I. The Secret of the Schwarzwald
II. The Wonder 'Plane
III. "Tempest" of the Aerial Police
IV. A Midnight Consultation
V. The Aerial Liner
VI. An Up-to-Date Cabin Boy
VII. A Duel with Words
VIII. Sons of the Desert
IX. The Phantom Bird
X. The Brigand of the Eastern Skies
XI. The Air-King's Tribute
XII. The Maharajah's Choice
XIII. The Missing Airship
XIV. Betrayed by the Camera
XV. Diamond cut Diamond
XVI. The Ghostly Visitant
XVII. The Watchers
XVIII. "Live Wires"
XIX. The Devil's Workshop
XX. "Hands Up!"
XXI. The Coming Fight
XXII. An Aerial Duel
*THE PHANTOM AIRMAN*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE SECRET OF THE SCHWARZWALD*
Rittmeister Heinrich von Spitzer, late flight-commander in the German
Air Service, was one of the Prussian irreconcilables, who, rather than
submit to the peace terms enforced by the Allies after the defeat of
Germany, resolved to become an aerial brigand, an outlaw of the nations,
and to wage a bitter warfare of violence and plunder against his late
enemies.
His proud spirit refused to bend before the conquerors, for the iron
shaft of defeat had embittered his soul, particularly against Britain,
whom he had ever regarded as the evil genius of the Entente.
One day, when his plans were well matured, he unburdened his spirit to a
couple of his friends, kindred souls, men after his own heart, both of
them apt pupils of the great Richthofen, who was still referred to by
his disciples as "the red airman." They had been engaged that day in
dismantling an aerodrome on the edge of the Schwarzwald; to them, at
least, a hateful job.
"Comrades," he said, "this peace has ruined us. _Germania delenda est_,
but I will not sit still amid the ruins of the Fatherland. Glorious we
have lived, like kings of the air; let us not inglorious die."
"I am with you, Rittmeister. I will follow you to the gulfs," exclaimed
one of his companions, named Carl, who had been a famous scout pilot in
the Richthofen "circus," and the lightning flashed from the young
airman's eyes as he spoke.
"But what can we do against the empires of the world?" asked a Gotha
pilot who had raided the English towns a score of times.
For answer the chief turned a withering look upon the last speaker and
said:--
"Max, you have faced death a hundred times in the air, and over the
British lines. You have thirty enemy machines to your credit, and yet
you ask me what can we do?"
"What of it, Rittmeister? Tell us what is in your mind."
"Listen, then, both of you, and I will tell you what still remains for
brave men to do. All is not lost while courage and hope remain," and
whilst he spoke the German chief drew his two friends away from the
half-dismantled aerodrome on the southern edge of the Schwarzwald, to a
narrow path that led amongst the trees.
When the aerodrome was hid from view he began to speak once more,
huskily at first, as though restraining some pent up excitement.
"I am in possession of a secret," he said, "which I may not tell even to
you unless you first swear to follow me on some great adventure."
They both looked at him, not a little amazed and bewildered, and neither
spoke for a moment.
"I have chosen you," continued Spitzer, "because I know you to be men of
daring and resource. You are both dissatisfied with the condition of
things in the Fatherland. Ach Himmel! This occupation of the sacred
German soil by the Britisher, the Frenchman and the American is breaking
my heart. I will endure it no longer, but I will strike a blow at the
enemy before I die."
As he spoke thus, he almost hissed out the words which he uttered, for
his voice had now lost its strange huskiness, while his eyes gleamed
like the fierce glittering orbs of the tiger about to make its spring
from the hidden jungle. Nor was his present madness without its visible
effect upon his two companions, for he had strange powers of magnetic
influence, this Prussian Junker.
"Donner and Blitz, but you are right, Rittmeister!" exclaimed Carl, the
blood mounting to his temples.
"And you, Max, what say you?" and the chief fixed the Gotha pilot with
his eyes.
"Ja! ja!" he assented. "I am with you also."
"But the end of this adventure is death!" continued von Spitzer,
speaking now more deliberately. "This much I must tell you in all
fairness before I proceed further. However much we achieve--and we shall
accomplish not a little--there can be no other ending."
"Bah! we have looked too often into the face of that monster to be
afraid," returned the scout.
"You speak truly, Carl," replied the chief. "When your machine went down
in flames near Cambrai, you passed so close to me that I stalled my
Fokker to let you pass, and I saw the smile upon your lips that day as
you looked into the face of death. I never expected to see you alive
again, but you were saved for this."
Then, amid the gloom of the dark aisles of the Schwarzwald, these two
men swore to follow their chief on this last great adventure, as they
had followed him during the darkest days of the war.
"And now I will tell you the secret which I hold, and which at present
is known only to two other men," said the Rittmeister, and, sitting down
about the gnarled roots of an upturned tree, the two airmen listened to
the following story:
"You have heard me sometimes speak of a great mathematician and
engineer, by name one Professor Weissmann," began von Spitzer.
"Yes, we have heard of him," replied the others.
"He is the greatest living scientist; moreover, he is a practical
engineer, and during the last four years he has devoted his time
entirely to designing, constructing and perfecting with his own hands,
assisted by one other mechanic, a wonderful aeroplane, compared to which
neither the Allies nor the Central Powers have anything to approximate."
"Donnerwetter, but why wasn't it ready before?" exclaimed Max. "It
might have turned the tide of battle in the autumn of 1918."
"It's no use crying over spilt milk," replied the chief. "It could not
be completed before."
"And you say that this wonderful machine is now ready," interposed Max,
who had flown every type of machine from a single-seater scout to a
heavy bomber, and whose professional curiosity had now been thoroughly
awakened by the words of the German ace.
"It is ready, and what is more to the point, it is at my disposal,"
returned the chief briefly.
"Der Teufel! But where is it?"
"I can lead you to it, for it is less than three miles from where we sit
at the present moment."
"Himmel!" exclaimed both the pilots, springing to their feet. "Take us
to see it, Rittmeister; we have given you our promise."
"Be calm, my friends; you shall see it to-day. But let me put you on
your guard. You must not speak of it aloud, but only in whispers, for
the secret of this machine is jealously guarded, and its whereabouts is
unknown, save to the professor, his assistant and myself."
"Has it ever been flown?" ventured Max.
"Yes."
"Who was the pilot?"
"I was."
"You, Rittmeister?" exclaimed the amazed airmen.
"Yes."
"And you are satisfied at her performances?" asked Carl, gazing
steadfastly into the eyes of his chief.
"More than satisfied. She is the most wonderful and responsive thing I
have ever flown. You will say the same when you have seen her, and made
a trip or two."
"Phew! take us to see her now; I would give ten years of my life to fly
in her," said Max, who was getting almost feverish in his anxiety to see
this wonderful thing and to handle her controls; for such is the lure of
the air, especially to those who have climbed into the azure and sailed
amongst the clouds in the days of their youth.
"You shall fly in her," replied Spitzer.
"When?" asked the eager youth.
"When we start our great adventure," replied the chief.
"And when will that be?"
"To-morrow, if you are willing; all our plans are laid."
"Why to-morrow?" asked the others simultaneously.
"Because delay is dangerous. There is always the danger that this
secret, so jealously guarded, and hidden away in the depth of the Black
Forest, may be discovered. You know that Germany, under the Peace
terms, is forbidden for the present to manufacture aircraft."
"Yes, yes; we know it only too well."
"Well, even now," continued von Spitzer, "the British Air Police have
got wind of the thing, and their agents are in a dozen different parts
of Germany trying to fathom the mystery of this phantom aeroplane, but
so far they have not succeeded. All the same, it is time for us to get
away, and that is why I have confided my plans to you to-day. Do you
wish to withdraw?" and there was just a faint suspicion of a sneer in
the tone of the speaker's voice, as he said this.
"Withdraw? Ach Himmel, no, a thousand times no! I am ready to start
to-day," flashed back the ruffled Carl as he replied.
"Gut!" grunted von Spitzer. "Then you shall see this wonderful thing
to-night at sunset; I dare not take you there before, and to-morrow,
ach! to-morrow, this great adventure will begin."
*CHAPTER II*
*THE WONDER 'PLANE*
The sun was sinking amongst the pines of the Schwarzwald when the three
airmen, after traversing for several miles the wild unbroken solitudes
of that primeval forest, emerged at length from the dark shadows of the
trees on to a little open glade, a natural clearing about two hundred
metres in diameter.
"Here we are at last!" exclaimed the chief.
"Himmel! what a perfect little aerodrome," cried the scout pilot.
"But where is the hangar?" asked the more observant Max.
"Hist! Let us wait for the signal," ordered the Rittmeister, waving his
companions back to the fringe of the forest.
"But there is not a soul to be seen anywhere," expostulated Carl. "No
one ever comes here."
"We must be careful; there is too much at stake," whispered the
flight-commander, and then he gave a long, low whistle, repeated twice.
Scarcely had the last sound died away, like the sad piping tone of the
woodland robin, than a similar call came in response from the opposite
side of the glade.
"Follow me; the way is clear," said the chief as he strode across the
clearing towards the spot whence came the signal. And his companions
followed him, silently wondering, for, somehow, they felt that they were
treading on enchanted ground, and that some interesting _denouement_
would shortly take place.
As they neared the edge of the forest once more, a movement amongst the
trees attracted their attention, and the next instant a solitary figure
emerged from the shadows and greeted them. It was the keen, lynx-eyed
professor, the great mathematician and engineer; a man about fifty,
dressed in a loose working garb, wearing a battered felt hat above his
shock of white, wavy hair.
"You are welcome, children of the Fatherland," he said, extending his
hand, and fixing the two strangers with his piercing eyes, after this
brief salutation.
"I hope we are not late," began von Spitzer, when the first salutation
was over and he had introduced his companions.
"The sun is amongst the pines and the shadows of the Schwarzwald
deepen," replied the professor, speaking in the language of the forest.
"It was the time arranged, but"--and here he paused for a second--"there
is no time for delay," and an uneasy look spread over his face.
"You don't mean that----" began the chief, but the genius forestalled
him by adding:--
"Yes, strangers have crossed the clearing to-day. For the first time
since I came here, I heard strange voices amongst the trees."
"But they found nothing?"
"Nothing!" ejaculated the professor.
"Good! Then my friends may view the aeroplane," said Spitzer.
"Certainly; let them follow me," and through an opening barely fifteen
feet wide, the professor led the way to a combined hangar and workshop,
carefully camouflaged and hidden away amongst the trees.
The next instant the two young airmen received the greatest surprise of
their lives.
"Der _Skorpion_!" announced the professor.
"Donnerwetter!" came the involuntary cry from both the strangers as
their eyes fell upon a new type of aeroplane, with an angry, waspish
look about it, that the Bristol Fighter used to wear during the later
days of the Great War. Yet it was not a Bristol Fighter by any means,
for it was twin-engined, and steel-built throughout, with a central
conning-tower, tapering off to a sharp point to improve the stream-line,
and a closed-in be-cabined fuselage into which four or six persons might
with ease be stowed away.
"But her engines!" exclaimed Max. "How small they are."
"But how powerful!" replied Spitzer. "Each one develops anything up to
400 horsepower."
"Is it possible?" asked Carl, who was already carefully examining the
starboard engine, in its covered in and stream-lined casement.
"The propellers are different, too; they're something like the Fokker's,
but shorter, and they have a peculiar twist, which I have never seen
before. What is that for, Rittmeister?" asked the Gotha pilot.
"For vertical climbs, Max," replied the chief, for while the professor
stood by, and looked on, interested and amused at the growing enthusiasm
for his idol, the Rittmeister, who had been secretly schooled in the
hidden mysteries, explained them point by point, for he was a great
mechanic and mathematician was this ex-flight-commander.
"Vertical climbs?" echoed the other. "I thought it was impossible."
"Impossible? Rubbish! Nothing is impossible to the man of science.
Have you never heard of the Helicopter?"
"You mean that hybrid mongrel the verdammt Yanks and the Britishers have
been experimenting with of late, and which has caused so many
accidents?"
"The same; only they went the wrong way about it. This propeller, with
this driving power behind it, practically gives the vertical ascent,
especially when once flying speed has been obtained."
"Blitz, but it is wonderful!" concluded Max, his enthusiasm growing by
leaps and bounds, as he continued his examination.
"Why, the propellers are made of steel, and so are the planes,"
exclaimed Carl, who was now carefully examining the material of which
the aeroplane was made.
"Steel, tempered steel, every bit of it--fuselage, propellers, tail fin,
rudders. There's not an ounce of wood about the _Scorpion_," returned
the mentor.
"Then the danger of fire is lessened," ventured Max, whose one dread in
the air had always been that of fire.
"That danger is eliminated," replied the chief, in a tone of certitude.
"Except by petrol. By the way, where are the petrol tanks?" exclaimed
Carl, who had never missed them till now.
"There aren't any," replied the Rittmeister, smiling. "I was waiting
for that question."
"No petrol tanks?" came the astonished cry from both the airmen at once.
"They're not necessary," returned the other; "and that's the greatest
mystery of all."
"Himmel! Am I dreaming?" exclaimed Max.
"No, you're wide awake. Don't stare like that, man!"
"Der Teufel, but how is she driven?" demanded the scout, staring with
wide-open eyes from Spitzer to the professor, and from the latter to his
mechanic, who had stood by all this while, with arms akimbo, silently
amused at the bewilderment of the two strangers.
"Listen," began the Rittmeister. "I cannot explain everything now--time
will not permit--but you shall learn all these things before many days
are over."
"Yes, go on!"
"The professor has spent years on this series of inventions, both in the
workshop and the laboratory, and each discovery has been co-ordinated
and fitted into the scheme. The greatest of all his discoveries is the
fact that he has been able to discover and to harness an unknown force
to drive the motors of the _Scorpion_."
"A highly compressed gas, I suppose," interposed Max, who had taken a
science degree at Bonn.
"Certainly, it is a _most_ highly compressed gas, extracted at great
pains and labour from the elements. The formulae for this wonderful new
element exist only in the still more wonderful brain of the professor.
It has not been committed to paper even, in its final terms and ratios,
so that, even should this machine be captured, which it certainly shall
not be whilst I am its pilot, it could not be used, once the present
supply of this Uranis, as we will call it, is used up."
"That is why the engines are so small, then?" ventured Max.
"Precisely!"
"And what is our present supply of this wonderful element?"
"Do you see this?" said the Rittmeister, pointing to a few small
cylinders, each about two feet long, and six inches in diameter, which
lay carefully piled upon each other on the floor near the _Scorpion_.
"Yes."
"That is the world's supply at present, excluding the two cylinders
which are already fitted on the machine."
"The world's supply," ejaculated Carl, who was thinking of the huge
petrol tank, which in a Fokker scout would last only three hours with
the throttle wide open. "That won't last long, unless the pressure is
enormous."
"The pressure is enormous, my friend; so enormous that if anything
happened it would----"
"Blow a hole in the universe, I reckon," interposed Max.
"You are right, and that is the only danger connected with the
_Scorpion_. The other danger you mentioned, that of fire, is altogether
eliminated. There would be nothing to burn if one of these cylinders
exploded, for there would be nothing left--in the vicinity."
"_Sacre bleu_!" exclaimed Carl, _sotto voce_, for, brave youth that he
was, he shuddered at the thought.
Max was the more practical of the two, however, for he belonged not to
the highly sensitive scouts, but to the heavy bombers, and he merely
asked to satisfy his curiosity:--
"How far will one of those cylinders take us, Rittmeister?"
"Ten thousand miles," replied the chief, "that is, one fitted to either
engine."
"Good! Let me see, there are ten here, and one already fitted to either
motor makes a dozen. Why, they would carry us"--and here he made a
rapid calculation--"they would take us twice round the world."
"Precisely, and with a little to spare, when we had completed the double
trip."
"And what speed would she pick up, say at a level flight?"
For answer the chief looked at the professor, as though uncertain
whether to reply to this question.
"They have taken the oath, sir," he pleaded, "They cannot withdraw," and
the great scientist nodded his acquiescence.
"Two hundred and fifty miles without being pushed," he replied at
length.
"Donnerwetter! And what if she were pushed?"
"I cannot say, she has never been driven beyond that."
"What a deuce of a noise she will make--like a whole formation of
Gothas, I should imagine," said Max.
The professor smiled, but left it to the Rittmeister to explain this
last point.
"The engines are silent, but there is a slight hum from the propellers.
That cannot be effaced at present, but it is nothing."
Then, having given all these details, the visitors made a closer
inspection of the machine. They were permitted to climb into the
conning-tower, to handle the controls, and the two swivel machine guns
mounted there. They were shown into the little cabin, where four men
might sit at the little table, or lie down at full length, but could not
stand upright. The steel struts, steel folding wings, the carefully
packed spares, the little mica windows in the cabin--these, and a dozen
other things, were pointed out and explained to them--the stores which
were already packed, comprising chronometrical instruments, maps,
charts, ammunition for the guns, compressed food, etc., until their
bewilderment grew, and their astonishment became unbounded.
"Why, she scarcely needs an aerodrome at all!" Carl ventured at length.
"Scarcely," replied the chief. "At any rate, not for a long time."
"She is weather proof; she is wonderfully camouflaged. She could hide
in a desert, or a meadow," said Max.
"And she carries her own stores for a long, long trip," ventured Carl,
who was just dying for the morrow to come.
"And if she were chased, she could make rings round anything, even a
Fokker scout, or a verdammt British S.E.5," added Max.
"So you are satisfied, both of you?" asked the Rittmeister.
"Perfectly satisfied. I am only longing for to-morrow, so that I may
turn aerial brigand, buccaneer, or what you like," answered Carl.
"And you, Max?"
"I am ready, chief, to follow you to the end of the world, for mine eyes
have seen the wonder 'plane."
*CHAPTER III*
*"TEMPEST" OF THE AERIAL POLICE*
Colonel John Tempest, D.S.O., M.C., etc., late of the Royal Air Force,
and now Chief Commissioner of the British Aerial Police, sat before a
pile of papers in his office at Scotland Yard late one evening. He was
anxious and worried, for something had gone seriously wrong with his
plans.
It was his duty to investigate and track down all aerial criminals,
whether brigands, smugglers or revolutionists of the Bolshevist type.
For this purpose he had been appointed by the Government to the command
of the British Aerial Police, whose functions included the patrolling of
the routes of the great aerial liners throughout the British Isles, and
the All-Red route to Egypt, India, and other British possessions, and
the careful guarding and watching of the aerial gateways and ports.
Some of the best scout pilots of the war, including two famous secret
service men, named Keane and Sharpe, were detailed to assist him in this
important and ever-increasing task, for aerial crime of twenty different
kinds was becoming more and more prevalent since the war.
So far his efforts had been conspicuously successful, and he had brought
many of the offenders to justice, but at the present moment he had to
confess himself baffled--utterly baffled by a series of unfortunate
occurrences which it had been beyond his power to prevent.
"There is some master-mind behind all this," he exclaimed to himself,
rising suddenly from his chair, and beginning to pace the room, much in
the same way that he used to pace his squadron office, in the old days,
when, as commander of a squadron of scouts during the Great War, he had
attempted to outwit the daring of the German airmen.
"I wonder now--I wonder what happened to that missing German professor!"
and Colonel Tempest suddenly halted, and placed his left hand to his
forehead, as some powerful, new idea had arrested his mental faculties.
Then, walking across the room swiftly, he switched on a shaded light
which illuminated a large map of Germany, showing the aerial routes, the
lines of occupation by the Allies, etc.
"It is just possible," he murmured to himself, "that the two things are
connected--the disappearance of this eminent scientist and the
appearance of this extraordinary flying machine." Then he switched off
the light, and returned to the sheaf of papers and documents on his
desk. He sorted out one and placed it on top; it was a decoded message,
received some days ago from one of his agents at Constantinople. It ran
as follows:--
"Mysterious aeroplane, phantom-like in appearance, passed over here
yesterday flying at terrific speed. All our signals disregarded. No
navigation lights showing. Our fast scouts gave chase but left
hopelessly behind. Came from direction of Adrianople, crossed the
Bosphorus, and disappeared rapidly flying south-east. Time shortly after
sunset.