Part 19 (1/2)
”He'll come through the air!” he cried.
”Yes, in one of their big Zeppelins!” said Harry. ”I suppose she has been cruising off the coast. She's served as a wireless relay station, too. The plant here at Bray Park could reach her, and she could relay the messages on across the North Sea, to Helgoland or Wilhelmshaven. She's waited until everything was ready.”
”That's what they mean by the red light markers, then?”
”Yes. They could be on the roofs of houses, and masked, so that they wouldn't be seen except from overhead. They'd be in certain fixed positions, and the men on the Zeppelins would be able to calculate their aim, and drop their bombs so many degrees to the left or the right of the red marking lights.”
”But we've got aeroplanes flying about, haven't we?” said Jack. ”Wouldn't they see those lights and wonder about them?”
”Yes, if they were showing all the time. But you can depend on it that these Germans have provided for all that. They will have arranged for the Zeppelin to be above the positions, as near as they can guess them, at certain times--and the lights will only be shown at those times, and then only for a few seconds. Even if someone else sees them, you see, there won't be time to do anything.”
”You must be right, Harry!” said Jack, nervously. ”There's no other way to explain that message. How are we going to stop them?”
”I don't know yet, but we'll have to work out some way of doing it. It would be terrible for us to know what had been planned and still not be able to stop them! I wish I knew where Graves was. I'd like--”
He stopped, thinking hard.
”What good would that do?”
”Oh, I don't want him--not just now. But I don't want him to see me just at present. I want to know where he is so that I can avoid him.”
”Suppose I scout into Bray?” suggested Jack. ”I can find out something that might be useful, perhaps. If any of them from Bray Park have come into the village to-day I'll hear about it.”
”That's a good idea. Suppose you do that, Jack. I don't know just what I'll do yet. But if I go away from here before you come back, d.i.c.k will stay.
I've got to think--there must be some way to beat them!”
CHAPTER XVII
A CAPTURE FROM THE SKIES
Jack went off to see what he could discover, and Harry, left behind with d.i.c.k, racked his brain for some means of blocking the plan he was so sure the Germans had made. He was furious at Graves, who had discredited him with Colonel Throckmorton, as he believed. He minded the personal unpleasantness involved far less than the thought that his usefulness was blocked, for he felt that no information he might bring would be received now.
As he looked around it seemed incredible that such things as he was trying to prevent could even be imagined. After the early rain, the day had cleared up warm and lovely, and it was now that most perfect of things, a beautiful summer day in England. The little road they had taken was a sort of blind alley. It had brought them to a meadow, whence the hay had already been cut. At the far side of this ran a little brook, and all about them were trees. Except for the calls of birds, and the ceaseless hum of insects, there was no sound to break the stillness. It was a scene of peaceful beauty that could not be surpa.s.sed anywhere in the world. And yet, only a few miles away, at the most, were men who were planning deliberately to bring death and destruction upon helpless enemies--to rain down death from the skies.
By very contrast to the idyllic peace of all about them, the terrors of war seemed more dreadful. That men who went to war should be killed and wounded, bad though it was, still seemed legitimate. But this driving home of an attack upon a city all unprepared, upon the many non-combatants who would be bound to suffer, was another and more dreadful thing. Harry could understand that it was war, that it was permissible to do what these Germans planned. And yet--
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change in the quality of the noisy silence that the insects made. Just before he noticed it, half a dozen bees had been humming near him. Now he heard something that sounded like the humming of a far vaster bee. Suddenly it stopped, and, as it did, he looked up, his eyes as well as d.i.c.k's being drawn upward at the same moment. And they saw, high above them, an aeroplane with dun colored wings.
Its engine had stopped and it was descending now in a beautiful series of volplaning curves.
”Out of essence--he's got to come down,” said Harry, appraisingly, to d.i.c.k.
”He'll manage it all right, too. He knows his business through and through, that chap.”
”I wonder where he'll land,” speculated d.i.c.k.
”He's got to pick an open s.p.a.ce, of course,” said Harry. ”And there aren't so many of them around here. By Jove!”
”Look! He's certainly coming down fast!” exclaimed d.i.c.k.