The Air Pirate
are connected by cable with our telegraph room here. The indicating
dials register, degree by geographical degree, the exact position of any
of our ships when in the air. This record is printed on a tape beneath
each dial, and each record is examined every hour or two by a clerk."
Of course, I knew all this. The minutest detail of the system was
familiar. I wished that Sir Joshua would "cut the cackle and come to the
'osses." No doubt my face showed something of what I felt, for Sir
Joshua half apologized.
"You see, Sir John," he said, "I thought it best to prepare some sort of
short and coherent statement for the Press. As yet they have got hold
of nothing, but we can't possibly keep it much longer. Even you
couldn't, with all your powers. And what I am reading is this statement.
I particularly want you to hear it, as, of course, it rests with you if
it shall be published in this form or not."
I bowed, and Sir Joshua continued:
"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 passed and signalled to Lightship 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 ships 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 ship herself. A signal to Lightship A. 71, the
next guide-boat the _Albatros_ should have passed, 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
Lightship A. 70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airships 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 ships 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 distinguishing 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 ship 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 shell, 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 glass 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 ships 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 ship 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 ship 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
passengers 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 ship 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 makeshift 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
passengers 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 passengers 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 admonishing 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 ships out at two-thirty this morning cruising
over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No
results, no strange airship 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?"
"Their police ships are out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they
don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet."
"Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along
that huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I
can see, it's up to them; not us."
"You think so, sir?"
"Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been
organized with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have
command of something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a
works in England where such a boat could be built without our knowing
about it before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's
nowhere in these little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce
and piano wire with a motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to
be registered and licensed by me. No, this is an American stunt."
We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the
Citadel, and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone,
which is the Plymouth Headquarters of the A.P. It is perched on the edge
of the cliff, and within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake
is said to have finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up
Channel.
We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and
began to walk up and down the terrace.
"Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest
boats here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look
as if we are doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full
service ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but
there is nothing to be done until we know more--unless you can suggest
anything?"
The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and
he had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom.
Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal.
I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht _May Flower_ just passed St. Mary's
doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly A.P. station on
Tresco in the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five
miles west-sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy--she'll be here
just under the hour, sir."
"Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home.
Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do--not even Sir
Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you
meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams--my
compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could
buy the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort
appear a compliment from the Government!"
Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried
to the electric railway, which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome
far below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth
watching.
Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour
within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest
weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent,
the sea-drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of
polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings
were three gigantic air-liners, with electric launches and motor-boats