The course of the _Ocean Flyer_ was altered slightly so as to avoid
passing over England and risking pot-shots from a people who were
already in a semi-hysteria over the threatened invasion by German
Zeppelins. The next land they saw was the coast of northern France.
They followed the Norman coast for a short distance and then once more
headed inland.
The flying speed had been reduced to thirty miles per hour, when the
airship first sank to a three thousand foot level, and, traveling
thus slowly, the boys had a pretty good chance to observe the country
beneath them through their powerful binoculars.
Normandy, the district where the Airship Boys first began flying over
France, had not yet been touched by hostile invasion, and, save for the
absence of the usual fleets of fishing smacks along the coast, was to
all appearances the same quaint, sleepy region as ever. Farther inland,
however, the ravages the war had made were more plainly visible. Few
trains could be seen, and in many cases railway bridges or the tracks
themselves had been torn up. Fields lay, for the most part, untilled;
smoke no longer belched from the long, finger-like chimneys of busy
factories. Nantes, Angiers, Le Mans and Chartres, all huge cities over
which the _Flyer_ passed, showed little activity save that even at
this early hour crowds were congregated in the principal squares and
in front of the government offices where daily returns from the battle
front were posted.
The appearance of the _Ocean Flyer_ was invariably the cause of intense
excitement. People scurried frantically about, church bells rang the
alarm and soldiers ran to their posts on the fortifications. Observed
from the boys’ elevated position, the scene greatly resembled an
ant-hill disturbed with a stick.
The city of Chartres was only a comparatively short flight, even at
their reduced speed, for the boys from Paris, the capital of France.
Twenty minutes after passing over the former city, the Eiffel Tower,
tallest structure in Paris, appeared, and soon other world-famous
landmarks were easily discernible through the glasses. There arose
the imposing, ages-old towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral, set on
an island in the middle of the river Seine, which, under its many
handsome bridges, wound like a silver ribbon through the gray expanse
of buildings which go to make up the fourth largest city in the
world. There lay the Palais Royal, with its celebrated shops and
restaurants; there the Louvre, Luxembourg and the Tuileries, stored
with priceless art treasures and famous in history as the palaces of
great kings. There was the green shrubbery of the public parks and the
white, ribbon-like lines which marked the Bois and the Champs Elysees,
those famous boulevards and promenades of fashion, radiating from the
Tuileries like the points of an immense star.
But what a vast change from the gay, teeming metropolis of less than a
year previous. The streets were nearly deserted, the pleasure seekers
were fled before the hot, scathing blast of war, like chaff in a strong
wind; the tables before the gay little cafes lining the boulevards were
turned bottom-side up and dusty with long disuse. There was no roar of
traffic, no shrill cries, no rumblings of passenger-filled omnibuses.
The Avenue de l’Opera was as quiet and deserted as a village street.
Automobiles had disappeared; only here and there meandered ancient
cabs driven by doddering grandfathers and drawn by skeleton horses
with sprung knees. A mournful, oppressive silence brooded over the
lightest-hearted city in the world.
The grass in the Tuileries gardens was unkept and stood ankle high.
The wooded shades of the Bois de Boulogne had been turned into a great
pasture for herds of cattle, goats and sheep, to provide food in case
the Germans again succeeded in actually besieging the city. Palaces and
celebrated public buildings were converted into hospitals. The young
men were all at the front fighting; only the aged and wounded remained
in Paris.
The city had not yet recovered from its fright of four months previous
when the conquering regiments of the Kaiser trampled Belgium underfoot
and advanced almost within cannon range of the walls. Even then the
battle was raging and bayonet charges were daily occurrences in the
trenches less than an hour’s automobile drive to the northeast.
Lookouts were stationed on all of the higher buildings to give warning
of the approach of bomb-dropping German aviators in their wide, white,
flat-winged “Taube” aeroplanes.
The coming of the huge, shining _Ocean Flyer_ was seen while it was
yet a considerable distance from the city and a whole flock of French
military aeroplanes arose birdlike into the sky to meet it. They
resembled hornets defending their nest. As the big airship planed down
towards them with its seventy-two feet of planes, extended like wings
on each side, the flock of smaller French aircraft shot suddenly apart
in different directions, realizing their helplessness to combat this
new threatening monster of the air. Some planed down like arrows into
the city again seeking safety. Others began to sweep in wide circles
around the _Ocean Flyer_, not daring to approach nearer. The harsh roar
of their motors and propellers could be heard even within the pilot
house where Ned stood guiding the _Flyer’s_ course.
Then the alarmed Parisians unlimbered their much-talked-of aerial
cannon on this new menace from the clouds. As each ugly black nozzle
was tilted skywards, there came a puff of greenish smoke, flame spat
forth and a huge shell was hurled straight at the approaching airship.
Most of these terrible missiles fell far short of their mark, but the
gunners of a battery stationed in the top of the Eiffel Tower were
quick in getting a better range and made it very dangerous for the
Airship Boys to continue their descent.
“Holy smoke!” gasped Alan, as one cannon shell burst with a terrific
detonation less than one hundred feet to the left of the _Flyer_ and
almost keeled it over sidewise. “This is getting too hot for me. They
think we’re a new type of German Zeppelin. Shoot her up higher, Ned.
Let’s get out of here quick.”
“I’ll raise her higher, of course,” answered Ned, at the wheel, “but
it’s a shame that we can’t get a closer view of Paris in wartime. That
would be something to tell the folks about when we get back home.”
Cr--cr--cra-sh! Boom!
The whole metal-plated frame of the _Flyer_ shook violently and
careened wildly to one side from the concussion of another lyddite
shell. Only quick action on Ned’s part prevented their capsizing.
“We won’t ever get home to tell anybody about anything if you don’t
drive the ship higher pretty soon,” yelled Alan.
Ned was the cooler of the two.
“All right,” said he, “but I do wish that you could manage to signal
some of these aeroplanes skimming around us that we are friends
instead of enemies, and that we want to alight down there in the city.”
Alan looked doubtful, but finally agreed. As Ned jammed the elevation
lever down hard in its socket and forced the _Ocean Flyer_ slowly
forward on a decided up-slant, his chum made his way out onto the
runway which encircled most of the _Flyer’s_ hull, and there, clinging
firmly to the iron taffrail with one hand, wig-wagged pacific signals
with a white flag gripped in the other.
Either the circling French aviators did not understand his signals,
or thought that the white flag was merely intended to deceive
them, for all save one of them totally disregarded it. That single
dare-devil bird-man drove his monoplane--like a flea going against an
elephant--straight, head-on, at the _Ocean Flyer_ the moment Alan made
his appearance outside. His face was set in frantic determination.
A startled cry of warning escaped the boy clinging in the terrific
wind there on the narrow runway, who thought that the madman intended
to crash into the bigger airship and so sacrifice his own life in the
attempt to disable the supposed enemy.
But that was not the daring Frenchman’s intent. When the roar of his
whirling tail propellers deafened Alan’s hearing and it seemed as if
in another second the little monoplane would be dashed against the
_Flyer_, the Frenchman tilted his planes sharply, swerved on a perilous
angle that almost overturned his light craft, and, as he swept past in
a rush of wind, jerked a revolver from his belt with one hand and fired
full into Alan’s blanched face. A second later he swooped down towards
the watching city below.
Alan felt a sudden stinging sensation on his cheek and could not
suppress a cry of pain. Something warm began to trickle down his cheek.
A sudden giddiness made his head swim. His eyes blurred and he felt
that he might topple over the narrow taffrail at any moment.
Blindly he groped behind him for the handle of the door leading back
into the ship--found it, tried to call for help--then stumbled forward
and sank huddled to the airship floor unconscious.