Читать книгу The Memory Man - Coutts Brisbane - Страница 3

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NAVAL officers, several of flag rank, in uniform or civvies, curt of speech. Several obvious landlubbers, treated with deference, for they were high officials. Some score of naval ratings, half of them armed with rifle and bayonet, and disposed at sundry vantage points along the shores of the inlet, the rest manning the launches and pinnaces which had brought this gathering of the big brains of H.M. Navy to this lonely bit of water. Lastly, a pancake-shaped buoy of perhaps twenty-five feet in diameter, anchored about a quarter of a mile from shore, the resting-place of a dozen gulls and the centre of interest of all these gentlemen.

At intervals one of the junior officers, wearing earphones and seated in the larger launch, murmured to the admiral beside him.

"Forty-two thousand feet, sir," he said at length. "They're about to open fire."

"They're going to start, gentlemen!" proclaimed the admiral loudly. "Keep your eyes open."

A pause. Glasses were turned on the target. Clang! Something hard and heavy had smacked upon the steel pancake. It dipped and rocked to the blow of the unseen missile; the gulls, rudely disturbed from their nap, flung themselves into the air with shrill cries, only in time to escape the stream of bullets whistling down out of the apparently empty blue overhead. Out of the void they came, struck with clash and clatter, ringing weird chimes from the echoing steel for twenty seconds or so, never a bullet wide of its mark. Then the discharge from the unseen aircraft ceased. In the silence the voice of the lieutenant was again audible.

"Dummy torpedo this time, sir," he said, and even with the words a long shining cigar of steel flashed down the sky and smashed into the middle of the pancake, driving it under water by sheer weight of the blow.

It was an amazing shot, miraculously accurate indeed when one considered that it had been launched from a plane flying at a height of nearly eight miles upon a target quite invisible to the naked eye of the marksman.

The observers gathered together, talking in low voices. They smiled; evidently they were very pleased. From high aloft came a faint humming, increasing in volume. A speck appeared, diving out of the blue. It began to circle, the humming died down, and silently the plane slid low, alighted near the dented target, and glided up to the waiting group of boats.