Christmas came, but it brought no relaxation to Teddy, or to myself.
We were working hard at our scheme out at Gunnersbury, making experiment
after experiment, many being failures, with a few successes.
Of Eastwell we saw nothing, for he had flown up to the north-east coast
in order to watch some evolutions being carried out by the anti-aircraft
corps, and had not returned.
Sir Charles had now given Roseye permission to assist us in our work
and, indeed, one morning in the first week of the New Year she made her
first flight since that day of her disappearance.
My mind, however, was by no means at rest. After my own experiences I
was careful to examine and to fly her machine several times around the
aerodrome before I would allow her to go up. If my machine had been
tampered with in the way it had, then there was but little doubt that an
attempt might be made against her.
She had gone for about an hour when I saw her returning, a tiny speck in
the clear sky coming from the south-west, and flying very high. When at
last she landed and I handed her out of the pilot's seat, she put up her
big goggles and, flushed with satisfaction, cried:
"I've had such a splendid wind behind me! The weather is quite perfect.
How good it feels to be out once again, Claude!"
"Yes, dear," I answered, as we strolled together over towards the
hangars, whence one of the school-buses had just begun to flap. "I
should like to go up but, as you know, they are busy putting in my
second engine for night-flying, and to drive the dynamo. I fear it
won't be ready for quite another fortnight yet."
"What speed do you really expect to develop?" she asked, much
interested.
"In order to overtake a Zeppelin I must, at least, be able to fly eighty
miles an hour," was my reply. "And I must also be able to fly as slowly
as thirty-five in order to economise fuel and to render the aim accurate
as well as to make night-landing possible."
"Are you certain that you will be able to do it?" she asked, a little
dubiously I thought. She knew that, as far as our apparatus for the
direction of the intense electric current was concerned, it was
practically perfect. Yet she had, more than once, expressed her doubt
as to whether my monoplane, with its improvements of my own design,
would be able to perform what I so confidently expected of it.
"Of course one can be certain of nothing in this world, dear," was my
reply. "But by all the laws of aerodynamics it should, when complete,
be able to do what I require. I must be able to carry fuel for twelve
hours cruising at low speed, so as to enable me to chase an airship to
the coast, if necessary. Further, I must, in order to be successful, be
able to climb to ten thousand feet in not more than twenty minutes. You
see," I explained, "I am trying to have the engines silenced, and I am
fitting up control-gear for two pilots, so as to allow one to relieve
the other, and, further, I have designed the alterations whereby either
Teddy or myself can have equal facilities to work the searchlight as
well as the deadly current."
"I do hope it will be a success. You have had so many failures, dear,"
she said, as we stood together, watching Teddy make a descent, for he
was up testing his engine.
"Yes, that first magnetic wave idea proved a failure," I said
regretfully. "And why, I can't yet discover. My first idea was to
create an intensified magnetic wave which would have the effect of
`seizing' the working parts of the Zeppelin engines, and putting them
out of action. For instance, from your aeroplane you would direct this
wave against the Zeppelin and bring its engines gradually into a state
of immobility. The natural act of the Zeppelin engineer, on finding
that his engine was slowing down, would be to admit more fuel for a few
moments. On the sudden release of the arresting medium the engine would
`pick-up' violently and blow the heads out of the cylinders, thereby
causing the explosion which we desire to create."
"Your experiments were all in secret," Roseye remarked. "The theory
seems sound enough. Curious that it did not work!"
"Yes. Even now I can't, for the life of me, discover the reason," I
replied. "Yet we have, happily, tested this new apparatus of ours, and
we know it is feasible as soon as ever we can get its weight further
reduced, and the ray intensified."
"And the sooner you can do that, the better," my well-beloved declared.
"Before very long, at the present rate of increase, we shall, I expect,
see Zeppelins of a much greater size."
"True," I remarked, as I watched Teddy spring out of his bus, and make
his way across the aerodrome in our direction. "No time should be lost.
To be effective the aeroplane will have to be able to climb to 18,000
feet, and even remain aloft at that height for hours to lie in wait for
the airship. The airship of one year hence will inevitably be a much
more formidable machine than the present Zeppelin."
"But we must be most careful to keep the secret, Claude," she urged.
"The enemy must not know it, or they may combat us!"
I was silent for a few moments. Across my mind there flashed the
recollection of that strange enemy message in cipher that had been found
in her card-case.
What could be the explanation of that mystery? It was plain that the
enemy were in possession of some facts and, further, that at all
hazards, and regardless of all risks, they intended to discover our
secret.