The Phantom Airman

So that was how Gadget became part of the fixtures and apparatus of the air liner. He was more than an adventurer, was Gadget. He might even have been an inventor or a discoverer, if he had met with better fortune in the choice of his parents. His sharp, young brain was full of great ideas.

In less than a couple of days, rigged out in a smart pair of overalls, which had been very considerably cut down, he was soon perfectly at home aboard the great liner. But then he was so adaptable. As an up-to-date cabin boy, the captain declared that he never knew his equal.

He became a general favourite, and in a very short space of time he discovered more about airships and internal-combustion engines than many a man would have learnt in six months.

It was no use, therefore, to argue with the boy that he didn't belong to the crew of the Empress. And it just wasn't worth while to inform him that, as he was still of school age, he would be handed over to the authorities, or placed in a reformatory, as soon as the vessel returned to England. Gadget had made up his mind that he wouldn't. In a little while it even became an open question whether Gadget belonged to the airship or the airship belonged to Gadget.

"I hain't argefyin' with you, I'm telling ye. This is the way it should be done!" he was heard to remark to one of the air mechanics one day, after he had been on the vessel about a week. The point at issue concerned a piece of work on which the mechanic was engaged, and Gadget had even dared to express his point of view. The extraordinary thing was that Gadget was right.

Ships and railway engines were all right in their way, but they were not good enough for Gadget. Aeroplanes and airships were much more to his liking. He was thoroughly alive and up-to-date, and though some months ago, when this fever of world travel first seized upon him, he had more than once considered the question of stowing himself quietly away on some outward bound vessel from the West India Docks in London, his fortunate discovery, and ultimate possession of that tattered copy of Five Weeks in a Balloon, had caused him to change his views.

Ever since reading that volume he had had no rest. Even his dreams had been mainly concerning balloons and their modern equivalents, airships.

"I will see the world from an airship," he had confidently announced to himself one day. "I will sail over tropical forests and lagoons, over deserts and jungles."

This had been his dream and his prayer. But unlike many older folk, Gadget had left no stone unturned in order to answer his own prayer. He had carefully followed the newspapers (for he had earned many a shilling by selling them) for the movements of the new air liner and the opening up of the All-Red Route. And when the time had arrived for the airship to sail, watching his opportunity the little fellow had smuggled himself on board, and here he was, having now almost sailed around the world, crossing the Arabian desert on the homeward voyage.

CHAPTER VII

A DUEL WITH WORDS

Gadget's activities, however, were not confined merely to the duties of cabin boy, although his diminutive size and his rapidity of movement made him very useful in that capacity. To fetch and carry for the skipper or chief officer along that 670 feet of keel corridor was to him a life of sparkle and animation. But, when no particular duty called him, the pulsating mechanism of that mighty leviathan irresistibly attracted him.

His round, closely cropped, well shaped head, and his roguish little face, would suddenly appear in the wireless cabin or in one of the four gondolas, where the powerful Sunbeam-Maori engines drove the whirling propellers.

Ship's mascot and general favourite though he was, his sharp wits soon enabled him to make himself almost indispensable. At length, however, the everlasting call seemed to be–

"Gadget! Gadget! Where is the little rascal? What mischief is he up to now?"

For it must be admitted that the overwhelming curiosity of the urchin sometimes got him into trouble. In this respect he had particularly fallen foul of Morgan, the third engineer, a short, stout, somewhat stumpy type of Welshman, whose spell of duty generally confined his activities to the care of the twin-engines in the rear gondola.

It appears that Gadget had unwittingly broken the rules and regulations of the airship by smuggling two parcels of tobacco aboard during a brief stay in one of the air ports. He knew full well that a little fortune awaited the man who could unload smuggled tobacco down the Whitechapel Road, and the temptation had been too great for him. He had been discovered, however, and the captain had punished him for the offence.

Now, Gadget was still smarting under this punishment when one day he startled the third engineer by his sudden and unlooked for appearance in the rear gondola.

"How now, you little rascal!" exclaimed Morgan, throwing a greasy rag at the boy. "How much did you make on that tobacco?"

"Stop smokin' on dooty, will yer, an' mind yer own bisness!" rasped out the urchin, feeling that both his dignity and importance were being imperilled by this reference to his recent offence.

"Go away!" snarled the bad-tempered Welshman, surreptitiously hiding the still smoking cigarette.

"Yah! Why don't yer get more 'revs' out o' those rear engines?" yapped the insulting little Cockney boy, repeating a few words used by the captain himself the day before, and preparing to beat a hasty retreat through the doorway.

"You dirty ragamuffin!" shouted the stout man, flushing with anger, and hurling the oil can, which he held in his hand, at the gamin.

For one instant the tantalising little street arab disappeared on the other side of the door, but, when the missile had spent its force, and had crumpled up against the panelling, leaving a pool of oil on the floor, the urchin's head reappeared once more. The opportunity was too good to be lost. All the vivacity of the boy was pitted against the hot tempered Welshman, and Gadget was a master of invective, and had a wonderful command of high sounding words, the real meaning of which, however, he did not properly understand. But he was just dying for another of these encounters, so common in his experience of things down Stepney way, or along the West India Dock Road.

"Call yerself an ingineer?" came the next gibe from the saucy, impudent little face, now distorted into something grotesque and ugly. "We'll be two hours late at Cairo, an' all because you ain't fit to stoke a donkey-ingine."

"Ger-r-r-o-u-t!" shouted the angry man, making a rush for his tormentor. "I'll break your head if you come in here again!"

"I'd like ter see yer!" came the tart reply, ten seconds later, as the head reappeared once again, for Gadget had retreated swiftly some way down the keel corridor, as his opponent made for him with a huge spanner.

The engineer had determined to lock the door of the little engine-room against the little stinging gad-fly, but of course the sharp-witted rascal had outwitted, or "spike-bozzled" him, as they say in the Air Force, by snatching the key and locking the communication-door on the outer side.

Morgan was beginning to find out to his cost that it was a very unwise proceeding to cross the path of this pertinacious stowaway. He could not get rid of him, and this morning, after the skipper's recent remarks, he was trying to recover his lost reputation by extra attention to his engines. Besides, the captain would be along on his rounds again soon, and, if the engines were not doing their accustomed revolutions, there might be trouble.

Thinking he had now got rid of his tormentor, Morgan turned to examine his engines, when the key turned softly in the lock once more, and the irrepressible mascot, peering through the slightly open door, grinned, and then gave vent to the one word, which means so much:–

"Spike-bozzled! Yah!"

"You're a little villain!" roared the engineer.

"You're an incubus!" retorted Gadget.

"Go away!"

"Swollen head, that's what you've got!"

"By St. David, if I catch you, I'll–" cried the now exasperated Welshman.

"Abnormal circumference–distended stummick, that's what you're sufferin' from. The capten says so!" replied Gadget as a parting shot.

This ungentle reference to his personal symmetry was too much for the engineer, and he made another wild rush in the direction of his opponent. This time, Gadget had no opportunity to lock the door, but, turning round, he bolted precipitately down the long keel corridor, cannoning into the chief officer, who was just coming along to the rear gondola, and receiving a somewhat violent cuff on the head from that dignified official, whose gravity had been gravely endangered by this sudden encounter.

"Here, you little rascal, take that!" cried the angry officer, and Gadget, glad to get away on such slight terms, and feeling that he had given his opponent value for his money, scampered off, and made his way to the wireless cabin.

Here he assumed immediately an attitude of respectful attention, and even prevailed on the officer in charge to give him another lesson on the Morse code, for the urchin had a wonderful range of feeling which enabled him at a moment's notice to adapt himself to the circumstances of his environment.

"Wonderful, Gadget! You're making rapid progress. You shall have a lesson in taking down messages, to-morrow. You have the making of a good wireless operator in you. I shall speak to the captain about it."

"Thank you, sir," replied the gamin, pulling his lock of hair by way of salute. This lock of hair, by the way, at the urchin's special request, had been left there, when the famous "R. D. clippers" had shorn off the rest of the crop, when the airship's barber had overhauled and close-reefed him, soon after his first encounter with the captain.

Gadget's next visit was to the little photographic cabin, where the wonderful negatives and bioscope films were carefully prepared. These were to record to the world at large the wonderful panorama of the earth and sky, photographed from the great air-liner on her wonderful trip.

Here, again, by his artful, winning way, which Gadget knew how to adopt when circumstances demanded it, the little urchin was on good terms with the photographic officer. The latter, who admired the boy's character and wit, and pitied his upbringing, had declared more than once that Gadget possessed in a large degree that intuitive genius which belongs to greatness, and prophesied a brilliant future for the neglected boy, if only he could be properly trained.

"Come to me for an hour a day, Gadget, when the captain does not require your services, and I will teach you photography. Some day you shall have a camera of your own, and who knows, you may become a great film operator." And the grateful boy was only too quick to learn what these skilful operators had to teach.

So, into this new life of adventure and travel, this little urchin entered with all the zest and enthusiasm of which he was capable, making many friends, and an occasional enemy. And all the while the great airship, glistening in the tropical sun, sailed on across the wide stretch of desert which lies between India and Egypt, along the line of the thirtieth parallel.

CHAPTER VIII

SONS OF THE DESERT

The tropical sun looked fiercely down upon the burning sands of the Hamadian Desert. North, south, east and west, as far as the eye could reach, in every direction, the illimitable waste of desert stretched, save only at one pleasant, fertile spot, where a cluster of date and lofty palm trees fringed the banks of a silent pool.

A small encampment of Bedouins, sons of the desert, fierce-looking and proud, occupied this charming spot. Three small tents and a larger one, a camouflaged fabric, part of the loot of the garrison of Kut, completed the camp. There were a dozen men all told, and as many noble, fiery Arab steeds. The men were well armed, with modern weapons, too. There had been too much loot in the Mesopotamian campaign during recent years for the Arab sheik and his followers to find much difficulty in securing the very pick of European weapons, ammunition and equipment. But one thing was evident–all these men were not real sons of the desert. Three of them at least were Europeans, as the reader will shortly perceive.