IN WHICH NED’S LIFE IS SAVED
While Roy’s wild cry of alarm yet filled the engine room, other words
broke on the ears of the dazed boys.
“What’s the matter with Ned!” came in a shriek through the pilot room
tube.
Bob was already at Roy’s side, crowding the trap opening in gasping
alarm. Nearly 2,000 feet below them the haze of Brooklyn thickened into
a cloud. Sweeping backward in the rush of flight the empty rope ladder
told of their companion’s fate. The “sky sick” Buck seemed desperate.
Weak and trembling as he was, the tragedy that seemed to paralyze Roy
and Bob galvanized him into action. Forgetting the illness that was on
him, he pushed Roy and Bob aside and forced his head through the door.
“All right, old man; you’re all right!” heard the boys in the car.
“We’ll get you in a second; you’re safe; keep your head. He’s all
right,” shouted Buck drawing his head into the car. “He’s in the crane;
he’s all right; it’s safe; it’ll hold him: Get a line,” he went on,
breathless but cool and determined now. “Get a line—quick!”
“Hurry up here,” came a second agonizing cry from Alan in the pilot
house, “some one! What’s the matter? Quick.”
“He’s all right,” yelled Bob in answer. “He’s on the crane. We’ll have
him in a minute.”
“Send Roy here,” came back instantly. “Quick!”
His pallid face yet stamped with fear, Roy understood. He was the only
one to take Alan’s place. Without even a look below he rushed into the
store room and up the ladder. Almost before he grasped the pilot wheel
Alan had dropped to the deck below. But he was not quicker than Bob and
Buck. The latter’s feet were already through the trapdoor and on the
ladder rungs. From its hook on the port gallery just outside the engine
room door, Bob had caught up one of the buoy life lines. It was fragile
looking but tested to 750 pounds. Bob did not yet fully understand the
situation but he had acted instantly on Buck’s orders.
“The line!” came again from the young Kentuckian, one of whose hands
could now alone be seen. As Buck’s fingers grasped the rope Alan tumbled
into the room.
“He’s on the crane,” panted Bob.
“Come back, let me down there,” shouted Alan dropping over the trap.
“Pay out that line,” was Buck’s only answer. “Gimme me more of it.”
“Don’t try that,” yelled Alan anew as he tried to grasp Buck’s swaying
body, “I’ll do it. Come up!”
If the tense Buck heard these injunctions he gave no sign of obeying.
The tenderfoot who, five minutes before, had been writhing in the
miseries of “sky sickness,” was now clinging to the swinging ladder with
his feet and his left arm. With death defying recklessness he did not
even grasp the rung of the ladder with his hand. His left arm thrust
between two rungs, he was using his left hand and his free right hand to
draw the life line through the trap and coil it in a loop. Then,
catching the circles of the line in his right hand, he grasped a ladder
rung with his left and balanced his body to cast the coiled rope.
“Stop! Stop!” called Alan again. “Wait till we get a rope around you.”
But Buck seemed deaf to appeal or command. He had thoughts only for the
figure beyond him swinging helplessly back and forth, caught on the
long, pendulumlike crane. With each movement of the airship the twenty
foot metal arm swung forward and backward as if to shake Ned from his
hazardous hold. And with each swing of the fragile crane, the spidery
ladder and Buck moved back and forth like a shadow. Cold with fear, Alan
and Bob were helpless. To follow Buck on the ladder was impossible.
“Make a landing,” cried Bob hoarsely. All had happened so quickly that
no one had even thought of this. “Hold on,” he yelled through the door,
“we’re goin’ down.”
Alan was already at the tube.
“Put her down,” he screamed, “or they’ll both be killed. Quick! Put her
down—in the water!”
He sprang to the pilot house ladder and then stumbled back and threw
himself on the floor at the door. The panic that had seized him and Bob
was lessening. His muscles still numb with sickening fear, his mind had
begun to work.
“Another line,” he panted to Bob, “the starboard buoy, Stewart,” he
added quickly, “don’t throw till we make you fast. Wait!”
But the reporter gave him no heed. Buck, who had not yet cast his life
line, hung poised like a cat.
“Keep your nerve, Ned,” called out Alan hoarsely, “we’re goin’ down.
We’ll get you in a minute. Hold on!”
The boy hanging between life and death, made no response. Alan, his head
through the trap, saw that Ned had no thought but for Buck and the
coiled rope. He seemed not to hear the words meant for him. Then Alan
saw for the first time that his chum’s lips were set. His face was
distorted as if by pain.
“Hurry!” shouted Alan again as Bob threw an end of the starboard buoy
line from the gallery. Even Roy in the pilot room above, despite the
vibration of the planes and the noise of the engines, heard the cry. It
was needless so far as he was concerned. From its height of nearly two
thousand feet the _Flyer_ was already on the first downward sweep of a
huge spiral.
Grasping the new line Alan prepared to lower it to Buck. He had quickly
doubled it for added strength and was looping it to drop over the nervy
reporter’s head and arms when the _Flyer’s_ first dip was felt. With the
first sensation of it Alan was at the tube.
“Stop! stop!” he yelled, “or they’ll both be lost.”
When the bow of the car dropped, both the crane and the ladder swung
forward violently. The metal to which Ned was clinging in apparent
desperate pain, dropped far below his would be rescuer and both Ned and
Buck grasped their fragile supports anew.
“Don’t!” shouted Buck. “Don’t! Keep her up. I’ll get him. Don’t do
that.”
For the first time Ned spoke. Far forward and low beneath the car, he
looked up and caught Alan’s eye. First, he shook his head while he
seemed almost to groan with pain.
“Even keel—” he began and then stopped. Alan saw him, gripping his steel
supports, vainly attempt to raise his body. One of his legs was free.
The other was between the narrowing arms of the V. It was caught as if
in a vise. While this had saved the victim from instant death, every
dart or movement of the flying car wedged Ned’s leg tighter. With Buck’s
words in his ears, and the sight of Ned’s predicament before him Alan
sprang to the tube once more.
“Stop her and hold her!” he called, his voice husky with a return of
sickening apprehension. “Level and steady!”
Bob now had the looped line which he extended in vain for Buck’s use.
The reporter on the ladder neither looked above nor gave attention to
the rope that might safeguard his position. The swaying crane and ladder
had lessened their sweeping flights and Buck had gripped his coil anew.
“Here she comes!” he shouted suddenly. “Look out!”
With the words he cast the loops of the line toward the still moving
crane and Ned. The latter’s left arm shot toward the circling line but
the rope fell short. At the same instant Roy in the pilot room shifted
his planes; the car came on a level keel and the crane and the ladder
again swept forward in a nauseating sweep. Alan was desperate.
Speechless and ashy white he pushed his feet through the trap as if to
join Buck on the dizzily bobbing ladder rungs.
“You’re crazy,” shouted Bob. With all his strength, Bob caught the
distracted Alan by the shoulders and hurled him to the floor of the
engine room. “You can’t do that,” he panted. “You’ll kill Buck and
yourself too. Buck’ll get him. Buck,” he called anew, putting his face
to the opening again, “put this line under your arms before you try
again.”
As before, there was no answer from Buck. The gritty reporter had taken
his old position—his left arm between the ladder rungs—and was again
coiling his line. Alan had drawn himself to the opening and lay beside
it as if dazed. The giant car was now horizontal—shooting ahead with
meteorlike speed—but without a jar and almost without vibration. Where
they were, not one of the boys knew or cared. Even Roy above, with his
gaze riveted on the compass, had only thought and ears for what might be
happening below. To leave his post meant certain death for all.
“Here she comes again, Ned!” sounded once more from beneath the car.
“He’s got it; he’s got it,” cried Bob almost hysterically as he clasped
dazed Alan by the shoulder. “Brace up, old man—brace up. You’ve got to
help now. He’s all right—brace up.”
Just as Buck had forgotten his illness in the sudden crisis, Alan now
rose to the emergency. Sick at heart as he was, he again threw off his
nervousness and almost forced Bob from the aperture. One look at Ned
made him doubly ashamed of the condition that fear had wrought in him.
The steel-nerved Ned, though racked with pain—with nothing but a slender
steel bar between him and certain death—had already taken a turn of
Buck’s line around the steel uprights between which he was caught. At
that moment he was passing the free end of the light cable about his own
body beneath his arms.
The three pairs of eyes that watched every movement needed no signal to
tell them when the suffering boy had done all he could. One glance by
Ned said plainly enough: “Do what you can to save me.” Then his rescuers
saw him grip the steel anew and close his eyes.
The first strain of his efforts at an end, Buck now seemed almost
incapable of further effort. He held his end of the line above his head
but it did not quite reach the outstretched arms of Alan.
“A little more,” urged Alan, “careful now; a little more!”
As if the panic of fear had at last reached him, Buck looked up in
silent appeal.
“Shut your eyes. One foot at a time,” went on Alan. “You’re all right.”
Slowly, as if his body weighed hundreds of pounds, Buck’s foot arose to
the next rung. Hampered by the precious line, which he must not lose, he
drew himself up a step. Again and again he repeated the effort—the
perspiration standing on his forehead—until, at last, his trembling
fingers got the rope to Alan’s low reaching hand.
“Hadn’t I better stay here and guide the arm?” almost groaned Buck.
Both boys above saw the impossibility of this. Stewart had done his
work. They knew he could do no more.
“Come on,” urged Bob hoarsely. “You’re doin’ fine. Easy now. We need you
up here!”
Twice more and the weak Buck was within reach of the boys in the cabin.
Together they caught his shoulders and almost lifted him into the cabin.
“Right,” gasped Buck, “we’re all needed—here. I—” and the exhausted
reporter rolled over on the floor. The trap-opening clear of Buck’s form
Alan looked below once more. Ned, his eyes yet closed, was waiting for
the effort that meant life or death to him.
“You’re all right, old man,” called Alan reassuringly. “Keep your nerve
and you’ll be with us in a second. Hold tight. All ready.”
“Can we do it?” whispered Bob as the two boys braced themselves for the
strain that was to draw the crane back in place.
“We’ve got to do it,” was Alan’s reply. “And the line mustn’t give an
inch. I’ll draw in and you take a turn each time around that deck post—”
pointing to a metal upright about three feet astern of the opening. “All
ready!”
With one foot against the inside edge of the trap door aperture and the
other beneath him, Alan and Bob, the latter with a single turn of the
line about the deck post, and his feet against it, both lay back on the
first heave of the cable that meant so much to all of them. While Alan
held the first hitch steadily for Bob to take up slack, a form crowded
close behind him.
“I’ve got it,” said a low, weak voice in Alan’s ear. “Get a new hold.
I’ve got it,” and Buck Stewart came once more to the rescue.
With Buck’s help the line came in slowly, hand over hand, until,
suddenly, the opening was darkened by Ned’s body. Another heave to bring
the silent form close to the trap and Alan, panting with exertion and
his arms trembling, whispered:
“Make fast, Bob! Hold her, Buck.”
When he felt that the line was secure he released his hold and without a
word to Ned, who seemed only partly conscious, Alan slipped a double
thickness of the other line about his chum’s body. Almost with the same
motion, he caught the short cable on the end of the crane used to hold
it in place. There was a heavy belaying cleat just outside the opening,
attached to the bottom of the car and on this, with a few swift turns,
he made fast the crane cable. All this time Alan had been gripping Ned’s
coat as well as he could with his disengaged hand. Then he realized that
the prisoner in the V had spoken no word.
“Both of you on the line,” the fear stricken Alan shouted as, with both
hands now free, he threw his arms about Ned’s body. Almost lying on the
lower arm of the pick-up contrivance and tightly grasping the upper arm,
as Alan attempted to lift him, Ned gave no sound save a groan. His leg
yet held in the viselike narrowing arms. Driven to desperation Alan
thrust his own legs through the trap opening and, catching the rope
ladder with his feet, wriggled his body past the inert form of the boy
just below. Releasing his hold on Ned only long enough to get an arm
between two ladder rungs, he anchored himself on the slender support and
with both arms again caught helpless Ned about the waist.
“Keep the line tight,” he cried. “Don’t let it give.”
Buck and Bob knew well enough what this would mean. They saw at once
that Alan was about to pull Ned’s body backward from the clutches of the
steel arms. If he freed the boy and Ned should drop only a few inches,
the fall might tear the line from their grasp. If not that, the shock
might easily hurl Alan from the ladder. The boys in the cabin drew on
the line until the victim at its other end groaned again.
“Now!” muttered the rescuer on the ladder. One pull and Ned shrieked
with pain. But the anguish that this carried to those above and below
him did not lessen the grip of Buck and Bob or deter Alan.
“Again!” came from Alan as he threw himself backward, Ned’s waist in his
arms. The body of the suffering boy slid forward on the steel arm, only
an inch or so, but so quickly that Alan had to cling to it to keep from
falling. The leg released at last, Ned’s body turned sideways. The
almost unconscious boy grabbed mechanically at the steel arm below him
but Buck and Bob, with all the muscle in them, acted as quickly. The
middle of Ned’s body rose upward as Alan released it and caught in turn
the steel arm himself. With one pull the almost helpless Ned was drawn
to the door and while he hung there, Alan sprang up the ladder. But,
before he could give further assistance, the strong grip of the boys in
the cabin had drawn their commander to safety. The same hands also
caught Alan as his head reached the opening, and the fight was over.
On the floor, with his eyes closed, lay Ned. While Bob slammed fast the
trap door, Alan sprang to the tube, breathing hard and supporting
himself with the deck upright.
“It’s all right, Roy; we’ve got him. The course is straight up the
sound. Head away.”
Then he rushed to his chum’s side. Buck and Bob were already loosening
Ned’s clothing. Alan caught his hand and began chafing it.
“You’re all right, old man,” he exclaimed, rubbing the prostrate boy’s
hand.
Ned opened his eyes, groaned and then closed them again.
“You’re safe—in the cabin,” announced Bob.
“Thank you,” answered Ned weakly. “My leg?” and he moved his arm toward
his right leg.
Bob ran his hands over the injured member and lifted it, despite Ned’s
groans.
“It isn’t broken,” he announced. “It’s only bruised.”
“Then,” said Ned suddenly as he fully opened his eyes, “every one to his
station. I’ll be all right in a few minutes. Keep the ship on her
course.”