The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“I don’t follow you, Mr Munro,” he said, when I told him the facts. “What name do you say?”

“Hale,” was my reply. “H-a-l-e,” and I spelt it.

“We’ve nobody of that name. There must surely be some mistake!”

“But he came with a visiting-card,” I said. “He went to the firm of engineers who are making certain alterations in my monoplane, and demanded of the foreman the right to examine what was in progress. He told them at Willesden that he was an official of your Department, sent by you, with authority from myself.”

“Well, Mr Munro,” replied the professor, in that quiet, matter-of-fact way of his, “this is the first I’ve ever heard of any Mr Hale. He certainly has never been sent by us. In fact I was entirely unaware, until this moment, that you had any experiments in progress.”

“Really, professor, I’m awfully sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I’m only trying to do my little bit – my very small bit – in the war. Thank you for telling me this. One never knows when one meets enemies. The Germans are so clever, so practical, and so subtle.”

“They are,” he answered. “Be wary, my dear Munro. If you are carrying out experiments upon any extensive scale you may be quite certain that somebody in enemy pay is watching. I have long seen it – long before the outbreak of war.”

Here again we had come up against the dead wall of fact.

“Then you think that the stranger was an enemy spy?” I asked.

“Well, in face of the facts, and of what I myself know, I’m perfectly certain of it,” the professor said. “I have no knowledge whatever of any person called Harold Hale. He evidently went out to Willesden to try and obtain certain knowledge, yet, by the sturdy attitude of the foreman whom you mention, he was defeated. Truly the wily and dastardly plots of our dear-brother-Germans – as they were called by some irresponsible Englishmen those hot August days of the declaration of war – have been amazing. It seems to me, Munro,” added the voice over the wire, “that if you are wary and watchful you may discover something that may be of unusual interest to the Intelligence Department.”

Then in my ear there was a loud buzz, followed by a sharp click, and all became silent.

Chapter Sixteen

At Holly Farm

Those constant proofs of the enemy’s eager inquisitiveness were, I here freely admit, very disconcerting.

We seemed surrounded by spies.

A dastardly attempt had been made to kill me, while some evil – what, I knew not – had happened to my well-beloved. It often struck me as most peculiar why she should preserve that strict secrecy regarding her whereabouts through those weeks when she had been missing.

Her terror of the mysterious woman whom she so constantly described as possessing the eyes of a leopard, together with the unbalanced condition of her brain, were, in themselves, solid proof that she had passed through some horrifying and terrible experience. Besides, had she not admitted that she had existed in what she herself had termed “a living tomb?”

So evident was it that we were being watched by some persons who intended, at all hazards, to discover the secret of our directive electrical apparatus that Teddy and I now adopted a new scheme. Each evening, after concluding our experiments, instead of taking the brown deal box back to my rooms, both my friend and myself disconnected the essential parts of the apparatus, each taking part of it home for safe keeping, thus leaving only the shell to be inspected by any intruder who might make a further visit to the shed.

Old Theed, however, kept a good look out and, as twice he had reported suspicious persons in the vicinity at night, he always carried his Browning pistol.

A fortnight had passed and my newly-arranged monoplane was nearing completion. Daily I went out to Willesden to superintend, and make certain alterations which had occurred to me since I had adopted my new design.

That more Zeppelin raids were expected everybody knew, and none better than myself.

The weather in the last fortnight of January 1916 was bad, and many people were declaring that the German airships would not dare to venture out except in calm conditions.

Some of the boys were discussing that point at Hendon one afternoon.

Teddy was inclined to argue as the public argued, that Zeppelins were affected by weather conditions, and advanced many theories of fogs, clouds, rain, snow, and the barometer.

“Then you don’t think inclement weather any protection, Claude?” asked my friend, while the others all listened in silence.

“No,” I said. “I quite agree with the arguments put forward on a basis of fact by many writers in the press. Of course Zeppelins, like every other craft not independent of the weather, prefer to sally forth in calms or light winds. But the utmost one can say is, first, that the calmer the weather the likelier a raid is to occur; and, secondly, that raids are less likely to occur in broad moonlight than on dark nights.”

“Then, my dear fellow,” whispered Teddy into my ear, in a tone so low that the others could not hear, “it is on one of the dark nights that we must make our trial flight – eh?”

“Well, according to the latest yarns,” remarked a fellow named Ainley, “the newest Zeppelins are armoured, and these very large craft have a gross lift of over thirty tons.”

“That is not much larger than the Zeppelins existing when war broke out,” I said, “but, of course, it must be admitted that even a small increase of size enlarges an airship’s capabilities and range. The top speed of the new thousand horse-power type is said to be about sixty-two miles an hour, but driving at such high speed must involve a heavy consumption of petrol.”

“What about climbing?” asked Ainley. “You’ve made Zeppelins a study, Munro. Tell us your opinion?”

“Well, in order to escape, more than one German airship has risen, we know, to 10,000 feet, but that was only in case of great emergency, and meant sacrifice of load and great waste of gas. You see, if a Zeppelin is over a town and is discharging her bombs and consuming her petrol, her natural tendency would be to rise. Probably the new type of super-Zeppelin could, I should say, rise 4,000 to 5,000 feet, but it must be remembered that it cannot, with impunity, go to 12,000 or 15,000 feet because of the density of the atmosphere.”

“Cover Great Britain with up-to-date ‘Archies.’ That’s my opinion – and one shared by many competent writers on the subject,” Ainley remarked, whereupon Teddy and I exchanged glances.

Little did that small group of pilots dream of the great surprise which we had “up our sleeve.”

A few days later – the First of February to be exact – the country was startled by the news published in the morning papers that on the previous night no fewer than six Zeppelins had flown over some Midland counties, dropping a large number of bombs, and killing and injuring many innocent women and children.

People who read the accounts stood aghast. Then, once again, came the cry from the big populous centres in the Midlands that warning of the approach of enemy aircraft should be given, and once again the papers were flooded with letters from indignant readers making all sorts of wild suggestions how to combat the Zeppelin peril. On top of this, however, came the welcome news that the L19, one of the raiders, had been found by a trawler in a sinking condition in the North Sea.

At least one of the barbaric baby-killers had got its just deserts.

Personally, I felt deeply moved by this latest dastardly invasion. That there must be an end to “traditions,” to political speech-making, to conferences and to promises of imaginary “nests of hornets,” was now clear. The homes of Englishmen were threatened with destruction. Germany had adopted a new mode of warfare that must change everything. Therefore, happily, unfettered by red tape, and unattached to any naval or military branch of the Service, but merely an experimenter, I intended, at the earliest moment, to put my directive wave to the crucial test.

During the past week we had not been idle a moment, and Teddy and I, after more failures, had at last been able to reduce the weight of our apparatus by nearly one-half, while we had been able to more than double the intensity of the current since that well-remembered night when we had tested it upon our wireless-pole while strangers had lurked unseen in the vicinity.

My monoplane was at last completed, and ready for delivery. All three of us became greatly excited, for after so many months of patient experimenting and designing, all was now ready for a practical trial in the air.

Lionel had returned from the North, but was gone to France in connexion with some trials of a new French monoplane at the aerodrome at St. Valéry-en-Caux. Therefore he was in ignorance of our pending experiments.

That we were being closely watched by spies, and that our every movement was being noted, we knew quite well. Indeed, Roseye seemed, curiously enough, to be filled with serious apprehensions.

Because of this, I decided not to fly from Hendon, but to experiment out in the country. Therefore on Thursday, the Tenth of February, in greatest secrecy, I removed my machine in two motor-lorries down to a little place called Nutley, on the borders of those high lands of Ashdown Forest, about eleven miles north of Lewes.

There, after some search, we found a convenient barn at a lonely, out-of-the-world place called Holly Farm, and this we soon converted into a suitable hangar.

The farmer and his wife were quite ready to rent us the house furnished as it stood, so next day we found ourselves in full possession.

Our party consisted of Teddy Ashton, the Theeds (father and son), Roseye, the maid Mulliner, and myself. Roseye and I made another journey by car up to Gunnersbury, and also to my rooms, in order to fetch down the remainder of the apparatus, and on the third day of our arrival all the parts were ready for assembling.

Holly Farm was a small but comfortable old house, with an ancient whitewashed kitchen which had black oak beams across its ceiling. The living-room was typical of the “best room” of the old-fashioned British farmer. In the deep-seated window stood a case of wool-flowers beneath a glass dome, while upon the horsehair-covered furniture were many crocheted antimacassars, and upon the wide, open hearth the farm-hand, an old fellow of nearly eighty, made huge log fires which were truly welcome in that wintry chill.

We had brought with us an ample stock of provisions, for the place we had chosen stood upon one of the highest points, not far from Chelwood Beacon, and miles from any town or village of any size.

From the attic windows which peeped forth from the thatch, we commanded a magnificent view both away north over Surrey, and south across the Downs to the Channel. We were up upon what the Bathy-orographical map of England terms “The Forest Ridge,” which lies between the North Downs and the sea.

With old Theed as sentry, we worked away in the farmyard, the doors of which were carefully closed, assembling the machine. That work took three days, though we all strove with a will, leaving Mulliner to act as housekeeper and prepare our meals.

Every day Theed’s son took the farmer’s cycle and went to get us a paper at Forest Row Station on the line between Tunbridge Wells and Horsham, that being the only connexion we held with the world outside. The good farmer I had paid handsomely, and had frankly told him that we were making some secret experiments with a new aeroplane against the Germans, whereupon he, as a good Englishman, had promised to hold his tongue.