Both Ned and Buck were too busily engaged in getting the _Ocean Flyer_
out of range of the aerial guns to miss Alan for fully ten minutes.
They shot the airship almost obliquely upwards over the city until the
clouds shut off all sight of it from them and even the most daring of
the pestering French aeroplanes could follow them no higher. Then Ned
noticed for the first time that Alan had not returned to the pilot
house.
“Is Alan down there in the engine room with you, Buck?” he called
through the speaking tube.
“No. Good gracious! Isn’t he with you either?” exclaimed Buck
anxiously. “Everything here seems to be running smoothly, so I’m going
to risk leaving it a few minutes to look for him.”
It was not a hard matter to find Alan where he lay huddled up just
inside the port door. With a cry of consternation Buck dropped upon his
knees beside the silent figure, turned it over gently and was shocked
to note the bloody ghastliness of his comrade’s face.
Severe newspaper training was strong in Buck Stewart though. He did not
turn squeamish or raise Ned’s anxieties by shouting that Alan had been
wounded. Ned needed his whole mind for the management of the Flyer, and
Buck realized that.
Gathering the insensible boy up in his arms, Buck carried him into one
of the small staterooms, hurriedly bathed his face in warm water, and
was relieved to discover that what had at first appeared to be a mortal
wound was merely an abrasion of the flesh where the Frenchman’s bullet
had grazed its way. Alan revived a few minutes afterward, and while
his legs were still a little shaky he protested that he felt quite his
usual self.
After their hostile reception at Paris, the Airship Boys realized that
it would be folly to attempt a similar daylight descent upon Muhlbruck,
where Bob Russell was imprisoned. Also the appalling screech of
bursting shells going past had given them a heartfelt disinclination to
get the _Ocean Flyer_ anywhere between the lines of fire on the battle
front.
Examination of a war map presented to them by the editor of the New
York _Herald_ showed plainly that the nearest trenches of the opposing
armies lay about forty miles to the northeast of Paris, extending
thence in the form of a rough semicircle, indented towards the north,
for a length of nearly two hundred miles. One end of this titanic
battle front ended on the shores of the North Sea in Belgium; the
other in French territory in the Meuse prefecture. In order to reach
Muhlbruck it was necessary for the _Flyer_ to pass directly over the
firing-lines somewhere in the Ardennes forest region, and then to
proceed northerly, tending somewhat to the east until crossing the
Belgian frontier, near which Muhlbruck is situated. The latest reports
of the war showed the fiercest fighting just then to be going on
far to the south along the river Meuse, and northwesterly along the
Aisne, a few miles within French territory, where the Germans were
making desperate daily assaults upon the allied French and English
intrenchments. The severe guerrilla fighting which had nearly turned
the Ardennes region into a shambles had then ceased almost entirely,
while General von Kluck, commanding the German army of the west, was
endeavoring to force the arms of his crescent battle line westward
in around the Allied forces and by so doing compel them either to be
surrounded and captured, or else to fall back upon Paris once more.
“It looks to me,” said Ned, outlining the positions on the map with one
finger, “that it will be best for us to cross the firing line there
in the Ardennes, flying high so as to be out of the range of those
tremendous German field guns which they say can carry a cannon ball
fifteen miles or more. If you boys think well of it, we might even drop
the _Flyer_ in the Ardennes forest, get a chance to stretch the cramps
out of our legs there, and still get to Muhlbruck long before dark.”
Both Alan and Buck approved heartily of this plan and so it was decided
upon. Estimating the distance between their present position and the
Ardennes by their maps and instruments, the _Ocean Flyer_ proceeded on
its way, concealed from sight by the heavy cloud banks beneath. While
the sun was still high, they saw that they had arrived somewhere in the
neighborhood of the intended stopping-place. Ned then began planing as
straight downwards as he dared and shortly afterwards shouted:
“There it is, boys! We figured the time and distance exactly. There are
the tree-tops!”
Sure enough, there extended the green expanse of the great Ardennes
wood, with the dull glint of the setting sun gilding the leaves and
branches. Afar in the distance, a mere speck in the flame-colored sky,
a solitary observation balloon was ascending. Somewhere away to the
northwards the dull, monotonous booming of cannon could be heard like
the rumble of distant thunder. The woods showed no signs of life; there
were no spirals of smoke rising into the still evening air to warn the
young aeronauts of near-by camp fires.
Sailing slowly over the tree-tops and gradually dropping lower and
lower, the _Flyer_ finally came upon an open glade perhaps half a mile
square and ideally located for a landing. Its only obstruction was a
clump of maybe half a dozen ancient oaks standing almost in the middle
of the area.
There Ned brought the big airship to earth as lightly as a bird, and
the three boys jumped out to enjoy their first touch of Mother Earth
since leaving New York nearly a day before. The air was mild and
odoriferous with the smell of the forest and all took huge breaths of
it gratefully. Buck pranced about like a colt let loose in pasture, and
he and Alan ran short races up and down the glade to stretch their
cramped muscles.
“Now, boys,” called Ned, “it is time that we held a serious council of
war to decide just how we are going to manage Bob’s escape. Let’s sit
down under these trees here and make final arrangements, because by
midnight we’ll be at Muhlbruck and won’t want to waste any time in that
dangerous vicinity.”
So they sat there under the biggest tree in the center of the field and
talked things over.
Alan said: “I don’t see how we can decide upon any very definite plan
until after we get there and find out the lie of the land. For all
that we know, the prison where they have Bob locked up may be right in
the center of the town with a couple thousand watchful soldiers around
it. I don’t believe that we’ll ever be able to get near enough to the
prison to get Bob out without some leg-work.”
“I’ve been thinking of that too,” said Ned, “and feel pretty sure
that some one of us will have to go into town disguised to get exact
information, while the other two of us remain to guard the _Flyer_ and
be ready to lend assistance whenever we are called upon. The difficulty
is to say which one of us ought to undertake the perilous mission of
spy. You know if the Germans ever caught him he would be in an even
worse fix than poor old Bob.”
“Let me go, Ned,” pleaded Alan, his face aglow with enthusiasm. “I’m
perfectly willing to take the risk.”
“No, let me go,” said Buck. “Both of you boys are absolutely needed to
manage the airship, and in a pinch can get along well enough without
me. Besides that, I can speak German well enough to pass in the dark,
and my newspaper work has given me more practical experience in the
sleuthing line than either of you two have had.
“Personally I don’t think the chances are that I would run much danger
of detection there in disguise after midnight, but, even if they do get
suspicious, I could show them the war-correspondent’s credentials given
you by the _Herald_. I don’t believe that even grouchy old General
Haberkampf is crazy enough to risk getting the American press down on
him by mistreatment of me should I have to shove those papers under his
nose.”
“I think that you exaggerate the importance of the New York _Herald_
over here in the war zone,” said Alan with a smile. “Remember that the
_Herald_ card didn’t prevent the Germans from throwing Bob into their
beastly prison.”
“But that was quite a different case,” explained Buck. “Bob Russell was
caught with certain papers on his person which are said to have branded
him as a hostile spy.”
“However--” began Alan again.
Ned interrupted him.
“Buck is right, Alan,” said he. “I don’t like to think of his risking
his life in this way, but he is clearly better fitted for the job than
either you or I. I understand how disappointed you are in not getting
the chance to risk it for good old Bob’s sake, and I’m just as sorry
that I can’t do it. But Buck’s knowledge of the German language, his
experience in this sort of thing, and the fact that he can the better
bluff about being a regular newspaper correspondent, all make him the
logical man for it. You and I will have to give in.”
Alan was very much disappointed that things turned out so and tossed
back his head to conceal his chagrin. As he did so his eye caught sight
of something strange in the bushy tree-top directly above their heads.
“Look, boys, isn’t that a little house up there?” he cried, pointing.
As he did so there came a chorus of guttural exclamations from the
concealing leaves up above, and, before the startled Airship Boys
had time to do more than scramble to their feet, at least a dozen
shaggy-bearded German soldiers, in ragged, dirt-stained gray uniforms,
came sliding one after another down the surrounding tree-trunks.
“Hands up!” roared one who seemed to be in command, and, even though
he spoke in German, there was no mistaking the meaning of the musket
barrels pointed threateningly at the three boys.