THE
LOST DIRIGIBLE
[Illustration: “I GOT HIM,” SAID HUGH]
THE
LOST DIRIGIBLE
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF “FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS,” “GUARDING HIS GOAL,”
“UNDER THE YANKEE ENSIGN,” ETC.
[Illustration]
FRONTISPIECE
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
THE SPRAGUE PUBLISHING COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. OFF TO THE BORDER 1
II. THE AGREEABLE STRANGER 9
III. CAMP STANTON 22
IV. THE SILVER SHIPS 32
V. ABOARD THE “FATE” 45
VI. “CAST OFF!” 58
VII. AT THE MERCY OF THE STORM 72
VIII. LOST IN THE CLOUDS 86
IX. FRIEND OR ENEMY? 95
X. SOLDIERS OF LIBERTY 107
XI. OUTNUMBERED 119
XII. “SEÑOR GONZALES” 133
XIII. GUESTS OF TITO ROZA 144
XIV. HELD FOR RANSOM 157
XV. FRENCH LEAVE 169
XVI. FOUR AGAINST MANY 184
XVII. PURSUED 192
XVIII. THE BATTLE IN THE AIR 199
XIX. A MESSAGE TO THE HEATHEN 210
XX. THE “FATE” COMES HOME 225
XXI. FOR PURPOSES OF OBSERVATION 241
XXII. SENTENCED TO DEATH 249
XXIII. THE RESCUE 264
THE LOST DIRIGIBLE
CHAPTER I
OFF TO THE BORDER
“Report to Commanding Officer Naval Aviation Base, Punta Rio, Texas.”
Such was the order that sent Jack Sterling hiking south that first hot
week in August. Forty-eight hours’ leave allowed him a visit home,
however, and it was not until the morning of the sixth that he bade
good-by to his folks and started off for the station in one of Mike
Connell’s rattling taxis, his battered suit-case beside him and his
small trunk swaying tipsily about on the seat outside. Oddly enough,
it was Jerry Connell who drove that morning. He and Jerry had gone to
school together in Mount Warren, had played together and, at times,
had fought together. The fact that Jack was the son of Judge Sterling,
a citizen of prominence and some wealth, and that Jerry was the heir
apparent to the town’s principal liveryman had made no difference.
Nor did it now, for the two had nearly wrung each other’s hands off
at meeting, and all the way to the station Jack, sitting well forward
on his seat, conversed with the driver through the open front window
of the little car. As Jack had not been home since shortly after
Christmas, there was much news to be told, and as they rattled and
bumped down the long, straight length of Adams Street, Jerry’s head
was turned half around and his tongue kept busy. When, however, he
had guided the car through the traffic of the Square and was bouncing
over the cobbles of Ferry Street, under the many-windowed front of
the knitting mill, he began to put questions himself. Because of the
whirring and clicking that came from the building beside them he had to
shout to make himself heard.
“Well, you got your commission, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Last month.”
Jerry turned further around and cast an admiring look at the insignia
adorning the sleeve of his friend’s coat. “I heard you had,” he
continued. “Steve Perry, down at the Post Office, said you’ve got a
stripe and he read it in the paper. Ensign, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Jack, “and without ever being at sea!”
“Get out!”
“Fact. The nearest I got to it was six months at Norfolk on a receiving
ship that never left the dock. Maybe I’m due for better luck now,
though. I’m going down to Texas.”
“That so? But, say, Texas isn’t―― There isn’t any water around Texas,
is there?”
“Well, there’s considerable of it along one side, Jerry, about four
hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico.”
“That’s right, too. I’d forgot that. I always think of Texas as being
inland like. I never was any good at geography, anyway. I suppose
you’ll be fighting Mexicans before long, eh? Is there really all the
trouble down there the papers say there is?”
“I don’t believe so. The papers generally make those things out rather
worse than they are. Still, there’s a chance of trouble, I guess, and
I’m tickled to death to get down there. All the fellows back at the
Yard were green with envy when I told them about my transfer. What’s
bothering me is that I’m ordered to report to the Aviation Corps. That
doesn’t sound much like salt water. I’ve never qualified for the flying
service. I’m guessing!”
“Radio’s your line, isn’t it?” asked Jerry.
“Yes, and if they stick me in an aëroplane I’ll probably die of fright!
Mother’s worried sick for fear I’ll get killed. I had to promise her
I’d wear a parachute around my neck every minute!”
“Gosh, Jack, I’d certainly love to go up in one o’ those things! Wish
I’d tried for the navy when you did that time. Guess they wouldn’t have
taken me, though, on account of my eyes. That’s what kept me out of the
army, you know. Made me feel like an awful fool, too. Folks used to ask
me when I was going, and when I’d tell ’em I hadn’t passed they’d sort
of grin, and I’d know they thought I was lying. Guess the old Kaiser
wasn’t any gladder than I was when they signed that armistice! Say, you
must be eighteen now, aren’t you? You’re about a year younger than me
if I remember right.”
“Eighteen next month. I try hard to look older, but I don’t succeed
very well, I guess.”
Jerry grinned. “You surely don’t, kid. Fact is, you look more like
seventeen than eighteen. You were always like that, though. I remember
when we went to the old primary school together. You looked like you’d
climbed out of the cradle and run away!”
“If I could only raise a mustache it mightn’t be so bad,” said Jack,
ruefully. “But a mustache on anything under an admiral isn’t thought
well of in the navy! Well, I’m awfully glad to have seen you again,
Jerry. I’ll drop you a post-card some day when I get down there
and tell you what I’m doing. Mind lugging that trunk around to the
baggage-room? Here, I’ll give you a hand with it.”
“Lay off!” protested Jerry. “You’d look fine toting your own trunk
around, wouldn’t you? Don’t they teach you respect for your uniform
where you come from?”
“Sure,” laughed Jack. “And they teach us to take hold when there’s work
to be done, too! All right, Jerry, I’ll toddle behind with the bag.”
Jack’s father had come down from his office for a final leave-taking
and was waiting on the platform when he got there. The remaining
minutes were occupied in securing transportation and checking the
trunk, and then the long train was puffing into the station and Jack
was climbing aboard. The Judge’s smile never faltered, but there was
much earnestness in his final grip and in his words as the train moved
off.
“Write often, son,” he said, “for we’re going to be pretty anxious now,
mother and I. I sort of hope you’ll land on a ship and not a flying
machine. But, you be careful and――and do your duty and――――”
If there was more, Jack didn’t hear it, for the train was moving fast.
He smiled reassuringly, waved from the car steps and saw his father
and Jerry Connell and all the others on the platform merge and dwindle
and pass from sight. Then, from his seat in the parlor car he watched
the home town gradually disappear; the mills and the long lines of
operatives’ houses, the wagon bridge over North Creek, the pool in the
old brick yard where he and Jerry and many others had skated in winter
and paddled in summer, the pretty stucco, vine-clad cottages in the
new residence district on what had used to be Town Line Hill, the old
Fair Grounds, with the withered reminders of a war garden bleaching in
the hot morning sunlight, and then the open, rolling country glimpsed
between rows of freight cars along the sidings.
Presently Jack opened his bag and took out a book. It was a treatise
on aërial navigation which he had hurriedly procured in the city two
days before. For awhile he studied the pictures and diagrams and
then, settling back in his seat, began to read. Jack’s ignorance of
the subject was colossal, for, save that he had watched airplanes and
seaplanes in flight often enough, he couldn’t have told why they
flew had his life depended on it. But he meant to find out, since,
no matter what sort of duty might be awaiting him at Punta Rio, it
certainly behooved him to know something at least of the theory of
flying. Even if his assignment should prove to be ground work, and he
rather expected it would, he would nevertheless be thrown in with men
who knew aviation as well as he knew radiotelegraphy, and it would be a
convenience, if no more, to be able to understand their talk. When he
passed into the dining car for luncheon he took the book along and went
on reading as he ate. There was much he couldn’t quite understand, but
on the whole he made progress, and when, shortly after three o’clock,
the train drew into the city he could have spoken quite knowingly of
torsion and stability and poise, having reached page 114. Nevertheless
there was a perplexed look on his face as he stuffed the book back into
his suit-case, and he mentally echoed his father’s hope that the deck
of a ship and not the car of an aëroplane would prove to be his station!
He had a wait of over two hours in the city, and, checking his
suitcase, he went forth and made a few simple purchases, consuming as
much time as possible over each. But it still lacked an hour of train
time when he got back to the terminal and so, buying an evening paper
at the news stand, he found a seat in the waiting-room and spread
it out before him. The first headline to meet his gaze gripped his
attention. “Mexican Situation Grows More Acute,” he read. “British and
French Warships Reach Tampico. War Department Gives Number of American
Troops Along Border as 154,000. Raiders Cross Rio Grande at Las Orgas
and Thurston. Twelve Mexicans Killed and Many Taken Prisoner. Eight
Americans Wounded and Three Missing. State Department Denies Receipt of
Answer to President’s Note.” Jack read the dispatches with pursed lips.
Maybe, after all, the papers were for once telling no more than the
facts, he thought. At all events, affairs along the border were in bad
shape. And the arrival of British and French ships at Tampico looked
like business. He didn’t pretend to understand the right and wrong of
Mexico’s position in the controversy regarding her oil fields, but he
was willing to bet a month’s pay that if they’d just give the word to
the United States Navy the whole thing could be settled in a wink!
Whereupon, stuffing the paper in his pocket, he retrieved his suit-case
and sought the train-shed. Of course he couldn’t hurry that train off,
but at least he could see that it wasn’t delayed on his account!