The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas

But his congratulations to himself were premature.

Again the light of the Zeppelin enveloped them. The glare seemed like a warm bath of all-revealing light. There was a flash and then the shriek of a projectile as the aeroplane dipped under the glow of the light. Then came the boom of the report.

“Zey ought to learn to shoot,” muttered de Garros.

“Thank heaven they can do no better than they are,” rejoined Jack.

“Now we show zem zee clean pair of heels and run away,” said de Garros.

“I’m glad to hear that. I couldn’t stand much more of this,” thought Jack.

“If I was alone, or had an officer wiz me, we go above zat Zeppelin high in zee air and blow him up,” announced de Garros cheerfully, after a minute or two. “Ah! zey get us again. Peste!”

The whine of a machine gun sounded as the searchlight of the pursuing Zeppelin again enveloped the bold little aeroplane. Her great bulk, big as a steamship, was rushed at top speed through the air. They could catch the roar of her four motors being driven at top speed.

De Garros had dropped again, and thanks to his skill, the aeroplane was still unhit, although the projectiles from the quick firer had come close enough for the occupants of the monoplane to hear their whine.

“We beat zem out!” exclaimed the Frenchman.

“Then we are faster than they are.”

“Oh, very much.”

“Well, we can’t be too fast for me,” muttered Jack. “I – ”

“Sacre!”

The searchlight had again caught them, and again there had come reports from her underbody. This time the sharp crackle of rifles.

“Are you hurt?” cried Jack, as the Frenchman gave a sharp exclamation recorded above.

“Malediction, yes. Zey nick my hand. Eet is not bad. But worse zey hit zee motor I think.”

The smooth-running machine was no longer firing regularly. Its speed had decreased.

“What are you going to do now?” cried Jack. “We’ll be mowed down by those machine guns if we slow up.”

“We must come down.”

“But the Germans?”

“There are no campfires below us now.”

“But can you make a good landing?”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“Parbleu! If I cannot zen all our troubles are over, mon ami.”

The aeroplane began to descend, slowly at first and then faster. The dark earth sky-rocketed up at them from below.

CHAPTER XXXVI

A MYSTERIOUS CAPTURE

But the disaster de Garros had feared more than admitted did not happen. Between two patches of wood lay an open field, readily distinguished even in the dark by its lighter color. In the stubble of a mown crop the aeroplane alighted, not without a considerable jolt to its occupants.

Their main anxiety now was the great Zeppelin they could hear, but not see, above them. Jack trusted they were equally invisible and that the searchlight would not reveal them, for high explosive bombs in a deadly rain from above would certainly follow.

De Garros, while wringing his wounded hand with pain, was helped out of the machine by Jack.

“Malediction, and I not get zee chance to fire on zat chien of a Zeppelin,” lamented the Frenchman. “Some day I pay zem back.”

“Is your hand badly hurt?” asked Jack anxiously.

“I do not know and we dare not yet use zee electric torch I ’ave on zee machine.”

“Why not?”

“It would show zee Zeppelin where we ’ide.”

“Then you don’t think they guess that we have descended?”

“No, if they had zey would search zee ground wiz zeir light.”

“That’s so.”

“But now they are point eet ’ere, zere, all over zee sky. If zey no find us zey think zat we are keel and zey go away.”

Jack shuddered at the narrow escape they had from this being made literally true.

For a long time, or so it seemed to the anxious watchers below, the Zeppelin soared above them, her searchlight swinging in every direction. But at last the noise of her engines grew dimmer and the light vanished.

“Zey go away disgoost,” said de Garros, shrugging his shoulders. “Now we see what are zee chances of patching up my hand and getting zee engine going again.”

The electric light, carried to locate engine trouble at night, was switched on and brought out by its long wires over the side of the craft. Then began an anxious examination of the aviator’s hand.

It proved that the tip of his thumb, where it had laid on the edge of the wheel, had been badly nicked by a bullet, but luckily it was the left member.

“If zee engine ees capable of being fixed I can drive wiz my right hand,” declared the aviator. “Thank the bon Dieu that it was not zee steering wheel zat was struck.”

With the first aid kit, carried by all soldiers in the field, they soon dressed and bound the injured member, and then came the examination of the engine, an investigation on which much depended. If it proved to have been too badly damaged to be repaired, they would not stand much chance for escape in a country so overrun with German troops. For all they knew some might be camped not far off. But they had to take their chance of that.

“Ciel, we are in zee luck!” exclaimed de Garros, after a brief examination, “the chiens only smashed a spark plug. I soon fix ’im and zen once more we start.”

The repair kit contained the necessary plug, which he quickly replaced. Then the journey through the night, which had already proved so eventful, was renewed. But now Jack felt a fresh alarm. How would they be able to tell at Louvain that it was a French and not a German aeroplane hovering above them.

He put the question to de Garros.