Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound Part 14

He glanced back at Stillinger. The pilot had dropped one of the levers and was holding his left wrist tightly. Tom could see something red running through Stillinger's fingers-blood!

Shrapnel was flying all about the airplane. There was a second puff of smoke and flame from the mortar on the Zeppelin. Tom heard the tw.a.n.g of a cut stay. The airplane rolled sideways with a sickening dip-but then righted itself.

This was a kind of fighting Tom Cameron knew nothing about. He did not know what to do. Pivoted as the machine gun was, he could not depress the muzzle sufficiently to bring the Zeppelin's deck into range. Was the machine out of control? If the nose of it dipped a bit more he could do something.

Another burst of shrapnel, and he felt something like a red-hot iron searing his right cheek. He put up his gloved hand and brought it away spotted with crimson. The Hun certainly was getting them!

He looked back at Stillinger. To his horror he saw that the man was slumped down in his seat, held there by his belt. Tom Cameron did not know the first thing about driving an airplane!

Again a sh.e.l.l burst near the rocking machine. It did no harm; but it showed that the Germans were getting an almost perfect range.

Tom Cameron was not a coward. He gripped his even upper teeth on his full lower lip, and by that sign only showed that he knew disaster was coming. Indeed, it had come the next second!

The tail of the airplane shot up and the nose pitched to a sharp angle.

He heard the explosion of the sh.e.l.l even as he started the chatter of the machine gun. In that short breath of time the muzzle of his weapon was pitched to the right angle, and a swarm of bullets swept the afterdeck of the Zeppelin.

He knew the tail of the airplane had been splintered and that the machine was bound to fall. But as it poised on its wings for a few moments, he poured in the shot-indeed, he finished the clip of cartridges.

The man at the Zeppelin sh.e.l.l-thrower fell back and rolled into the scuppers. Another-plainly an officer from his dress-crashed to the deck.

He saw the other members of the crew running to try to escape the hail of bullets. Ah, if he could only have accomplished this before the airplane was wrecked!

And that it was wrecked, he could see. He glanced over his shoulder.

Stillinger was no longer in his seat. Indeed, the seat itself was not there! The entire rear part of the airplane was torn away, and his friend and college-mate had fallen.

Those next few seconds were to be the most thrilling of all Tom Cameron's life.

The airplane was plunging downward, seemingly right on top of the Zeppelin. Then intuitively he realized that it would just about clear the German airs.h.i.+p.

He held no more guarantee for his life if he clung to the airplane than poor Stillinger had in falling free. It was a swift spin and a crash to the earth-death beyond peradventure!

The spread wings of the airplane still held the wrecked machine poised.

But in a moment it would slip forward, nose down, and "take the spin."

Tom scrambled over the gun and over the armored nose of the airplane. He swung himself through the stays. The airplane plunged-and so did he!

But he flung himself free of the stays. Like a frog diving from the bank of a pool, the American cast himself from the airplane, full thirty feet, to the deck of the German airs.h.i.+p!

A taut stay of the Zeppelin broke his fall. He landed on all fours.

Before he could rise two of the Germans leaped upon him and he was crushed, face-downward, on the deck.

The fellows who had seized him seemed of a mind to cast him over the rail. They dragged him to his feet, forcing him that way. He expected the next minute to be spinning in the track of the airplane toward the earth, five thousand feet or more below.

But suddenly there appeared out of the cabin, or "dog-house" slung amids.h.i.+ps of the great envelope, the officer that Tom had first seen with the trumpet. Through that instrument he now roared an order in German that the American did not understand.

The latter was released. He staggered to the middle of the deck, panting and with scarcely strength remaining to hold him on his feet. He saw the officer beckoning him forward.

He could not see what any of these fellows looked like, for they were all masked, as he was himself. They were dressed in garments of skin, with the hair left on the hide-a queer-looking company indeed. Tom staggered toward the officer.

He was motioned to go into the cabin. The officer came after him and closed the door. At once the American realized that the place was-to a degree-soundproof.

The German removed his helmet and Tom was glad to unbuckle the straps of his own. The first words he heard were in good English:

"This is the first time I have taken a prisoner. It is a notable event.

Will you drink this cordial, _Mein Herr_? It is an occasion worthy of a libation."

His captor had opened a small cabinet fastened to the wall and produced a screw-topped decanter. He poured a colorless liquid into two tiny gla.s.ses, and presented one to Tom. The latter would have taken almost anything just then. The stuff was warming and smelled strongly of anise.

"Yes, you are the first prisoner I have heard of taken in this way. And, oddly enough, I may be bearing you homeward, only I shall be unable to allow you to land upon the 'tight little isle'-you so call it, no?"

"You are making one mistake," Tom said, finally finding his voice. "I am not an Englishman. I am American."

"Indeed? But it matters not," and the German shrugged his shoulders.

"You will go back with us to Germany as a prisoner. But first you will accompany us on our bomb-dropping expedition. London is doomed to suffer again."

Tom said no more. This _ober-leutnant_ was a fresh-faced, rather dandy-like appearing person-typical of the Prussian officer-caste. His cheerful statement that he purposed dropping his cargo of bombs over the city of London brought a sharp retort to Tom's tongue-which he was wise enough not to utter.

A subordinate officer looked in at the forward entrance to the cabin, and asked a question. The _leutnant_ arose.

"I go to con the s.h.i.+p. We shall soon be over the sea. You, _Mein Herr_, must be placed in durance, I fear. Come this way."

He did not even take the automatic pistol from Tom's holster. Really, he knew, as did Tom, that to make any attempt against the lives of his captors would have been too ridiculous to contemplate. Tom Cameron arose quietly to follow the _leutnant_.

At the forward end of this cabin, or car, there was a door beside the one which gave exit to the forward deck. The German opened this narrow door, and Tom saw a small closet with a barred window. There was a cus.h.i.+oned seat, which might even serve as a berth, but very little else in the compartment.

He was ordered into this place, and entered. The door was closed behind him and bolted. He was left to his own devices and to thoughts which were, to say the least, disheartening.

He pitched the padded helmet and goggles he had taken off into a corner and pressed his face close to the gla.s.s of the barred window. Again they were smothered in fog. He could not see to the prow of the great s.h.i.+p.

He wondered how the officer could steer the Zeppelin save by compa.s.s.

This fog was a thick curtain.

Yet the Germans would cross the sea, of course, and find their way over London. He had heard Englishmen talk of the damage done and the lives sacrificed-mostly those of women and children-in these dreadful raids.

And he was to be a pa.s.senger while the Zeppelin performed its horrid task!

Tom Cameron had recovered quickly from his fright and the shock of his landing on the airs.h.i.+p. He was convinced that n.o.body had ever before done just what he had done. And as he had been successful in performing this hazardous venture, he began to believe that he might do more-perform other wonders.

It was not his vanity that suggested this thought. Tom Cameron was quite as free of the foible of conceit as could be imagined. He was earnestly desirous of doing something to balk these Germans in their determination to get to the English sh.o.r.e and bomb London and its vicinity.

Gradually his eyes grew blind to what was going on upon the forward deck of the Zeppelin. He was thinking-he was scheming. His whole thought was given to the desire of his heart: How might he thwart the wicked plans of the Hun?

CHAPTER XV-ABANDONED

Ruth Fielding came to consciousness with an instantly keen physical, as well as mental, perception of where she was, what had happened, and all that the accident she had suffered meant. Indeed, it had been no accident that cast her to the deck outside her stateroom door.

It was the result of premeditated evil. The man shouting the warning that all boats were leaving the supposedly sinking _Admiral Pekhard_, had intended to bring her running from her room. The cord stretched across the pa.s.sage was there to trip her.