THE SILVER SHIPS
For two days life went on busily and uneventfully for Jack. Camp
Stanton proved to be a far larger place than he had expected to find.
And every day saw it increase in size, new faces appearing at mess. The
big camions rolled over from the railway filled with mammoth crates
from which, as if by magic, aëroplanes or seaplanes evolved. From
across the Gulf the yellow-winged birds of war _zoomed_ their way and
spare, keen-eyed youngsters, leather garbed, climbed forth stiffly.
All day the planes dipped and circled over sea and land and from dawn
until dark the sheds where engines were tested and repaired hummed
and clattered. It was a colorful scene as well as a busy one, for the
southern sun shone hotly over all. Sea and sky were intensely blue and
even the drab buildings of the camp added their tones of light and
shadow. And high over all the stars-and-stripes fluttered languidly in
the soft breeze.
For four hours each day Jack, with many other freshly arrived radio
officers, received instruction. They were required to acquaint
themselves with aëroplane and balloon installations and to repairing
and replacing parts, to perfect themselves in the recently improved
wireless telephony and to thoroughly learn a new code. He saw no more
for the time of his traveling companion, for the latter bunked and
messed in C Barracks, but he made many new acquaintances and began to
thoroughly enjoy the life. Idle moments were few, but when they came
he usually made his way down the long, straight street that led to the
shore and the circling line of sheds that held the hydro-aëroplanes.
Between beach and hangars was a broad expanse of concrete, and here at
any time of day a score or more of flying boats were to be found. He
made friends with the mechanics and groundmen, and even with the alert,
clear-eyed flyers themselves. For the latter he had boundless respect
and admiration. Every one was a hero in Jack’s eyes, and, although he
was careful not to show it, he was immensely flattered when one spoke
to him. He watched them go whirring aloft with awe and, it must be
confessed, a sinking sensation in his stomach, for, since the only
ships at Punta Rio were three destroyers and a supply ship, it seemed
fairly evident that when he was assigned to duty it would be on one of
these marvelous but fearsome machines, and Jack had the average lad’s
dread of height. It was not until the morning of his third day at camp
that an alternative suggested itself.
Then, returning from drill, he heard a derisive cheer from some men
ahead and, following their gaze, saw a sight that brought a thrill of
delight and wonder. At the far edge of the camp, slowly ascending above
the roofs of the buildings, floated a great silver-gray shape. Even at
the distance of half a mile it was both monstrous and majestic. As he
looked a second shape came into sight farther off, and, turning lazily,
the sunlight flashing on their silvery bodies, the two dirigibles, ever
rising, came floating sedately over the camp. Presently the big black
symbols on the sides became easily legible: on the foremost and nearer
balloon, _F 8_, on the other, _F 9_.
“Wonder what they’ll drop on this time,” remarked a cynical youth at
Jack’s side. “It isn’t safe to have those things flying around over
your head.”
Along the water’s edge the dirigibles passed, but several hundred feet
above it, and Jack could see the heads of the crew over the edge of the
suspended hull and hear the high-voiced throb of the engines. Presently
they swung their tails toward home and, still climbing gradually, grew
smaller and smaller. Jack watched until they were scarcely more than
specks against the blue and then was surprised to find himself all
alone. Every one else had gone along.
“Just like a Rube staring at a skyscraper,” he chuckled as he followed.
“But, gee, they’re wonderful things,” he added. “Now, if they’ll put
me on one of those I won’t mind it a bit. That’s funny, too,” he added
to himself reflectively, “because I guess they go up pretty high. But,
somehow, they look a whole lot safer. I wonder if I asked the luff if
he’d fix it for me.”
That afternoon he made his way to the far side of camp where the great
balloon sheds stood. There were six of these, side by side, each nearly
three hundred feet in length and some sixty feet wide. Capable of
housing such ships as those Jack had seen that morning, the tops of
their arching roofs were a good seventy feet above the ground. On each
side were two tiers of big windows and the front ends opened outward in
the shape of two huge many-trussed doors. To-day but two of the sheds
were open and Jack peered into these with wondering interest. They
were empty of their occupants, however, and his curiosity had to be
satisfied from a respectful distance, for guards warned him away when
he approached too close. From other of the buildings sounds of work
issued and machinists and riggers came and went through small doors.
He hoped the dirigibles that had gone away in the morning would return
while he could see their descent, but they didn’t. They must, however,
have come back later, for the next day, when he again made a visit to
what was now for him the most interesting part of the camp, the big
doors were all tightly shut.
That night, after chow, he dug his book on aërial navigation out of
his trunk and turned to the chapters on power balloons. When he slept
it was to dream a wonderful and strange dream in which he was floating
through space in what may have been a balloon, but which seemed to
resemble far more the business section of Mount Warren. At least he
distinctly remembered, when he woke, having gone into Patterson’s Drug
Store for a glass of soda and, while drinking it, watched the Gulf of
Mexico passing thousands of feet below!
The camp had a new and mild sensation the next day. The newspapers
arriving in the morning’s mail stated that the Mexican Ambassador at
Washington had informed the State Department that thereafter United
States aviators flying over Mexican territory would be fired on. For
some reason the news appeared to be most cheering and inspiring. One
might have thought that it was bouquets instead of bullets that the
Mexican Government proposed to present to the American flyers!
“That’ll settle it,” declared Felton, one of Jack’s brother operators.
“Just let ’em try that trick and we’ll be on top of ’em like a ton of
bricks, Sterling. That’ll mean war, old son!”
“Aw, forget it,” said Boyd, the marine officer, whose acquaintance Jack
had made a few days before. “This country won’t mind a little thing
like that! Why, say, ain’t we been letting them shoot us up for years
without doing more than shaking our finger at ’em? ‘Naughty! Naughty!’
says the War Department. ‘If you don’t stop killing us we won’t let
any more guns and ammunition cross the border.’ Besides, a fat chance
those Mexican soldiers, specially the federal troops, have of hitting
one of our planes! In the first place they can’t shoot for nuts, and if
they could all we’ve got to do is stay up out of range. No, sir, it’ll
take more’n that to get Uncle Sam’s dander up. What I’m looking for is
for some of those greasers to make a mistake and bother one of those
English or French boats down at Tampico. Then we’ll see something!”
“A Mexican I talked with on the train, coming down here,” said Jack,
“seemed to think that his president was just looking for a way to back
down, and that there wasn’t really any possibility of real trouble.”
“Maybe there wouldn’t be if his president was president of anything
outside the City of Mexico,” jeered Boyd. “But when you get over in
Lower California and find another guy calling himself president and
this Tito Roza, down in Coahuila, calling _himself_ president, and
two or three others having the same bug, why, say, most anything can
happen: and I’ll say it’s going to!”
“Who is this Tito Roza I’ve been hearing so much about?” asked Jack.
“General Tito Roza,” explained Felton. “Some boy, from all accounts.
Unlike our old friend Villa, he’s no rough-neck. They say he studied
at Chapultepec――that’s the Mexican West Point, you know――and then in
Paris, and when he came back the president made him a colonel. Then,
when the big war came, he volunteered in the French army and got a
lieutenancy and was a pretty fair scrapper, I guess. After the war was
over I suppose he found life pretty tame and so he started a revolution
over in Coahuila.”
“No one would mind his revoluting till the cows come home,” growled
Boyd, “if he wouldn’t make trouble along the border. He thinks if he
can get the United States and Mexico in a scrap he’ll be able to
grab the presidency, I guess. Anyhow, he’s doing his best to start
something. All the raids in the Big Bend country are his doing,
although when they catch any of the poor boobs he has fighting for him
they swear they’re Federalists. He’s a slick guy, all right! They say
he’s got a bigger army right now than that poor nut of a president has,
but I don’t know if it’s so.”
“Is he really a general?” Jack asked.
“Sure he is! Why not? If you happen to be president you can promote
yourself to be anything you like, can’t you?”
“I see. Roza’s just as much a general as he is a president.”
“I’ll say he’s a heap more,” replied Boyd stoutly. “Any guy who has the
price of a handful of soldiers can be president of Mexico, but Tito
Roza’s a sure-enough soldier. And long after this slippery president
has crawled into his shell and stopped worrying us we’ll be having
words with Roza, unless he manages to get himself elected king or
president or something before that. That’s all he’s after, I guess.”
“They say,” said Felton, “that he only pays his army half wages with
the understanding that they’re to help themselves to anything they take
a fancy to when they invade Houston and Austin and Fort Worth. And the
poor boobs believe him. Why, they think they’ll be quartered in the
Waldorf-Astoria by Christmas! That Roza must be some talker!”
“He isn’t much to look at,” snorted Boyd. “I saw his picture in a
magazine awhile back. Sort of a handsome guy, and pleasant as a May
morning, but no bigger’n a peanut shell. He had the Croix de Guerre on
his cigarette pocket, though. Sometimes those little chaps are pretty
good scrappers. I remember a guy we had with us on the other side――――”
Whereupon Boyd became reminiscent, and Jack, pleading mythical duties,
stole off. With a half-hour of idleness on his hands, he made his way
to the balloon sheds. Long before he reached them he heard the hum of
engines, and by the time he was in front of the first great building
the noise was almost deafening. The big doors of the _F 8’s_ shed
were wide open and within, in the half-gloom, the giant cylinder of
the dirigible loomed vast and portentous. The sunlight from the roof
windows fell on the red, white and blue rings that circled the nose of
the big bag, and, farther astern, picked out the great black symbols
_F 8_. As Jack looked it seemed that the dirigible trembled and swayed
as though seeking to be free of the cables holding it there, and in a
moment he found the reason. Midway of the long shed the twin engines
were whirring and throbbing, now slowing to a deep drone and now racing
madly until they fairly shrieked. Even fifty feet from the doors the
sound assailed the ears unpleasantly. The vibration was carrying itself
to every part of the ship.
It was evident that the _F 8_ was being tuned up, but whether for an
immediate trial remained to be seen. Jack hoped they would pull her out
where he could have a good close look at her before he had to hurry
back to barracks. At least a half-hundred men were busied in the big
shed, some swarming about the envelope, others clustered around the
suspended car, more yet at work on the ground. A confusion of guys,
pipes, wires, of steel drums and torpedo-like cylinders, stretched
beneath the balloon, and there, where the great bulk cast its enormous
shadow, electric lights glowed wanly, and in the half-darkness forms
moved briskly at their tasks. The doors of other sheds were open
to-day, but only about the _F 8_ were there signs of real activity, and
Jack soon returned to where he could see the long dirigible stretching
back into the alternate gloom and sunlight of the building. The engines
were stilled now and the sounds that came to him were those of hammer
and saw and of whirring lathe and of many voices. A form detached
itself from the twilight under the big bag and came toward the open
front of the shed. It wasn’t many moments before it approached so near
that Jack was able to recognize it as that of the ensign encountered on
the train. The ensign, for that matter, might have passed unrecognized
by his own mother had he kept out of the strong light, for he was
in a very unmilitary attire of overalls and jumper and his face and
hands were far from immaculate. He saw Jack at the moment the latter
recognized him, abruptly changed his course and came out across the
trampled ground.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, quite to Jack’s surprise, as though he was
pleased to death by the meeting. “How’s everything?”
“How are you?” responded Jack. Under the other’s smile and apparent
friendliness he failed to make his greeting sound as distant as he
meant to. “All right, thanks.”
“Been assigned yet?” went on the other, viewing Jack interestedly.
“No. I suppose you have.” He gestured toward the cavernous opening. The
other nodded, turning and letting his gaze roam upward toward the great
silver bag.
“Some bird, eh?” he asked. “Gee, they had all twelve cylinders working
awhile ago, and I thought my ear-drums were a total loss! Passed
instruction yet?”
“To-morrow, I think. I hope――――” Jack paused abruptly. What he hoped
was no affair of this fellow’s, and he wondered why he had started to
tell it.
“Of course you do. And I guess you will. Had much air work?”
“None at all,” owned Jack unwillingly.
“Gee! How’d you manage to get down here then?”
“I didn’t manage it,” said Jack stiffly. “I was ordered here.”
“That’s funny. Guess they meant to send you to Pensacola and got mixed.
I just came from there. It’s a regular mob. How would you like the
balloon service?”
“I think I’d like it mighty well. I was wondering if I could put in a
word to the luff.”
“It’s the life, believe me,” replied the ensign gayly. “By the way,
what’s your name? Mine’s Clode.”
“Sterling.”
“Sounds genuine,” laughed the other. “I might hear of something and tip
you off, Sterling. Are you in B Barracks? Right-o! Seen anything more
of our little Mexican friend on the train?”
“No.” Jack, recalling the incident, answered shortly. Ensign Clode’s
brown eyes twinkled.
“He was a cute little shrimp, wasn’t he? Well, say, if I can help you
to a dirigible job, Sterling, I’ll be glad to. So long and good luck!”
The young officer nodded, smiled and hurried on his delayed errand,
and Jack, glancing at his watch, followed more leisurely. Clode, he
reflected, maybe wasn’t such a bad sort, after all. At least, he had
certainly tried to be civil to-day. As for his being able to help him,
Jack, to a dirigible assignment, why, that was, of course, just a bit
of swank. Jack guessed that if he succeeded in getting on a dirigible
instead of one of those nerve-trying seaplanes it would be a matter of
luck and not due to any good offices of young Mr. Clode! Maybe, though,
it wouldn’t be a bad plan to see the luff and let that gentleman know
of his preference.
But Jack didn’t have a chance to do that, for the rest of the day was
taken up with duties, and then the next morning the order came: “Ensign
Sterling, report to Commanding Officer, Balloon Corps Headquarters.”