The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

“If anyone ever wants to get into this ’ere place, sir,” old Theed often said to me, “then they’ll have to put my lights out first – I can assure you.”

“Well,” Teddy exclaimed presently, as he slowly lit a fresh cigarette. “Let’s adjust things a bit better, and we’ll then try how she goes – away out on the pole. It’s getting quite dark enough to see – especially with your glasses.”

“Right you are,” I said, and then, after another ten minutes of manipulation with the wires, during which I “cut out” the aerial and several big glass-and-tin-foil condensers, all was ready for the experiment.

Teddy had drawn a heavy wooden bench in front of the door, and upon it I placed the big box of brown-stained deal which contained our mysterious apparatus from which we both expected such great things. Indeed, that curious machine, had just escaped bringing upon us instant death.

Yet that mishap to which we had been accidentally so near had revealed several things to me, causing me to reflect upon certain crucial and technical points which, hitherto, I had not considered.

In that square, heavy box, connected up by its high-tension wires to three of the big induction coils upon the table was, we believed, stored a power by which the Zeppelins could be successfully destroyed and brought to earth.

It was nearly dark when I opened the door of the shed situated opposite to where I had placed the box, and looked out to ascertain if anyone was about, as we wished for no prying eyes to witness our experiment.

I walked out, and around the building, but nobody was near. Then, when I returned to the door, I stood for a moment gazing away across the wide area of market-gardens to where, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a high flag-pole which had been erected for me a couple of years before, and which had, before the war, borne my wireless aerial.

The little white hut near by I had built, and until the outbreak of war, when Post Office engineers had come and seized my private station, I had spent many hours there each evening reading and transmitting messages.

The pole, in three sections, which in the falling darkness could only just be discerned, was about eighty feet in height and stayed by eight steel guys, each of which was in three sections connected together by green-glazed porcelain insulators, so that any leakage of electrical current could not go to earth. Affixed to the pole and protruding some two feet above it was a copper lightning-conductor with four points, an accessory which I had had put up recently for experimental purposes.

“Nobody’s about,” I said to Teddy when I returned. “Will you run the dynamo, if all is in order?”

Then, after a final examination of the various electrical connexions, he started the engine and the dynamo began to hum again.

I drew over a switch at the side of the box, when a loud crackling was heard within – a quenched-spark of enormous power. Afterwards, I quickly seized my binoculars and going out through the open door, taking great care not to pass before the lens, – where in the place of glass was a disc of steel – something like that of a big camera, forming the end of the box, I focussed my glasses eagerly upon the flagstaff.

“Hurrah! Teddy!” I cried in glee. “It works – Gad! come and look! At last! We have it at last!”

Next moment, my friend was eagerly at my side, while at the same instant we heard a light footstep and Roseye, in her big motor-coat, stood unexpectedly before us.

“It works! Roseye! It works, darling! Mind! Don’t pass in front of the box. Do be careful!” I cried in warning, while at the same time Teddy Ashton, with the binoculars at his eyes, gasped:

“By Jove, Claude! It’s wonderful. Yes! You’re right! We have success at last!”

Chapter Four

Concerns the Secret

In our eagerness, Roseye and I set out to walk towards the pole, leaving Teddy in charge of the apparatus.

To approach the spot, we had to leave the market-garden and take a road lined by meagre cottages, then at last, skirting two orchards and yet another market-garden, we came out upon a second road, which we crossed, and at last found ourselves at the disused wireless-hut.

There a strange spectacle greeted our eyes for, the darkness having by that time become complete, we saw, around the lightning-conductor on the pole and over the steel stays, blue electric sparks scintillating.

“Look, darling!” I cried. “See what we have at last produced by the unseen directive current!”

“Yes,” replied my well-beloved. “Look at the sparks! How pretty they are! Why – they seem to be jumping across the insulators from one stretch of wire-rope to the other!”

“That effect is exactly what Teddy and I have for so long laboured to produce,” was my answer, as I stood there fascinated by the sparks and the slight crackling which reached our ears where we stood.

The fact was that though our apparatus was half a mile away, yet upon those steel strands, as well as upon the copper lightning-conductor, the electric waves which we were discharging – a new development of the discovery of Heinrich Hertz – was such as to spark over all the intervening gaps, even though the space where the insulators were inserted was quite three inches.

It was a phenomenon such as had never before been witnessed by any experimenter in electricity. The theories I had formed and so often discussed with Teddy were now proved to be quite sound, for they had resulted in the construction of that apparatus which must, I knew, be most deadly to any Zeppelin.

The sparks, as we watched them, suddenly ceased.

For a moment I stood surprised, yet next instant realised that Teddy had, no doubt, some very good reason for stopping the engine. Somebody might have come upon the scene, and we were always extremely cautious that nobody should know in what we were engaged. The neighbours knew us as airmen, and believed we were engaged in making some kind of new propellers.

What I had seen in those few minutes, the flashing crackling sparks running over the surface of those porcelain insulators and, indeed, over part of the wooden pole – for it happened to have been raining until an hour before, and all the surfaces were damp – was, to me, sufficient to cause me to hold my breath in excitement.

“We have made a great and most important discovery to-day, Roseye,” I said as calmly as I could, as together we walked back to the shed. “This discovery is undreamed of by Germany. It will give us power over any Zeppelin which dares to come to our shores, providing that we can approach sufficiently near.”

“Ah! if you can,” replied the girl at my side. “No doubt we shall increase the range,” I replied. “We have, this evening, established the one most important fact that our apparatus is really capable of directing the rays, and that between metal and metal we can now, as Hertz endeavoured to, set up an electric spark from a distance.”

“You certainly have done that – but I don’t yet see the trend of your argument, Claude. I know I’m only a woman and unversed in technicalities, so please forgive me, won’t you?”

“Well,” I said as we walked, my arm linked in hers. “First, as you know, a Zeppelin is constructed mostly of aluminium, its stays and practically all its rigid parts are of that metal except some of light steel. It consists of a number of ballonets filled with highly inflammable gas, and around those ballonets are ribs of aluminium and steel. There must be joints in these ribs, and over those joints we have now proved that we can create sparks from a considerable distance. From the ballonets there is a constant leakage of gas, therefore if we charge the aluminium and steel so that they spark wherever there is the slightest gap we shall ignite that escaping gas and cause the whole airship to explode with terrific force. Do I explain it clearly?”

“Quite, Claude,” was her slow, thoughtful reply. “I see now in what direction all these wonderful and patient experiments have been made. To-night you have certainly produced sparks.”

“And ere long I hope we shall increase our range, and be able to do without half the current and all its consequent paraphernalia,” was my confident reply. “I’m certain,” I said, “as certain as we are walking here together, that we have at last established a sound means of protecting Great Britain against Zeppelin raids.”

“I hope you have, dear,” Roseye replied. “Oh! what a great thing it will be for the country. You and Teddy will deserve monuments – if you really can succeed.”

“We shall succeed, darling – with your assistance. I’m confident of that!”

“I – how can I help?”

“In many ways. You’ve already assisted us enormously,” I said. “Teddy was only saying so to-day,” and I gripped her arm more tightly, as we turned the corner and approached the shed where Ashton was, we knew, awaiting us.

“Splendid, my dear fellow!” I cried as we re-entered. “Sparking beautifully, all over – like fireworks!”

“Pretty dangerous fireworks!” my friend remarked. “I cut off the current just now.”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Well, do you know, old chap, I thought I heard somebody about!” he replied. “Even with the dynamo running I fancied I overheard voices. Therefore I cut off at once, and went outside to see. Strangers seemed to be somewhere at the back.”

“Did you find anyone?” Roseye asked.

“Nobody – yet I’m quite certain I heard voices,” he insisted.

“Some of the men from the market-garden perhaps,” I remarked.

“I don’t think so,” was Teddy’s reply.

“Why not?” I demanded in surprise.

“Well – because what I heard – and I tell you, Claude, I heard it quite distinctly – was a sudden exclamation of surprise.”