Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils

He could barely see what he was about, for it had grown black outside. Only the recurrent flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. And that scene, when he stared through the window, was wild indeed.

Tom put on his helmet and the goggles fastened thereto and wrapped himself in the blanket. He lay down with his head close to the window. Slowly the Zeppelin was rising above the tempest. By and by the last whisps of the storm-cloud disappeared; but the gale still thundered through the wire stays of the ship and buffeted the great envelope above the swinging cabin and bridges.

“Such a craft might be easily torn to pieces by the wind!” The thought was not cheering, and Tom put it aside as he did all other depressing ideas.

It seemed to him that he had already gone through so much that his life was charmed. At least, he never felt less fear than he did at the present time.

The sharp gale continued. The Zeppelin had risen much higher, but it could not get above the wind-storm. Although it may have been steering to a nicety, he was sure that the huge craft was drifting off her course to a considerable degree.

After a couple of hours the commander of the Zeppelin came back from the pilot-house. He saw Tom’s face pressed close to the window and waved his hand.

When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back to the door and opened it a narrow crack. The ober-leutnant went right through the cabin and disappeared.

Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the scheme which had been slowly forming in his mind? Was the moment propitious?

The young American hesitated. It meant peril – perhaps death – for him, whether he succeeded or failed. He knew that well enough. Such an attempt as he purposed might only be bred of desperation.

He tore off the helmet and goggles which had masked him. He rolled the blanket and laid it along the bench as his own body had lain. On to the end of the roll next the window he pulled the helmet and arranged the goggles so that a glance through the window would show a man lying apparently asleep on the cushioned bench.

Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color over his head and prepared to steal out of the closet, his pistol in his hand.

CHAPTER XXI – THE WRECK

Youth is fain to be reckless, but there was no lack of reasoning behind Tom Cameron’s intention.

He was a prisoner on this airship which was bound on a raid over London. If the Zeppelin was not brought down and wrecked on English soil, she would return to her base and Tom would be sent to a German internment camp for the duration of the war.

Imprisonment by the Hun was not a desirable fate to contemplate. If the Zeppelin was brought down during the raid over London, he would very likely be killed in its fall. He might as well risk death now, and perhaps in doing so deliver a stroke that would make this raid impossible.

He slipped out of the closet in which he had been confined and closed the door behind him. He ran quickly to the after door of the long cabin, which he had previously seen could be fastened upon the inside by a bolt. He shot this bolt, and then ran forward again and opened the door to the deck.

The wind almost took his breath. He was obliged to force the door shut again with his shoulder, and stood panting to recover himself. There was some considerable risk in facing the gale outside there.

It was impressed upon his mind more clearly now what it would mean if the Zeppelin could no longer be steered. This gale would sweep the airship down the English Channel and directly out into the Atlantic!

As this thought smoldered in his mind, others took fire from it. He faced a desperate venture.

If he carried through his purpose, with the Germans manning this airship he would be swept to a lingering but almost certain death.

The airship could not keep afloat for many hours. It took a deal of petrol to drive the huge machine from its base to England and back again. The store of fuel must be exhausted in a comparatively short time, and the Zeppelin would slowly settle to the surface of the sea.

Under these conditions he was pretty sure to be drowned, even if the Germans did not kill him immediately. He thought of his sister Helen – of his father – of Ruth Fielding. Already, perhaps, the loss of Ralph Stillinger and the airplane was known behind the French and British lines. Helen must learn of the catastrophe in time. Ruth might hear of the wreck of the airplane before she sailed for home.

Thought of the girl of the Red Mill well nigh unmanned Tom Cameron for a moment. To attempt to carry through the scheme he had plotted in his mind was, very likely, hastening his own death. Had he a right to do this?

It was a hard question to decide. Personal fear did not enter into the matter at all. The question was whether he owed his first duty to his family and Ruth or to the cause which he and every other right-thinking American had subscribed to when the United States got into this World War.

That was the point! Tom Cameron sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and again opened the door which gave egress to the forward deck of the German airship.

He pulled the door shut and breasted the cutting wind that rocked the airship as though she were in a heavy sea. He scrambled somehow along the deck to the pilot-house. There was a square of the same clouded glass in the door of this room. Through it he saw the shadow of a man with a row of instruments before him as well as several levers under his hand.

Tom had very little idea regarding the exact use of either the levers or the instruments. But he knew that he could put the Zeppelin out of commission with a few smashing blows if once he could get this man out of the way.

This whole forward part of the ship seemed deserted save for the man inside the room. Of course, the helmsman, or whatever he was called, must be in communication with all other parts of the great aircraft. If Tom would put his determination into practice he must overcome this man – and that quickly.

He opened the door. The man was aware of his presence, for the roar of the wind and the throbbing of the motors immediately reached the German’s ears more acutely. Tom saw him turn his head to look over his shoulder.

The young American had gripped his pistol by the barrel. He raised it and with all his force brought the weapon’s butt down on the padded helmet the man wore. Again and again he struck, while the fellow wheeled about and tried to grapple with him.

Tom broke the German’s goggles and the face before him was at once bathed in blood. Again and again he struck. The man sunk to his knees – then supinely to the deck, lying across the threshold of the room.

The American strode over him and looked swiftly about the hut. In a corner was fastened an iron bar. He seized it, and with repeated blows smashed the clock-faces and more delicate instruments, as well as beating the levers into a twisted wreck.

The Zeppelin lurched sideways, rolled, and then righted itself. But it lost headway and Tom felt sure that it would drift now at the mercy of the furious gale. He had accomplished his purpose.

But he had the result of his act to face. The other members of the crew of the Zeppelin would be warned of the catastrophe almost immediately. They would soon break through the door of the cabin and reach the forward deck.

He stepped out of the wrecked hut and glanced back. Already the roar of the motors was subsiding. He surely had put the whole works out of commission.

Tom scrambled around the pilot-house into the extreme bow of the craft. Here was a waist-high bin, or storage box, with a hinged cover. He opened it and looked in. It seemed roomy, and there were only some cans and boxes in the receptacle. In a flash he jumped in, lowered the cover, and crouched there in the darkness.

What went on after that he could neither see nor hear. But he could feel the pitching and rolling of the damaged Zeppelin! He knew, too, by that peculiar sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach that attends such a swift passage downward, that the ship was rapidly falling.

This lasted only for a few moments. Then the airship found a steadier keel. It had not begun to spin as a biplane or a monoplane would have done. In some way her descent had been stopped and her balance recovered. But her motors had stopped entirely, and that meant that the wind was driving her as it pleased.

With the cessation of the motors his ear became tuned to other sounds – the shrieking of the wind through the stays and the thumping of its blasts upon the elephant-like envelope. Nor was the passage the craft made a smooth one.

Now and again it pitched as though about to dive into the sea. This sea was roaring, too – a monotone of sound that could not be mistaken. The aircraft was at the mercy of the elements.

He crouched in the box, quite ready to spring up and empty his pistol into the faces of any of his enemies who lifted the cover. But for some reason they did not track him here.

It could not be possible that they were long mystified as to who had done the deed. The figure he had laid upon the bench in the little room at the end of the closet would not have long led them astray. He had brought about the disaster and the thought of it delighted him.

No matter what finally became of him, he had stopped this Zeppelin from ever reaching the English shore! There was one cruel raid over London halted in the very beginning. He could have shouted aloud in his delight.

He thrust up the heavy cover of the box and cocked his ear to listen for near-by sounds. There was considerable hammering and boisterous talk going on, the sound of which he caught from moment to moment. But it was mostly smothered in the roar of the waves and the shrieking of the wind.

They were very near the surface of the boisterous sea. He heard the bursting of a wave below the airship and the spray of it, tossed high in the air, swept across the structure and showered him as he crouched under the open box lid. In a minute or two now, the Zeppelin would be a hopeless wreck.

It came, indeed, more quickly than he had apprehended. There was a sudden dip, and the craft was swerved half around with a mighty wrench of parting stays and superstructure. A wave dashed completely over the platform. He shut the cover of the box to keep out the water.

The next few minutes were indeed disastrous ones. He was in a sorry situation. He did not know what was happening to the other castaways, but he felt and heard the frame of the great airship being wrenched to pieces by the ravenous sea.

The envelope boomed and tore at the frame for freedom. At last it must have been wrenched free by the wind, and the sound of its booming and clashing gradually drifted away. The box he was in rocked and pitched like a small boat in the sea. He ventured to look out again, clearing his eyes of the salt spray.

It was already evening. There was a lurid light upon the tossing waves. Near him was a mass of twisted framework and a barge-like hulk that rode high. Upon it he saw clinging several wind-swept figures.

Then the sea tore the bow of the forward deck of the Zeppelin entirely free from the rest of the structure. Tom Cameron went drifting off to leeward in his uncertain refuge.