Wheeling up from behind them on the higher shoulder of the hill, an
airplane spiraled into the upper ether, in an attempt to get above the
huge machine that had, two minutes before, appeared out of the sea fog.
But this attempt to balk the Hun, like those of the anti-aircraft guns
in their emplacements about the port, promised little success.
The fog had made the close approach of the huge Zeppelin possible, and
now the rumble of the motors of the enemy machine could be heard clearly
by the four Navy Boys on the hillside and their two companions.
“Oh, cracky!” gasped Al Torrance. “She’s coming!”
“And right this way!” gulped Ikey Rosenmeyer. “If she drops a bomb--”
“Good-night!” completed Frenchy in a sepulchral tone.
“Let’s get under cover!” cried George Belding, striving again to get
away from the “friendly grip” of the British sailor, Willum Johnson.
“Hold on!” commanded Whistler Morgan. “No use losing our heads over
this.”
“If one of those bombs lands near us we’ll likely lose more than our
heads,” grumbled Torry.
“Wait! If we run like a bunch of scared rabbits, we are likely to run
right into danger rather than away from it.”
“Those horns down there say ‘Find a cellar!’” whispered Frenchy.
“Oi, oi!” added Ikey. “There ain’t no cellars up here on this hill yet.”
“Keep cool,” repeated Whistler. The other boys were used to listening to
him, and to following his advice. He was a cautious as well as a
courageous lad, and his chums were usually safe in following Philip
Morgan’s lead.
These four boys, all hailing from the New England coast town of Seacove,
had begun their first “hitch,” as an enlistment is called, in the United
States Navy as apprentice seamen, several months before America got into
the Great War, and some months before the oldest of the four was
eighteen.
They had now spent more than a year and a half in the service, and their
experiences had been many and varied. After their initial training at
Saugarack, the big Naval training camp, the four chums, with others of
their friends and camp associates, had been sent aboard the torpedo boat
destroyer, _Colodia_, one of the newest, largest, and fastest of her
type in the United States Navy.
The _Colodia’s_ first two cruises were full of excitement and adventure
for the four Navy Boys, especially for Philip Morgan; for he fell
overboard from the destroyer and was picked up by the German submarine
U-812, and his experiences thereon and escape therefrom, are narrated in
the first volume of this series, entitled: “Navy Boys After the
Submarines; Or, Protecting the Giant Convoy.”
The second of the series, “Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider; or Landing a
Million Dollar Prize,” relates the experiences of these four friends on
a longer and even more adventurous cruise of the _Colodia_. Under the
command of Ensign MacMasters, the Navy Boys as members of a prize crew,
took the captured _Graf von Posen_ into Norfolk; and their experiences
on the captured raider made a dramatic and exciting story of the
day-by-day work of the boys of the Navy.
Through their kind friend Mr. Alonzo Minnette, who was holding a
volunteer position at Washington in the Navy Department, the four chums
obtained a chance to cruise with the superdreadnaught _Kennebunk_, a
brand new and one of the largest of the modern American fighting
machines launched during the first months of the war. The _Colodia_
having gone across the Atlantic while the boys were with the captured
raider, they with Ensign MacMasters were very glad to join the crew of
the huge superdreadnaught in the interim.
The third volume of the series, “Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns; Or,
Sinking the German U-Boats,” took our heroes into perils and adventures
which they will long remember, for they included work in the gun turrets
of the _Kennebunk_, a wreck that threatened the lives of all four chums,
a mix-up with German spies, and finally a record trip across the
Atlantic by which the huge superdreadnaught arrived at the rendezvous in
time to take part in a naval engagement which put a part of the Hun navy
to flight.
Now the four friends were back on the _Colodia_ which was doing patrol
duty off the English and French coasts, and convoying troop and food
ships through the submarine and mine zones. The base of the squadron of
which the destroyer was a member was at this English port, on the
hillside above which Philip Morgan, Alfred Torrance, Michael Donahue and
Ikey Rosenmeyer have been introduced just as they met the American
sailor lad, George Belding, and his doubtful friend, the giant
ex-coster, “Willum” Johnson.
“Keep cool,” Whistler urged again, as the Zeppelin sailed inland. “There
is no use running----”
His further speech was smothered by a terrific explosion from the port
below. A lurid burst of flame, stronger than the sunlight, shot into the
air where a wharf and warehouse had been. Smoke followed, instantly
hiding the mark the bomb from the Zeppelin had found.
This daylight raid was the boldest the Germans had attempted. The enemy
must have supposed the fog was over the land as well as the sea, or he
would never have risked the attack.
Again a nerve-racking explosion following a flash of light that seared
their eyeballs, and the middle of the town--the market place--was
shrouded by thick smoke.
“The dirty ’ounds!” bawled the British seaman, suddenly finding his
voice. “The dirty ’ounds! They’re killin’ women an’ kids down there!
Lemme get my bloomin’ ’ands on ’em!”
He dropped George Belding’s collar at last and would have started in a
clumsy run down the hill. It was Whistler who stopped him, with a
two-handed grip on the Englishman’s collar now.
“What good would you be down there, man?” the American youth demanded.
“You’d only get yours, too, maybe. Those bombs are falling two or three
thousand feet.”
“Argh!” growled Willum Johnson, shaking his huge fists in the air, his
face raised to the coming Zeppelin. The growl was animal-like, not
human. “Argh! Lemme get ’em----”
A third bomb exploded. A big house below them, half way down the
hillside, disappeared. It was as though a monstrous sponge had been
wiped across that spot and erased the building!
“Oh! Look out! Look out!” sobbed Frenchy, and covered his eyes with his
hands.
His chum Ikey shook beside him, but could not close his eyes to the
horror.
The Zeppelin was curving around, evidently determined to make for the
sea and the fogbank again. Beneath it, on either side, even above it,
the bursts of white smoke betrayed the explosion of aerial shells the
defense guns were firing at the enemy machine. And all the time the
single British airplane on duty was climbing skyward.
“If that thing can only get above the Zep.!” murmured Al Torrance.
Suddenly the airplane darted toward the sea, in a sharp slant upward.
Bravely the pilot sought to cut off the Zeppelin’s escape into the
fogbank out of which she had burst five minutes before.
Guns from the Huns’ airship began to bark. They were firing on the
British plane. The latter’s guns made no reply as she continued to mount
into the upper air.
The course of the Hun machine was changed again. In approaching the
hills surrounding the port the Zeppelin was brought much nearer to the
earth.
The ship was indeed a monster! Swung landward to escape the mounting
airplane, the Zeppelin, its motors thundering, came closer and closer to
the spot where the American sailor boys were standing.
“Bli’me!” roared the apparently fast-sobering Britisher. “They are goin’
to drop one o’ them blarsted buns on our bloomin’ ’eads!”
“‘Buns’ is good,” groaned Al. “_Here she comes!_”
It seemed as though the great airship was directly above them. The boys
actually saw the bomb released and fall!
There was no possible mistake on the part of the brutal crew and
commander of the Zeppelin. They knew very well the bomb would fall upon
no warship in the harbor, or any possible storage place of munitions. Up
here on the hillside were nothing but little dwellings and--the
schoolhouse!
As though it were aimed at that house of instruction, the great shell
fell and burst! If teacher and pupils had descended into the cellar at
the first alarm of the horns and guns, it would scarcely have availed to
save them. The shot was too direct.
One moment the green-tiled, freshly whitened walls of the schoolhouse
stood out plainly against the yellow and green landscape. Then, with a
roar, it was wiped out and a huge balloon of whitish brown smoke took
its place.
The explosion shook the air and the earth. The group of Navy Boys were
struck to the ground. Only the gigantic figure of Willum Johnson
remained erect, and he wavering on his feet and mouthing threats at the
enemy.
“They killed ’em! They killed ’em!” he bawled, when he could be heard.
“The women an’ the kids!”
He started on a staggering run, up the road this time, as though trying
to follow the wake of the fast descending Zeppelin. The British airplane
was above the enemy machine and was raking it with machine gun fire.
Some damage had been suffered by the Zeppelin. She was descending, out
of control.
But Morgan ran down the hill, toward the bombed schoolhouse--or the
place where it had been. The other boys followed him. Frenchy was
frankly crying, and Ikey clung to his hand as though afraid to let go.