Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
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[Illustration: FREEMAN GAVE A WARNING SHOUT: “DOWN WITH YOU, SHE’S
TRAILING HER ANCHOR!” _Page 15._ _The Aeroplane Scouts In France and
Belgium._]
Our Young Aeroplane Scouts In France and Belgium OR Saving the Fortunes
of the Trouvilles
By HORACE PORTER
AUTHOR OF
“Our Young Aeroplane Scouts In Germany.” “Our Young
Aeroplane Scouts In Russia.” “Our Young
Aeroplane Scouts In Turkey.”
[Illustration]
A.L. BURT COMPANY
NEW YORK
* * * * *
Copyright, 1915 BY A. L. BURT COMPANY
OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM
* * * * *
OUR YOUNG AEROPLANE SCOUTS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM.
CHAPTER I. THRILLING VOYAGE IN A SEA-PLANE.
It was a muggy night in Dover--not an unusual thing in Dover--but
nevertheless the wind had an extra whip in it and was lashing the
outside Channel into a state of wild waves. An acetylene flare revealed
several muffled figures flitting here and there on the harbor brink.
There was a glint from polished surface, a flash-like, downward rush
of a long, tapering hull, and a splash in the dark waters below. A
sea-plane had been deftly launched. Motors hummed, a wide wake streamed
away to the rear of the wonder craft, which, suddenly, as if by magic
drawn upward from the tide, joined the winds that sported aloft.
Captain Leonidas Johnson, noted as an airman in the four quarters of
the globe, sat tight behind the rudder wheel, and back in the band-box
engine room was Josiah Freeman, one time of Boston, U. S. A.
Two aboard were not of the regular crew. Behind the wind-screen were
Billy Barry and Henri Trouville, our Aviator Boys, bound for the coast
of France, and bound to get there.
Ever higher and higher, the intrepid navigators sailed into a clearing
atmosphere, where the clouds were being gathered into a moonlight bath.
The 120’s were forcing a speed of something like a mile to the minute,
and doing it at 2000 feet above the sea level.
Through Dover Straits the swift trend of the great mechanical bird was
toward the North Sea, the blurring high lights of Dover fading in the
distance rearward and Calais showing a glimmer on the distant right.
Captain Johnson switched on the ghost light to get his bearings
from the facing dials, and speaking to the shadowy figures in the
observation seat indulged in a bit of humor by asking:
“You young daredevils, how does this strike you?”
An answering high note from Billy:
“You’re doing bully, Captain, but mind your eye and don’t knock a hole
in Dunkirk by flying too low.”
“Well, of all the nerve,” chuckled the veteran wheelman, “‘flying too
low,’ and the sky almost close enough to touch.”
A pressure forward on the elevating lever shot the sea-plane downward,
and the turn again to level keel was made a scant five hundred feet
above the choppy surface of the Channel.
“We’ll take to boating again at Dunkirk,” observed the captain, but the
observation was heard only by himself, for now the wind and the waves
and the motors and the straining of the aircraft combined to drown even
a voice like the captain’s.
There was destined to be no landing that night at Dunkirk. An offshore
gale, not to be denied, suddenly swept the Channel with howling force.
Rising, dipping, twisting, the sea-plane dashed on in uncertain course,
and when at last it had outridden the storm, Ostend was in sight--the
Atlantic City of the Belgians.
The stanch aircraft, with engines silenced, rocked now upon the heaving
tide. Its tanks were empty. Not a drop of petrol in them. Retreat was
impossible, and in the broad light of the new day there was no place of
concealment.
While four shivering shapes shifted cramped positions and gratefully
welcomed the warming sun-rays, they were under survey of powerful
field-glasses in the hands of a gray-garbed sentry.