Eagles of the Sky: or, With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes

The clamor still continued, if anything, redoubled, for now the element of fear had gripped the hearts of every man on board both boats as they felt that terrible, unseen agency stabbing at their eyes and making the stoutest writhe with agony and alarm, thinking they must be doomed.

Jack could easily comprehend why they should be demoralized under the prevailing conditions–there had been enough excitement in the air to start with when the hijacker crowd boarded the rum-runner and joined issues with the crews of the two allied boats but when from out of the skies there descended a swooping monster, apparently about to fall upon them as might a stray meteor from unlimited space in the firmament, and that strange, racking pain gripped their eyes, nothing but panic could describe their condition with any degree of accuracy.

But one element was now lacking in the dreadful turmoil–Perk could no longer detect the quick percussion of blows, as fists and clubbed firearms clashed against human bodies backed by a fierce anger that had been fanned into a blaze by injuries received and a sense of impending victory, with the spoils in sight.

Apparently every man among them was thinking of nothing save his own individual sufferings and terror–unable to see with any degree of certainty, they must be staggering this way and that, colliding with each other and then one by one either falling into the water or else jumping aboard the speedboat so conveniently nearby.

Jack had by this time brought the ship around again so as to head into the wind as before. Perk, divining that this meant a second slash at the mob on the sloop’s deck reached out for another relay of missiles. Now that he had got started he was in prime condition to “keep the ball rolling” until there did not remain a single hijacker or smuggler aboard the rum-runner.

But Jack, more inclined to pity than the former war ace, did not make that second dip–he had a good idea the punishment thus dealt out with their initial swoop would be severe enough to clear the deck and set the late rival forces to quitting the vicinity of the ill smelling sloop with the utmost speed, regardless of the means employed to accomplish such a retreat while the going held good.

Perk could hear splash after splash, as though the frenzied sufferers in their agony had been seized with the possibility of cooling water being a sovereign remedy for the ills that had so suddenly gripped their aching eyeballs.

Perk was chuckling to himself, even as he continued to crouch there, and held a third tear bomb ready for instant use when Jack was pleased to give him a fitting opportunity to throw it.

“Zowie!” he was telling himself, “if that don’t make me think o’ the times when us boys lined up on a dock and made the dive, one right after another–plunk–plunk–plunk! Go to it, you terriers–swim for the shore, boys, and good luck to you all. Our job’ll be to pick up the rum-boat with her juicy cargo, an’ hand her over to some Government official Jack knows about around these diggings. High–low–Jack an’ the smugglin’ game–that spells the hull thing I kinder guess!”

Perk was by no means so lacking in sagacity not to understand just why his comrade was hanging fire and keeping at a respectful distance from the sloop. He wished sufficient time to elapse so that most of the penetrating gas from the tear bombs would be carried off on the night wind and it might be reckoned safe for them to go aboard.

He could vision the terrified hijackers after their speedy plunge overboard managing to find their several boats and dragging themselves over the gunwales with but one thought in their bewildered minds, and that to put as much distance between themselves and the rum-runner as possible.

He even told himself he could catch the sound of splashing and oars working madly in the locks, although this may have been only imagination on Perk’s part, but for one thing, he did glimpse a moving light and could detect a chugging movement such as would accompany the inglorious flight of the speedboat, racing for some shore harbor.

Silence followed, as though all the human elements in that late wild tumult had managed to leave the scene of their defeat. Still Jack continued to swing around in a short circle, showing how even with the spoils of victory close within their reach he could keep to his standard maxim of “watch your step!”

Minutes passed, and it went without question that the penetrating gas must be well swept away by the night wind so that it would be safe for them to board their prize and take a quick inventory of the illicit cargo.

Perk knew the time for action had arrived when he felt the plane head toward the surface of the gulf, as though it was Jack’s intention to drop just back of the sloop’s stern when they could taxi alongside and readily climb to the low deck.

There was nothing surprising about their coming in contact with the surface of the water–Jack had acquired a habit of making perfect landings whether ashore or with pontoons. Knowing this, Perk never looked for anything else.

They came down with hardly any more of a splash than a pelican might have made and almost instantly Jack started taxiing ahead in the direction of the nearby anchored sloop.

Perk had set the third tear-bomb down with the belief that there would be no necessity for his using it. Silence hung about the sloop, and he had decided there could be no one around, unless, when they clambered over the side, they should discover some poor chap who had succumbed to the provoking gas or else been stunned by a blow in the wild melee that had raged previously.

Just the same wise old Perk did not mean to be caught off his guard and so he dragged out a formidable looking automatic, supplied by the Secret Service to all its accredited agents as a means for compelling a surrender on the part of any “wanted man” when overtaken in his flight.

The head-phones had been disconnected so there was nothing to hinder a prompt boarding of the captured boat when Jack gave the word. With the glorious flush of victory thrilling his whole frame Perk stood by to fend off as they drew close to the squatty stern. It would be his duty to clamber out on one wing and get aboard, carrying a rope by means of which the floating airship could be secured to the water craft.

This he managed to accomplish without much difficulty, wondering while so doing whether he and Jack might not be making history, for he suspected that never before in the annals of aviation had an amphibian plane been afforded a chance to take a prize of war in such an original fashion as bombarding the enemy crew with tear-gas bombs and causing them to flee in mad haste.

It was an exultant Perk who stood erect on the deck and waved his flying helmet with the proud air of a neophyte hunter planting his foot on the body of his first slain lion or tiger.

CHAPTER VII

A WHITE ELEPHANT ON THEIR HANDS

“Come on in, Jack old hoss, the water’s fine!” was the way Perk greeted his chum after gaining the deck of the captured rum-runner.

“First make that rope fast somehow so we’ll run no risk of losing our floating crate,” Jack advised him.

“Yeah, that’s just what I’m goin’ to do, buddy,” continued the other, as he proceeded to make fast to the sloop’s wheel after which Jack managed to clamber aboard.

There were lanterns scattered around, and in the haste with which the afflicted crew had abandoned their ship no one had bothered about extinguishing them. By means of the meagre illumination afforded by them, the two airmen were able to take a fairly comprehensive survey of their surroundings.

“Huh! I kinder guessed we’d find a bunch o’ the scrappin’ critters stretched out, an’ lookin’ all bloody like,” ventured Perk, with possibly a shadow of regret in his voice and manner, “but shucks! never a one do I set my lamps on. Here’s a case or two o’ wet goods been busted open, seems like, in all that kickup an’ mebbe now some o’ the wild boys got a taste that helped keep ’em in the roarin’, tearin’ fight they had but looks as if every man must a’ been mighty keen on jumpin’ his bail. Wow! I can’t blame ’em any, if the way my eyes feel is a fair sample o’ what they got served out to ’em!”

“You said it, partner,” echoed Jack, “but keep from rubbing it in, if you know what’s good for you. The gas is being carried away right along by the breeze, so let’s forget it and take a look around.”

“Let’s,” echoed Perk, always more or less curious and eager to “peek” when the chance offered.

It seemed as though they were alone on the anchored sloop that was rising and falling on the long rollers coming in off the wide gulf. Piles of cases lay on the deck around them, ready to be transferred to such smaller craft as were expected to draw alongside with orders for them from some mysterious central clearing house. Possibly there were many more similar packages down below, for the sloop was evidently heavily laden.

Now and then the voluble member of the firm would let out a crisp exclamation as though those keen eyes of his had run across some visible sign of the recent rough-house disagreement that tickled him more or less.

“We sure broke in on a sweet little party all right, Jack,” he observed, at one time with a chuckle, “see, here’s a broken bottle that I guess must a’ been smashed on some poor guy’s bean and from the blood spots hereabout he had a plenty, but still he managed to skip out when the grand march started. An’ looky what I found–a coat that’s tore into shreds. Gee whiz! but that was some hot tamale scrap, believe me. I’d give somethin’ for a chance to look in on the round.”

Jack was apparently puzzling his own head over something that did not hit him as so very humorous.

“Yes,” he told Perk, with a grimace, “we’ve made a bully capture all right, partner, but when you come to think twice it may be we’ve got a white elephant on our hands after all.”

“Huh! what d’ye mean by sayin’ that, old pal?” questioned the other, who apparently saw nothing in the affair calculated to create any tendency toward dismay in his mind. “You got me in a tail spin, partner–lift the lid, won’t you, an’ gimme a look in?”

“Well, we’ve got the rum-boat okay, haven’t we?” demanded Jack.

“Looks thataways, I guess,” Perk admitted.

“Just so, and what d’ye reckon we’re going to do with it?” continued the head pilot, hitting straight from the shoulder as usual.

“Why–er–ginger pop! that’s so, old hoss, what? Mebbe now the shoe’s on the other foot, an’ it’s the blamed sloop that’s got us held up. Would it be proper to set the bally boat afire and see all this hot stuff go up in flames? or we might knock a hole in the bottom, an’ sink her right where she stands, though that might get us in Dutch with our people, since the rum-runners could come around an’ salvage this case stuff again. Only way to settle the puzzle’d be for us to have a bargain day sale, opening case after case, knockin’ the neck off each and every bottle and makin’ all the fish in this corner o’ the gulf dizzy with a mixture o’ rum an’ seawater.”

Jack laughed at hearing all this wild stuff come from the bewildered Perk.

“Strikes me I’m not going to get much satisfaction from you, partner,” he bluntly told the other. “Our folks expect to see some evidence to prove the big yarn we’re bound to tell–about our dropping those tear bombs and scattering the fighting hijackers and rum-runners and all that stuff which means that by hook or by crook we’ve just got to get clear with this sloop and all the contraband that’s aboard–hand it over to some of Uncle Sam’s agents along the gulf coast, whose addresses I was given before leaving Washington, to be used in just such circumstances as these. So try again, and see if you can suggest some way it can be put through.”

Thereupon Perk started scratching his tousled head in a fashion he always followed when given a problem to solve, since his wits were apt to be a bit rusty and in need of oiling so as to cause them to function properly.

“Wouldn’t that jar you?” he finally exploded, “we jest can’t load our crate with the bally stuff, ’cause it couldn’t lift a tenth o’ the cargo we grabbed so easy-like. An’ as to towin’ the sloop after us by a hawser, it’d be too much like a caterpiller creepin’ along. I own up it’s got me buffaloed. Jack, an’ if anything’s goin’ to be done it’s bound to come out o’ your own coco.”

“No hurry at all, brother,” the other told him, little chance of those lads making back this way in a hurry, since they got the scare of their lives tonight. “Let’s look around some more and possibly a suggestion will pop up to give us the glad hand and see us out of the mire.”

“Suits me okay old hoss,” agreed Perk, nodding his head confidently as though he had known all along that such a clever partner as Jack would have a spare card up his sleeve to play when things began to look unusually gloomy.

Perk picked up one of the lanterns, for he knew they would need some sort of illumination if they intended to explore the regions below deck which he termed the “hold,” not being much of a sea-going man, although capable of filling quite a number of different callings from engineer to air pilot.

He had not taken half a dozen steps after descending the short flight of steps leading below when he came to a sudden halt.

“Glory be! what was that?–sounded real like a groan, Jack!” he exclaimed, trying to peer into the gloom of the hold, where there seemed to be row after row of the same type of wooden cases with foreign inscriptions burned on them.