Читать книгу The Phantom Airman - Rowland Walker - Страница 2

The sun was sinking amongst the pines of the Schwarzwald when the three airmen, after traversing for several miles the wild unbroken solitudes of that primeval forest, emerged at length from the dark shadows of the trees on to a little open glade, a natural clearing about two hundred metres in diameter.

"Here we are at last!" exclaimed the chief.

"Himmel! what a perfect little aerodrome," cried the scout pilot.

"But where is the hangar?" asked the more observant Max.

"Hist! Let us wait for the signal," ordered the Rittmeister, waving his companions back to the fringe of the forest.

"But there is not a soul to be seen anywhere," expostulated Carl. "No one ever comes here."

"We must be careful; there is too much at stake," whispered the flight-commander, and then he gave a long, low whistle, repeated twice.

Scarcely had the last sound died away, like the sad piping tone of the woodland robin, than a similar call came in response from the opposite side of the glade.

"Follow me; the way is clear," said the chief as he strode across the clearing towards the spot whence came the signal. And his companions followed him, silently wondering, for, somehow, they felt that they were treading on enchanted ground, and that some interesting dénouement would shortly take place.

As they neared the edge of the forest once more, a movement amongst the trees attracted their attention, and the next instant a solitary figure emerged from the shadows and greeted them. It was the keen, lynx-eyed professor, the great mathematician and engineer; a man about fifty, dressed in a loose working garb, wearing a battered felt hat above his shock of white, wavy hair.

"You are welcome, children of the Fatherland," he said, extending his hand, and fixing the two strangers with his piercing eyes, after this brief salutation.

"I hope we are not late," began von Spitzer, when the first salutation was over and he had introduced his companions.

"The sun is amongst the pines and the shadows of the Schwarzwald deepen," replied the professor, speaking in the language of the forest. "It was the time arranged, but"–and here he paused for a second–"there is no time for delay," and an uneasy look spread over his face.

"You don't mean that–" began the chief, but the genius forestalled him by adding:–

"Yes, strangers have crossed the clearing to-day. For the first time since I came here, I heard strange voices amongst the trees."

"But they found nothing?"

"Nothing!" ejaculated the professor.

"Good! Then my friends may view the aeroplane," said Spitzer.

"Certainly; let them follow me," and through an opening barely fifteen feet wide, the professor led the way to a combined hangar and workshop, carefully camouflaged and hidden away amongst the trees.

The next instant the two young airmen received the greatest surprise of their lives.

"Der Skorpion!" announced the professor.

"Donnerwetter!" came the involuntary cry from both the strangers as their eyes fell upon a new type of aeroplane, with an angry, waspish look about it, that the Bristol Fighter used to wear during the later days of the Great War. Yet it was not a Bristol Fighter by any means, for it was twin-engined, and steel-built throughout, with a central conning-tower, tapering off to a sharp point to improve the stream-line, and a closed-in be-cabined fuselage into which four or six persons might with ease be stowed away.

"But her engines!" exclaimed Max. "How small they are."

"But how powerful!" replied Spitzer. "Each one develops anything up to 400 horsepower."

"Is it possible?" asked Carl, who was already carefully examining the starboard engine, in its covered in and stream-lined casement.

"The propellers are different, too; they're something like the Fokker's, but shorter, and they have a peculiar twist, which I have never seen before. What is that for, Rittmeister?" asked the Gotha pilot.

"For vertical climbs, Max," replied the chief, for while the professor stood by, and looked on, interested and amused at the growing enthusiasm for his idol, the Rittmeister, who had been secretly schooled in the hidden mysteries, explained them point by point, for he was a great mechanic and mathematician was this ex-flight-commander.

"Vertical climbs?" echoed the other. "I thought it was impossible."

"Impossible? Rubbish! Nothing is impossible to the man of science. Have you never heard of the Helicopter?"

"You mean that hybrid mongrel the verdammt Yanks and the Britishers have been experimenting with of late, and which has caused so many accidents?"

"The same; only they went the wrong way about it. This propeller, with this driving power behind it, practically gives the vertical ascent, especially when once flying speed has been obtained."

"Blitz, but it is wonderful!" concluded Max, his enthusiasm growing by leaps and bounds, as he continued his examination.

"Why, the propellers are made of steel, and so are the planes," exclaimed Carl, who was now carefully examining the material of which the aeroplane was made.

"Steel, tempered steel, every bit of it–fuselage, propellers, tail fin, rudders. There's not an ounce of wood about the Scorpion," returned the mentor.

"Then the danger of fire is lessened," ventured Max, whose one dread in the air had always been that of fire.

"That danger is eliminated," replied the chief, in a tone of certitude.

"Except by petrol. By the way, where are the petrol tanks?" exclaimed Carl, who had never missed them till now.

"There aren't any," replied the Rittmeister, smiling. "I was waiting for that question."

"No petrol tanks?" came the astonished cry from both the airmen at once.

"They're not necessary," returned the other; "and that's the greatest mystery of all."

"Himmel! Am I dreaming?" exclaimed Max.

"No, you're wide awake. Don't stare like that, man!"

"Der Teufel, but how is she driven?" demanded the scout, staring with wide-open eyes from Spitzer to the professor, and from the latter to his mechanic, who had stood by all this while, with arms akimbo, silently amused at the bewilderment of the two strangers.

"Listen," began the Rittmeister. "I cannot explain everything now–time will not permit–but you shall learn all these things before many days are over."

"Yes, go on!"

"The professor has spent years on this series of inventions, both in the workshop and the laboratory, and each discovery has been co-ordinated and fitted into the scheme. The greatest of all his discoveries is the fact that he has been able to discover and to harness an unknown force to drive the motors of the Scorpion."

"A highly compressed gas, I suppose," interposed Max, who had taken a science degree at Bonn.

"Certainly, it is a most highly compressed gas, extracted at great pains and labour from the elements. The formulæ for this wonderful new element exist only in the still more wonderful brain of the professor. It has not been committed to paper even, in its final terms and ratios, so that, even should this machine be captured, which it certainly shall not be whilst I am its pilot, it could not be used, once the present supply of this Uranis, as we will call it, is used up."

"That is why the engines are so small, then?" ventured Max.

"Precisely!"

"And what is our present supply of this wonderful element?"

"Do you see this?" said the Rittmeister, pointing to a few small cylinders, each about two feet long, and six inches in diameter, which lay carefully piled upon each other on the floor near the Scorpion.

"Yes."

"That is the world's supply at present, excluding the two cylinders which are already fitted on the machine."

"The world's supply," ejaculated Carl, who was thinking of the huge petrol tank, which in a Fokker scout would last only three hours with the throttle wide open. "That won't last long, unless the pressure is enormous."

"The pressure is enormous, my friend; so enormous that if anything happened it would–"

"Blow a hole in the universe, I reckon," interposed Max.

"You are right, and that is the only danger connected with the Scorpion. The other danger you mentioned, that of fire, is altogether eliminated. There would be nothing to burn if one of these cylinders exploded, for there would be nothing left–in the vicinity."

"Sacre bleu!" exclaimed Carl, sotto voce, for, brave youth that he was, he shuddered at the thought.

Max was the more practical of the two, however, for he belonged not to the highly sensitive scouts, but to the heavy bombers, and he merely asked to satisfy his curiosity:–

"How far will one of those cylinders take us, Rittmeister?"

"Ten thousand miles," replied the chief, "that is, one fitted to either engine."

"Good! Let me see, there are ten here, and one already fitted to either motor makes a dozen. Why, they would carry us"–and here he made a rapid calculation–"they would take us twice round the world."

"Precisely, and with a little to spare, when we had completed the double trip."

"And what speed would she pick up, say at a level flight?"

For answer the chief looked at the professor, as though uncertain whether to reply to this question.

"They have taken the oath, sir," he pleaded, "They cannot withdraw," and the great scientist nodded his acquiescence.

"Two hundred and fifty miles without being pushed," he replied at length.

"Donnerwetter! And what if she were pushed?"

"I cannot say, she has never been driven beyond that."

"What a deuce of a noise she will make–like a whole formation of Gothas, I should imagine," said Max.

The professor smiled, but left it to the Rittmeister to explain this last point.

"The engines are silent, but there is a slight hum from the propellers. That cannot be effaced at present, but it is nothing."

Then, having given all these details, the visitors made a closer inspection of the machine. They were permitted to climb into the conning-tower, to handle the controls, and the two swivel machine guns mounted there. They were shown into the little cabin, where four men might sit at the little table, or lie down at full length, but could not stand upright. The steel struts, steel folding wings, the carefully packed spares, the little mica windows in the cabin–these, and a dozen other things, were pointed out and explained to them–the stores which were already packed, comprising chronometrical instruments, maps, charts, ammunition for the guns, compressed food, etc., until their bewilderment grew, and their astonishment became unbounded.

"Why, she scarcely needs an aerodrome at all!" Carl ventured at length.

"Scarcely," replied the chief. "At any rate, not for a long time."

"She is weather proof; she is wonderfully camouflaged. She could hide in a desert, or a meadow," said Max.

"And she carries her own stores for a long, long trip," ventured Carl, who was just dying for the morrow to come.

"And if she were chased, she could make rings round anything, even a Fokker scout, or a verdammt British S.E.5," added Max.

"So you are satisfied, both of you?" asked the Rittmeister.

"Perfectly satisfied. I am only longing for to-morrow, so that I may turn aerial brigand, buccaneer, or what you like," answered Carl.

"And you, Max?"

"I am ready, chief, to follow you to the end of the world, for mine eyes have seen the wonder 'plane."