Part 2 (1/2)

”At ten o'clock last night the clerk on duty examined the tapes. When he came to the one recording the progress of the _Albatros_, he found that for two hours there was no record of her at all. The last record was that she had pa.s.sed and signalled to Lights.h.i.+p A. 70 that all was well.

A two hours' gap is so unusual, owing to the--er--perfection of our organization, that the clerk was alarmed, and reported the matter to a superior upstairs.

”A general call to all our s.h.i.+ps in the air at that moment was at once sent out, and in a few minutes responses were received from several of them to the effect that the _Albatros_ had not been sighted. Nor was there any answer from the s.h.i.+p herself. A signal to Lights.h.i.+p A. 71, the next guide-boat the _Albatros_ should have pa.s.sed, elicited the information that she had never done so. By eleven o'clock all these facts were known in this office. The night staff here became seriously alarmed. By a fortunate coincidence I was attending a performance at the Theatre Royal close by, with Lady Johnson and my daughters. This was known, and a messenger caught me at the close of the play, and I came round at once. I had not been in the offices for five minutes, when news of the most extraordinary and sensational character began to come in from our receiving station by the Citadel.

”Captain Pring, one of our most reliable pilot commanders, was in charge of the _Albatros_. The message was from him, and this is the gist of it.

At sundown the _Albatros_ was flying on the ten-thousand-foot level. The Lights.h.i.+p A. 70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airs.h.i.+ps were in sight, when the look-out man reported a boat coming up at great speed from the east. The _Albatros_ was doing her steady ninety knots, but as the two s.h.i.+ps approached, it was seen that the stranger, a much smaller boat, was flying at an almost incredible rate. Pring reports that she was doing a sixteen to eighteen second mile, but there is doubtless a mistake in the message.

”The boat showed no distinguis.h.i.+ng lights, and failed to signal, as she flashed past the liner at the distance of half a mile. There were several curious features about her which attracted attention, though what these were we do not yet know. This strange s.h.i.+p turned and came up with the _Albatros_, actually flying round her in spirals with the greatest ease. Then, without the slightest warning, she opened fire on our vessel, and the first sh.e.l.l, obviously by design, blew away our wireless.”

My heart simply bounded within me. This was news with a vengeance! I had to exercise all my self-control not to pour out a stream of frantic questions. It was beyond thinking! Such a thing had not happened since the League of Nations came into being. It might mean hideous war once more--anything!

Sir Joshua had paused to drink a gla.s.s of water. He understood the immense gravity of this news as well as I did, and his voice was unsteady as he went on in answer to my nod!

”The _Albatros_ was helpless. Since the international agreement that only naval, military and police s.h.i.+ps may fly armed, she had no possible means of defence. Flight, even, was impossible, and the loss of her wireless forbade her to summon help. Then the anonymous s.h.i.+p turned a machine gun on her rudder and shot it out of gear. There was nothing for it but to descend to the water and rest on her floats. Pring was forced to give the order, and she planed down. The other s.h.i.+p followed and took the water not two hundred yards away.

”She then signalled in Morse code, with a Klaxon horn, that she was sending men aboard the _Albatros_, and that if the captain or crew offered the slightest resistance she'd blow her to pieces. They launched a Berthon collapsible boat from a door in the stern fusilage. There were four men in her, all armed with large-calibre automatic pistols, and wearing pilot's hoods and masks with talc eye-pieces, so that it was impossible to identify them. Pring could do nothing at all. He had the pa.s.sengers to consider. These ruffians cleared out the safe and the women's jewel-cases--they left the mails alone--and in ten minutes they were back again with the loot. The s.h.i.+p lifted and went off in the dark at two hundred miles an hour, leaving the _Albatros_, helpless upon the water.

”It was a business of several hours to rig up a makes.h.i.+ft rudder, but, fortunately, her searchlights were all right, and she kept on signalling with these until she was sighted by a big cargo steamer, a Baltimore to Cadiz boat, coming up from the south, the _Sant Iago_. She took off the pa.s.sengers and is bringing them home; she's only a fifteen-knot boat, but I have already dispatched one of our smaller liners to pick her up and take the pa.s.sengers aboard. They ought to be here some time to-morrow.

”The _Sant Iago_ has wireless, and was able to communicate, not only with us, but also with the air-yacht _May Flower_, which she sighted on the four-thousand-foot level at dawn. The _May Flower_ belongs to Mr.

Van Adams, the Philadelphia millionaire, who is crossing to England with a party of friends. She came down to the water and took up Commander Pring and the second officer, and should be here by tea-time this afternoon. Then we shall know more of this unprecedented, this deplorable business.”

”And the _Albatros_, Sir Joshua?”

”A small crew was left on her, and an emergency tender and workmen started at dawn. She ought to be flying again to-night.”

I had all the available facts at last, and long before Sir Joshua had finished my mind was busy as a mill. There was going to be the very biggest sort of commotion over this. England and America would be in a blaze of fury within twenty-four hours, and every flying man, from the skippers of the lordly London-Brindisi-Bombay boats, or the Transatlantic Line, to the sporting commercial traveller in a secondhand 50 h.p. trussed-girder blow-fly, would be wagging the admonis.h.i.+ng finger at ME.

”Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear statement of fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your account could hardly be improved on.”

”You think, Sir John ...”

”When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not alter a word.”

Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have been a trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. ”I must leave you now, Sir Joshua,” I said, ”as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr.

Lashmar. Steps have already been taken, and later on in the day I shall be able to tell you more. Meanwhile I shall see Captain Pring directly the _May Flower_ arrives, and before anyone else. Our future action must depend a great deal on his statement.”

This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the room as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him by the arm and hurried him out of the office.

”I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are.

Now has anything been done--by us, I mean?”

”I had two of our patrol s.h.i.+ps out at two-thirty this morning cruising over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No results, no strange airs.h.i.+p seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and down the Irish coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for form's sake than anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far as we know it, to the States.”

”Good! Any reply from them?”