The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

There seemed to be a quantity of rising ground about me, therefore I decided to ascend farther, first to avoid the oncoming clouds that were drifting low, precursory of rain or snow, and secondly, from a higher altitude to be able to pick up hoping, Theed’s flares guiding us home.

I rose to five thousand eight hundred feet when, on my left, I saw in the far distance a red stream of light from the furnace of a locomotive, but on what line of rail it was I could not decide. Lost I was in that unbounded space of darkness – lost until I saw half a dozen scattered street lamps darkened on top and shedding slight patches of light upon the pavement, when I suddenly realised that below me lay a small town. I recognised station lights! I had seen those once before that evening. It was Uckfield!

While lost I had flown in a complete circle quite unconsciously, as every airman flies. But now, steering again by compass, it was not long before I at last saw those four tiny points of white light below – the acetylene lamps over which old Theed was keeping guard.

At such a height were we that the flashes looked mere specks.

Roseye nudged me, and pointed down at them, while I nodded a response.

Just at that moment we saw, a tiny pin-point of light flashing near the lamps, and knew it to be old Theed signalling to us, fearing lest at that height we might miss our landmark and go forward.

He could not see us, but of course he must have been hearing our powerful engine for some time.

In response, I gave one short flash with the searchlight, and then commenced to plane rapidly down, circling above the field marked for our landing.

A belt of firs stood on the west side I knew, and these I was compelled to avoid. My additional difficulty was one that always confronts a pilot when landing at night, namely, an ignorance of the direction of the wind. By day the pilot can tell this from the way in which smoke blows, the currents of air waving across growing crops, and by other signs which in the darkness are not available. A good landing should be against the wind, so as to break the impact of coming to earth. Yet by night, if there be no mark in the aerodrome telling the pilot the direction of the wind, he has to take chances and risk it.

This I did. I came down in a rapid spiral over Holly Farm and, circling the field twice, alighted carefully, facing the front of the house. Unable to judge the distance exactly we, of course, bumped along a little, but I succeeded in steadying her, and a moment later we were stationary on terra-firma after nearly two hours and a quarter in the air.

Instantly I shut off the engine and then, turning to Roseye, uttered the first word.

“Well?” I asked, taking her gloved hand in mine.

“Splendid, Claude!” she cried enthusiastically.

“Splendid! Absolutely splendid!”

I saw that she was pinched with cold, half-frozen indeed, and very cramped, therefore I unstrapped her, and lifted her out into the arms of old Theed, who came running up to us.

Then I hopped out myself and, taking my love’s arm, we walked up to the farm where we were soon before the huge log fire in the farmer’s best room, while Theed went round to extinguish the lamps.

Then, as we stood before the fire to thaw, still in our flying clothes, I drew her dear face towards mine and kissed her fondly upon the lips.

“I wonder why Teddy sent us away for an hour, as he did?” she queried.

“Don’t know, dearest,” was my reply. “He’ll be back very shortly, and will tell us what happened.”

At that moment Mulliner entered with two cups of hot cocoa, a beverage at that hour and in those circumstances very welcome.

“You managed splendidly!” Roseye declared. “Isn’t it awfully exciting to be up in the dark! Nobody who hasn’t been up at night would ever dream how weird and yet how lovely is the feeling – would they?”

“It’s far worse with these new lighting orders,” I remarked. “One gets so few landmarks. That’s why I lost my way more than once.”

Scarcely had I uttered those words when Teddy, in his big brown motor-coat and muffler, burst into the room.

Dashing across to me he wrung my hands with wild enthusiasm.

“It works, Claude!” he cried. “The conductor sparked across at every test. Even the last, at three thousand yards, the spark was quite an intense one!”

“Then we haven’t failed!” I cried breathlessly.

“No. I should rather think not!” was my friend’s eager reply. “Why, at five hundred yards the laurel bush got badly burnt, and at a thousand it made a fearful crackle and was alight.”

“But it really acted at three thousand – you say?”

“It acted perfectly – and over a twelve-inch spark, too!”

“Then it shows that, after all, we can direct the electric current and thus create sparks across from metal to metal!” I remarked.

“Yes. We’ve succeeded,” he said. “To-night I’ve witnessed something that no man has hitherto seen. Our minor experiments were interesting enough, but this is proof positive that an invincible power to successfully destroy Zeppelins has at last been put into our hands.”

“I hope so,” declared Roseye. “Mr Munro and I have had a most exciting flight. But why,” she asked, “why did you send us away on our arrival?”

“Because the terrible roar made by your engine alarmed the whole neighbourhood, and some people ran out in their night-clothes towards the church, believing you to be an enemy machine. Therefore I climbed a wall and signalled to you to return in an hour, when all would, I hope, be quiet again.”

“Was all quiet when we returned?”

“Yes, they had all gone back to their beds. Theed had arrived for me by that time, so after your second visit he assisted me to take out the asbestos sheet and rejoin the conductor with the copper cable. We made a good joint; so that there’ll be no danger to the church in case of a thunderstorm.”

“Then the importance of the invention is proved?” asked Roseye.

“Proved?” he echoed. “Proved without a shadow of doubt.”

And he unwound his muffler, cast off his heavy frieze coat, and we both went out to assist in wheeling the machine back into the barn.

That night we had proved to our satisfaction that our long and patient labours had certainly not been in vain.

Chapter Twenty

Those “Eyes!”

Next day dawned wild and wet, with a sixty-mile-an-hour wind.

During the morning Teddy and I, assisted by Theed, made some little adjustments to the machine which, though reposing in the barn, was ready at any instant for another flight.

All three of us were, naturally, full of glee that our invention was a proved success. It only remained for us to rise and attack the next Zeppelin that came over.

This idea, however, was all very well, of course, but enemy airships had a sly knack of coming over the sea at unexpected moments, dropping bombs, and returning before our aeroplanes could rise sufficiently high to drop incendiary bombs upon them. The exploits of poor young Warneford, and of the French gunners behind the lines at Brabant-le-Roi, had been hailed with delight by the Allies, and naturally so, yet no enemy aircraft had been brought down on British soil. That was a feat which I intended, even at the risk of my own life, to achieve.

The power to destroy a Zeppelin had been placed within my hand, and I intended to use it, though at present I had not matured any actual plan.

After our frugal luncheon that day, a meal of boiled bacon and beans, the weather cleared up, so Roseye expressed a wish to go down to Eastbourne to buy something she required. So I took her in the ear. A nip was in the air, so she wore a veil, and on starting away I told Teddy that, in all probability, we should have dinner in Eastbourne before returning.

“Right ho! old man,” he replied. “Perhaps I shall run up to town. We want those two new nuts and the sparking-plugs you know, so I can get them. If I go, I shan’t be down till the last train, so send Theed over to Nutley to meet me, won’t you?”

“Right,” I said, and a moment later, with Roseye beside me, I started off down the long narrow wooded lane which led round by a place called Oldlands, and down into Maresfield.

The winter landscape was dull and dispiriting.