in
the vastness of the sky vault until there was but a mere dot against
the fluffy clouds in the northern sky.