The Air Pirate

It seemed to me that to tell him the whole truth would serve no good purpose.

Pilot Superintendent Lashmar, whom I was going to send in command of the escort, would, of course, know everything.

"Well, I'm sending an escort with you half-way across," I said. "Lashmar will go – you know him? – in No. 1 Patrol Boat. It's heavily armed, and he can shoot straighter than any man in the service. Got his experience in the Great War."

"Escort be blowed!" said hearty Captain Swainson. "I can't think what old Pring was about to let himself be held up like that – though, of course, it's just as you wish, Sir John."

"I don't suppose there's the least need of it, Swainson. But this business'll make a bit of a noise, and it looks well. Now I'll tell you a secret. I'm engaged to be married! Settled it coming down in the train this morning."

"The deuce you are! A thousand congratulations!"

"Thanks. What's more, the lady is aboard your ship, and flies to New York with you to-night. I want you to look after her for me."

"Can a duck swim? Well, this is news! Now I understand about that escort! But do introduce me, Sir John. It will be more than a pleasure to make the young lady comfortable."

We went off to seek Connie, and found her sitting behind one of the multiplex wind-screens on the saloon deck, listening to the music of a piano and violin that came through the open hatch of the palm-court below.

I remember that the musicians were playing a selection of old English airs, sweet, plaintive music, and had just got to "The Last Rose of Summer."

I'm not emotional, but when I hear that tune to-day – thank goodness, it isn't often! – I go out of the room.

At a quarter to nine I stood on the Hoe and watched the Atlantis start for America. Her navigation lights were all turned on; the innumerable port-holes of the huge fusilage made an amber necklace below the immense grey planes.

Then, from the towers on the sea-drome wall the "flare-path" shot out – an avenue of white and steady light to guide the liner outwards. From the roof of the A.P. Station the compressed air-horn sent out three long, brazen calls. I had arranged it so. It was my Godspeed to Constance. Old Swainson answered on his Klaxon, and then the liner began to move slowly over the glittering water. Every second she increased her speed and lifted until she rose clear and slanted upwards. I had a vision of the mysterious silvery thing like a moth in the centre of the light-beam, and then the flare-path shifted out to sea, and rose till it was almost at a right angle with the water. The Atlantis was spiralling up to her ten-thousand-foot level, and in a moment or two she was nothing more than a speck.

Just as I lost sight of her, Patrol Ship No. 1 lifted and followed like a hawk after a heron, and then both ships were lost in the night.

The band on Plymouth Pier was still playing. The young men and maidens were still strolling round the lawns in the moonlight. The air was sweet and pure, full of laughter and the voices of girls. But I went back to the station with a heavy heart.

Two shorthand clerks and two telegraphists were waiting for me, and in the next hour I got through an infinity of work. There was a mass of telegrams to answer from America. They had been re-wired from Whitehall. I had to send out fifty or sixty signals to organize a complete patrol of the Atlantic air-lanes. There was a long and confidential "wireless" to my assistant, Muir Lockhart, in London, and last, though by no means least, a condensed report of everything for the Home Secretary. It was after ten when I had finished, and I walked slowly back to the "Royal," dead tired in mind and body. When I came to think of it, I realized that this had been one of the most eventful and exciting days of my life.

Thumbwood – you will hear a great deal about him before this narrative is over – was waiting in the hall. He hurried me upstairs to where a tepid bath dashed with ammonia was waiting. Five minutes in this, a brisk rub down, a complete change into evening kit, a tea-cup of Bovril with a tablespoon of brandy and a pinch of celery salt in it – what Thumbwood called my "bran-mash" – and I was a new man again.

For a perfect valet commend me a man who has had charge of racehorses in his time!

Then I went down to meet Captain Pring. I saw at once, as I came into the public rooms of the hotel, that the news was out. Groups of people were standing together and talking earnestly. There was a buzz of suppressed excitement, natural anywhere, but particularly so in the principal air-port of England.

And there were special editions of the evening papers…

These – I got one and looked – had made the most of very scanty material. Nothing like the whole truth had leaked out, but there was, nevertheless, a sensation of the first magnitude. I was recognized and pointed to; a naval captain even spoke, and tried to pump me! – though he soon found that there was nothing doing – and when Captain Pring came into the lounge some idiot started to cheer, and there was what the papers describe as a "scene."

Pring and I supped alone in a private room and had a long confidential talk, in the course of which I learnt many things. I am not going to give any details of that talk at present. It was momentous – it is enough to say that now – and has its proper place further on in the story.

The worthy Captain went at twelve, and I retired to bed. Thumbwood slept in a dressing-room opening out of my bedroom. By his couch was a telephone, which I arranged was to be connected with the A.P. Station all night long. If any signal came Thumbwood was to take it, and, if important, wake me at once.

… I am going to conclude this first portion of the narrative in as few lines as possible. Even to-day I shirk the writing of them.

I was awakened suddenly to find my room blazing with light; I afterwards found that the exact time was 2.30 a.m.

Thumbwood was standing by the bed. "Sir John," he said hoarsely, "there's a signal!"

One glance at the lad's face was enough, and I set my teeth – hard.

"Bad news?"

"Terrible news, Sir John!"

"Go on."

"Atlantis attacked two hundred miles west of Cork. Captain Swainson and four other men shot dead. Patrol Boat No. 1 disabled. Commander Lashmar and most of the crew killed. Signal got through by two survivors of crew, who managed to repair wireless."

Twice I swallowed with a dry mouth. Thumbwood knew what I wanted to ask.

"The young lady, Sir John, and her maid …"

"Dead, too?"

"No, Sir John. They were taken from among all the other passengers and put aboard the pirate ship, which then flew away with them."

CHAPTER IV

THE NEWSPAPERS IN FULL CRY

You are to imagine, if you please, the private room of the Chief Commissioner of Air Police at Whitehall.

A soft Turkey carpet of dull brick-reds and blues covers the parquet floor. The walls are hung with pictures of famous airmen of the past, inventors, fighters, pioneers of the great commercial service of air-liners which now fills the skies and has shrunk the planet – for all practical purposes – to a fifth of its former size. There are two or three huge writing-tables covered with crimson morocco; the chairs are thickly padded and luxurious. A range of tall windows looks down upon the endless stir and movement of the wide street, where the nerves of Empire meet in one central ganglion.

Standing by one of these windows is a light-haired young man of thirty in a lounge suit of dark blue. He wears a rather heavy, carefully-trimmed moustache, and his face is seamed and furrowed with anxiety and grey from want of rest.

Thus you see me in London, two days after Thumbwood brought the terrible news to my bedroom in the hotel at Plymouth.

General Sir Hercules Nichelson, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Flying Corps, had been with me for half an hour, and was just taking his leave.

"Then all that is satisfactorily arranged, Sir John," he said. "We shall supplement your patrol ships with three war-ships at Plymouth and three at the Scillies. They will, of course, be air cruisers, both faster and better armed than your boats, and between us both we shall put an end to this pest before many days are over."

"I sincerely trust so," I said. "And I do not see how it is possible that there should be any further outrages. The net will be too close. America, with its much greater coastal area, is taking extraordinary precautions."

"It will be impossible for these devilish scoundrels to escape," the General repeated with confidence – the onus of it all was not falling upon him!– "and now, we quite understand one another."

"Perfectly, I think, Sir Hercules."

"Your chief station officer is to be in full command, under you, at each air-port."

"It was your suggestion, Sir Hercules, and since it came from you, I do think it would be best. My men are always patrolling the air-lines. The organization is complete already."

"Exactly. And as for my fellows, they will be proud to serve under such gallant and experienced officers as those of the A.P."

"It's kind of you to say so."