The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“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.

I disregarded her remark, merely answering:

“I fear the Zeppelin menace will be serious in the North Sea before many months. It is only the bad weather which protects us.”

The alterations to my machine were being carried on by a first-class firm at Willesden, therefore, at Teddy’s suggestion, all three of us ran over in the car in order to inspect the work, which we found progressing most favourably.

The foreman engineer, a big fat, elderly man, just as we were about to leave the premises, called me aside and, in a confidential tone, exclaimed:

“Excuse me, sir. But did you send a gentleman named Hale here?”

“Hale?” I repeated, looking at him in surprise. “I know nobody of that name!”

“Well – here’s his card,” said the engineer. “He called yesterday afternoon, and told me that you’d sent him, and that he had your authority to look at your machine.”

I took the rather soiled card, and saw upon it the name: “Harold Hale – National Physical Laboratory.”

I held it in my hand in surprise.

“A Government official!” I exclaimed in wonder. “I gave no such permission!” I declared. “As I have repeatedly said, these alterations you are making are strictly in secret.”

“That’s what I told him, sir.”

“You didn’t let him see the work, I hope?” I asked anxiously.

“Not very likely, sir,” was the man’s reply. “I asked him for a written authorisation, but he said he’d left it in his office. There was a good deal of swank about him, I thought. He seemed to have a swelled head.”

“Well – what happened?” I inquired.

“Oh! He became very officious-like – said he was a Government inspector of aircraft, and demanded to see what alterations you were making in your machine. My reply was to tell him that when he brought a letter from you, I’d show him – and not before.”

“Excellent!” I said. “Then he didn’t produce any credentials?”

“None. But he argued with me for a long time – told me that I had no right to deny him access to information required for official purposes; that I was liable under the Defence of the Realm Act, and all sorts of other bunkum. In reply, I merely told him to go along to the office and see Mr Smallpiece, our manager – whom I knew to be up at the London office,” added the foreman with a grin.

“What kind of man was he? Describe him,” I urged.

“Well – he was about forty I should say – round-faced, with a little close-cropped black moustache. He was well dressed – a dark-blue overcoat with velvet collar, and a grey plush hat. He came in a taxi.”

“Ah! If we could find the driver, we might perhaps discover who he was,” I exclaimed.

“Well, sir, I suspected him, somehow. I didn’t like him. So I took the number of the taxi. You’ll see it on the back of the card.”

I looked, and there found a number scribbled in pencil.

“By Jove!” I cried. “Most excellent. I’ll soon find out what his movements were. Thank you very much,” I added. “Remember nobody is to know anything whatever of the work in progress. That man may have been a Spy.”

“That’s just exactly what I put him down to be, sir!” declared the foreman. “But trust me. Nobody shall know anything.”

When I rejoined Roseye and Teddy they were inquisitive – and very naturally – as to what the foreman had been telling me. But I kept my own counsel, determined to make investigations alone.

We drove back to town and lunched in the restaurant at the Piccadilly Hotel. Teddy had suggested the Automobile Club, but I had overruled him, and we went to the Piccadilly instead. At the club there was far too much flying “shop” – and I wanted time to think.

At three o’clock I ran Roseye home, dropping Teddy on the way, and then returned to Shaftesbury Avenue.

As I entered, Theed told me that his father had been up to say that on the previous night there had been some strangers about the shed at Gunnersbury. He had heard footsteps around the place at about three o’clock in the morning, but on going out he could discover nobody. He had taken out his big heavy Browning pistol which I had bought for him, and he had told his own son that he regretted that he had not caught the intruders.

Here was another source of suspicion! It confirmed my belief that the Invisible Hand had been laid once more upon us, and, further, that whoever directed it was alike most daring and unscrupulous.

“That’s most curious!” I said, in reply to Theed. “Your father seems to be having quite a lively time at night out there!”

“Yes. He does, sir. He’s convinced that somebody is watching to find out what’s going on – spies, he declares.”

“No, no, Theed,” I laughed, in order to hearten him. “There’s far too much bunkum talked about spies, and far too many sensational rumours on every hand. Tell your father that he’s becoming nervous. Surely he ought not to be after all his long police service!”

I only uttered those words for effect. I knew that Theed would bully the old man, and tell him that he was suffering from nerves. Every son loves to jeer at his father, be he peer or peasant.

I passed into my room and took up the telephone.

In a few moments I was on to my friend Professor Appleton, the Director of the National Physical Laboratory, that department which, for years, had studied aeronautics.