Читать книгу The Airship Boys in the Great War; or, The Rescue of Bob Russell - De Lysle F. Cass - Страница 3

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“Great Guns!” exclaimed Alan Hope, bending down over the newspaper which he had spread out upon the table in front of him.

Ned Napier, who was deep in a pile of blue prints on his desk, glanced over at his chum.

“Great guns exactly describes it, if you’re reading those accounts of the war in Europe,” said he with a grin, “or maybe you’d better say the great-est guns, because that’s what they are using over there just now. But then, we shouldn’t worry as long as they aren’t shooting up the good old Stars and Stripes.”

“That’s just it, Ned; we should worry,” answered Alan, his face puckered into unaccustomed wrinkles, and his eyes still swiftly scanning the pages of the newspaper before him. “We ought to worry about this piece of news, because it concerns a mighty good friend of ours.”

“Who! How’s that? Where is it?” cried Ned, swinging around in his swivel chair so as to face the other boy. Seeing that Alan was still staring as if bewildered at the paper, he arose and hurried over to the table. Leaning down over Alan’s shoulder, he at first could only see flaring headlines of three and four-inch black-faced type.

As Ned’s eye roved down the outspread sheet, however, it finally was caught by a smaller sub-head, sandwiched in between reports on the latest scandal on the Subway Investigation and alleged atrocities in Belgium. He gave a gasp of mingled astonishment and consternation as he read the following:

“AMERICAN WAR CORRESPONDENT IN PRISON

“Will Be Tried as a Spy!

“Associated Press Syndicate, Muhlbruck, via Brussels, November 13, (Delayed by censor).—Robert Russell, said to be an American newspaper man, has been arrested here and put under guard, pending trial as a spy by Gen. Haberkampf, commanding the division of the West Battalion. The Germans are taking every precaution to safeguard the secrecy of their maneuvers, and this arrest is said to be only one of their determined efforts to discourage the presence of alien war correspondents. Russell is in grave danger of being shot unless he can satisfactorily explain certain papers found upon his person at the time of his arrest.”

No wonder that both Ned and Alan turned pale and looked at each other in a dazed, stupefied sort of way. Bob Russell was one of their oldest and dearest comrades, a lad only slightly older than themselves, who had gone through innumerable adventures with them. He had so often accompanied them in sensational exploits, that his name was often linked with theirs: The “Airship Boys.” He had accompanied them on the famous twelve-hour flight of the Ocean Flyer from London to New York; he had braved death with them in Mexico when the Airship Boys put a stop to the smuggling of Chinamen into this country; he had proved himself an intrepid comrade when they had dared wild Indian tribes in Navajo land in search of the hidden Aztec temple; he had risked death with them on their dash for the North Pole.

The Airship Boys and their adventures have been written up in newspapers and books and Bob Russell was no small factor in the success of his friends.

Bob Russell! As tried and true a comrade as ever a boy had—always cheerful, full of expedients, and “game” to the core. They could hardly realize that it was he who was now threatened by such frightful death, without a single friend near to aid him.

“Poor Bob!” exclaimed Alan, and was not at all ashamed of the unaccustomed lump that crowded further speech from his throat. “Poor Bob!” he repeated.

Ned had dropped his face into his hands and with closed eyes mentally pictured the crowded, ill-smelling prison where Bob sat unshaven and forlorn, surrounded by other wounded and miserable beings who felt no sympathy for him nor even spoke his language—who only shrank with wide, scared eyes from the suspicious glare of the armed Germans on guard. Maybe Bob was thinking of him too just then, wondering what the Airship Boys were doing, picturing them skimming luxuriously out over the sun-kissed ocean in careless forgetfulness of him, their devoted comrade of past days.

Alan interrupted Ned’s mournful imaginings again.

“Just think,” he cried, “of all the terrible barbarities which the newspapers say that the Germans have inflicted upon their captives. Think, they may perpetrate some similar awful atrocity upon poor old Bob!”

Ned shook his head impatiently.

“No, I don’t believe they would do anything like that,” said he. “Two-thirds of these torture and massacre stories we read about are hysterical exaggerations, prompted either by their enemies or newspaper writers with a lively imagination. The Germans are a kindly, civilized people, just as the English or French, and certainly more so than the Russians. If they shoot Bob it will be because they honestly believe him to be a spy.”

“But they mustn’t shoot him! It must be stopped some way!”

“Yes, but how? If all of the influence that Uncle Sam can exert won’t protect him, what can?”

“We can, Ned. There is no time to wait for diplomatic negotiations, which may accomplish nothing anyway. Remember that this newspaper says that certain incriminating papers have been found on Bob’s person. If he is to be saved it must be done immediately and by us two alone. We can take the Ocean Flyer and reach Belgium in twenty or twenty-one hours, just as easily as we made that trip from New York to London in eighteen hours last year.”

“I admit that we can get there soon enough,” answered Ned, “but what about the third man whom we’ll need to help us manage the airship?”

“Why not ‘Buck’ Stewart, who went with us on the Flyer’s trip to London? We know that he is absolutely dependable, and is familiar with the workings of the ship besides. Then, too, the Herald will be more than glad of the chance to send one of its reporters with us to see the war at close range.”

Alan’s intense enthusiasm began to communicate itself to the slower-thinking, more practical Ned, but he was not ready to act without mature consideration of all the difficulties involved which might make a failure of their attempt.

“I don’t want you to think me lukewarm about doing anything in our power to save Bob,” said he, “but we’ve got to look carefully at all sides of this thing. Don’t you realize that the United States government wouldn’t sanction any high-handed breaking of neutrality laws that might drag it into the war, just because an American citizen was held captive?”

“Then let’s go without the government’s permission! Who is there to stop us? We can get enough credentials from Mr. Latimer, managing editor of the Herald, to tide us over small passport difficulties, and further than those we certainly can depend upon ourselves. We won’t have to flaunt the Stars and Stripes under the nose of every foreigner we happen to meet over there anyway. Remember what Senator Bascom said in his speech on the Mexican war: ‘If the life of a single United States citizen is at stake, it is worth all of the millions of mere money that international war may cost us.’ We can’t desert good old Bob in an emergency like this, can we?”

“No!” shouted Ned, jumping to his feet and banging his fists on the desk in front of him. “You’re right, Alan. We’re going to show those chaps over there that it’s not such ‘a long, long way to Tipperary,’ after all, providing one can travel in the Airship Boys’ Ocean Flyer at the rate of two hundred miles an hour. Get on your hat and overcoat, Alan! We’re going over to the Herald office right now to see what the editor of the Herald will do for us.”

“Hip, hip, hurrah!” shouted Alan, and grabbing Ned’s out-stretched hands they did a truly boyish war-dance around the sober, stately offices of the Universal Transportation Company, of which they were the heads.