Dave Dashaway Around the World: or, A Young Yankee Aviator Among Many Nations
“I hope to do just that,” replied the pilot of the Comet, confidently. “You can imagine what joy his friends will feel to have him restored to them.”
“Especially that pretty little miss who drove up to the hangar near Washington in that automobile, Dave,” suggested Elmer, mischievously.
The Comet was in starting trim, and the young aviators took their places. The air and the breeze showed ideal conditions for an easy flight.
There was clear moonlight, but Dave counted on the city being asleep. As he neared it, however, the bright lamps on the top of towers and temples caused him to take to a high area to avoid being discovered.
Circle after circle he described in a narrowing course, at last making sure that he had located the structure he had visited with the native. He indicated this to his comrades. All of them were infused with suspense and expectation.
The expert young aviator hovered over the structure. He estimated time, distance and risks. The Comet made a superb dip. It skimmed the parapet of the pillar and landed silently on the roof. In doing so, however, one of its wings tipped over one of the many ornate lamps lining the sides of the enclosure.
Dave sprang from the machine, his eye fixed on a small skin tent at one corner of the roof. Glancing within it, he saw lying upon a mat the man the native had pointed out to him six hours previous. Our hero seized his arm and shook him.
“Quick Mr. Deane!” he called out. “We are friends – friends from your people.”
Startled and confused at the suddenness of the waking up, the pillar sentinel sprang to his feet. He seemed about to rush towards the grating in the roof to sound an alarm.
“Look, look,” continued Dave, rapidly, producing the picture of Edna Deane. “It is your sister! She sent this as a token! Quick, now!”
“Dave, make haste!” called out Hiram, sharply. “There’s something wrong!”
The young airman almost dragged the bewildered captive across the roof. He acted in a great hurry, for something had emphasized Hiram’s warning cry. A series of yells rang through the grating in the roof. Beyond it a man was dancing up and down in frantic state of excitement.
The pilot of the Comet at once decided that this must be some watchman or sentinel. He had discovered the arrival of the airship. Now he was shouting out the news of his discovery, probably to others within the structure.
Another cause of alarm was an incipient blaze directly on the roof. The lamp that the wing of the biplane had overturned had spilled its contents. The oil had ignited, some rugs had taken fire, and the blaze had caught a canopy near by. The Comet itself was menaced by the rising blaze. Dave reached the machine and gave rapid orders to his assistants.
“Get in, quick!” he directed his companion, but the rescued captive was too overcome to act for himself. Hiram helped pull him over into his own seat, vacating this and getting into the storage space behind it.
Dave got to the pilot post at once, and glanced back. Elmer was flapping back the encroaching flames with a robe. Just then the grating in the roof was unlocked. Up through it came a dozen native guards.
But for the fact that these men were so startled at the unusual scene presented to them, the Comet and its passengers might never have left the mystic city of Lhassa. Thrown off their mental balance by a sight of the unfamiliar machine, the guards stood staring helplessly about and then rushed forward to extinguish the fire on the roof.
“That was a tight squeeze,” gasped Hiram Dobbs.
“We’re safe – grand!” cried the relieved Elmer.
The man they had rescued shrank back as the Comet arose like some great bird. Just then the loud brazen notes of an alarm bell sounded out. Then some shouts followed the speeding biplane. Leaving a vast turmoil behind them, the airship boys glided off into space, over the city, past its outer walls, making straight west for the haven of safety Dave had in view.
The young airmen did not attempt to converse with the rescued Deane. The latter, thin, pale and weak, was overcome with the excitement of the past few minutes. He sat like one in a daze, staring in marvelling wonder at the receding landscape. He made no move when Elmer belted him into the seat. He could not yet realize his removal from the wretched post of servitude which he had lately filled.
It was a lucky thing for our hero that Ben Mahanond Adasse had given him explicit directions as to the trading post fifty miles away from Lhassa, where Adrianoffski had another partner. It saved time and enabled a direct route, and two hours later the Comet descended to the ground in an open space behind a warehouse on the edge of a native settlement.
“Look after our friend and keep a sharp lookout,” Dave directed his assistants, and left the machine and walked around to the front of the building nearby.
There were no lights or signs of habitation about the place. The young aviator seized a weighted cord suspended from a hook near the entrance to the building. He swung this time and again against the door.
A gleam of light soon showed, and the door was unbarred. A man wearing a fez appeared, a suspicious blink in his sleepy eyes. He stared challengingly at the disturber.
“You are Talzk Prevola?” inquired our hero, at once.
“An English!” exclaimed the man. “I am he whom you bespeak. But what of you?”
Dave produced the signet ring. As before along the journey its magical effect was immediate.
“It is from Adrianoffski,” said the trader. “You are welcome. Enter, my son. The place is yours.”
Dave was sure that the man was Prevola, and he was just as certain that he could be trusted implicitly. He briefly spoke of his acquaintance with Mr. Adrianoffski and the claim he held upon his confidence and gratitude.
“I have a friend,” explained our hero, “who must be conveyed quickly and safely to the nearest railroad point in Russia. He must be taken out of Thibet speedily and secretly.”
“The order of my friend’s friend is law with me,” declared Prevola, gravely. “You but speak, I obey.”
“I will shortly return,” said Dave, and he went out to the biplane and approached it.
“I wish to have a talk with you,” he said to Morris Deane. “Help him out, Elmer.”
The rescued young man was assisted from the machine. Our hero linked his arm in Deane’s in a friendly, reassuring way. He led him to where a pile of wood lay and made him sit down beside him.
“Mr. Deane,” he said, gently, “you understand that we are friends sent to rescue, to save you?”
“I am just trying to comprehend it all,” was the reply, in a wavering tone of voice. “It seems incredible, astounding,” and the speaker passed his hand over his face in a vague manner.
“Try and realize it all,” urged the young airman, “for time is precious.” And then our hero told all that there was to tell.
Each succeeding moment Morris Deane seemed to take in more clearly the extraordinary disclosures the young pilot had to make.
“I never dared dream of escape, of a rescue,” spoke Deane. “And you and your friends have done this noble act! Can I ever show my gratitude? Think of it, that hopeless life at Lhassa, and now freedom – freedom!”
The speaker threw up his hands in an ecstatic way. He looked at his rescuer with tears in his eyes.
“Yes,” replied the young airman, “it is freedom – your anxious father – your devoted sister – a fortune awaiting you and – home!”
CHAPTER XXI
WAR
“What was that, Dave?” asked Hiram Dobbs.
“War,” replied the young pilot of the Comet, and he used the word very seriously, “we have taken the wrong course, but there’s no going back now.”
The champion biplane was sailing over a broad, deep valley two hours after dusk. Everything was in brisk going trim. The days that had elapsed since the rescued captive, Morris Deane, had been cared for by the young airmen had passed pleasantly. They had crossed Russia, had reported at Teheran, had seen some of the wonders of Arabia, and now were traversing Turkish territory.
The affairs of young Deane had been adjusted with supreme satisfaction for our hero. It warmed his loyal heart to think that through the unselfish efforts of the crew of the Comet, the brother of Edna Deane was now speeding safely and comfortably on his way to those who had mourned him.
The trader friend of Adrianoffski had done everything in his power to make sure the homeward journey of the fugitive. The young airman had insisted on paying him liberally for his cooperation. He had arranged so that Morris Deane could be provided with money current in the different countries through which he must pass. The trader was to convey Deane out of Thibet concealed in a cart carrying merchandise. He was to be provided with a disguise. Until he passed the Russian frontier and was placed upon a train bound for St. Petersburg, two trusty agents were to accompany and protect him.
The boys felt happy over all this. They had lost little time and gained some experience in doing a humane act. Then the regular schedule of progress was resumed. Now, as noted, Hiram had put a startling question. The pilot of the Comet had responded with an ominous assertion.
When Hiram had asked: “What was that?” a sudden glare in the distance followed by a harsh, detonating crash had caused his sudden query.
Our hero had explained that it was “War.” He intimated further that this was a possible menace to their expedition, in that they might not retrace the route they had come.
“I hoped to keep out of the Turkish trouble,” proceeded the young airman; “but we must take the edge of it, I fear. You know we passed over a great military camp just before dusk.”
“Yes, and they sent a brisk volley after us,” reminded Hiram.
“Without calculating the way the Comet can fly,” added Elmer, with a chuckle.
“We had better keep at a pretty high level just the same,” observed Dave. “I will be glad when we get out of these intricate mountain ranges. Then we can see what is ahead of us and get our bearings.”
Just then another explosion sounded. It was mingled with a series of minor reports, echoing from past the ridge of hills to the East.
“That sounded like a powder mill blowing up, followed by a lot of musket shots,” suggested Hiram.
“I have no doubt that it was a bomb,” replied Dave. “Fighting is going on somewhere beyond us.”
For some time echoes of near explosions reached the airship boys. Then there was a lapse into silence. The contour of the country changed and the hills lessened, and at length a level expanse spread out before them.
They could make out lights scattered all over the area. Here was a settlement, beyond it a town. Then in the distance they noticed what the young aviator decided to be a camp. Still farther beyond, flashes and booms apprised him that some kind of a combat was going on.
“We had better get out of this,” remarked the young pilot.
“O-oh!” fairly shouted Hiram, in spellbound wonder.
Of a sudden, from the direction of the camp, there shot up a broad, dazzling beam of radiance. It moved steadily, broadened and began to sweep the western horizon. Slowly traversing the sky, the sharp rays focused upon an object speeding through the air. A further sweep, and a duplicate for just an instant was framed by the piercing glow.
“A searchlight!” cried the startled Elmer.
“And two airships,” added Hiram. “Dave, what are we going to do?”
The young airman’s active brain was busy. He fancied he took in the situation. They were passing over a camp. Ahead of them was a walled town, now being attacked. The two airships to the west were probably bomb-carrying machines, stealing over the enemy to drop death-dealing projectiles into the midst of their camp.
“Dave,” whispered Elmer, almost too excited to speak, “we have been seen!”
This was true. A lateral sweep of the searchlight brought the Comet into clear view. The operator of the great eye of radiance focused the piercing rays directly upon the Comet. Then, sweeping along, for an instant only they showed an airship almost directly over the craft of the young aviators.
“Another one,” cried Hiram sharply – “ugh!”
He shivered. All hands felt a jar, an impact. They heard a distinct whiz.
“Something was dropped!” pronounced Elmer, hoarsely. “There!”
Directly beneath them some descending object reached the ground. There were a thousand darting sparks of fire, then a tremendous boom.
“An airship from that camp,” said Dave, rapidly. “They took us for one of the enemy! We must get out of range! Hold steady, fellows!”
The pilot of the Comet knew that the moment had arrived for prompt, expert tactics. There might be as swift machines as his own among the war craft in action, but he doubted if any of them was constructed to take the higher level the Comet could attain. The machine made a superb shoot on a sharp tangent. Its progress was so rapid that it almost took away the breath of the excited crew. Again the groping searchlight sought to reveal the situation aloft.
“Hurrah – safe! beat! They’re not even in the race,” crowed the jubilant Elmer.
The sweeping glow showed the machine that had dropped a bomb towards a supposed rival fully a thousand feet below the Comet. Now its pilot put on full speed. Out of range of camp, town and the firing limit the splendid biplane sailed.
Two days later, none the worse for their unique experience, the airship boys arrived at Cairo. The Comet seemed to be no particular novelty to the crowd which greeted its arrival in the center of a great public square. They greeted the machine and its crew, however, with cheers. Dave left the machine in charge of his assistants, who were kept busy answering questions from the curious bystanders.
It was nearly an hour before Dave returned. He arrived seated on a wagon containing new fuel and food supplies for the Comet.
“Going to make any kind of a stop here, Dave?” inquired Hiram.
“Not a minute longer than it is necessary,” was the speedy reply. “We are third in the race, fellows, and that means no delay.”
“Yes,” nodded Elmer excitedly, “a man in the crowd speaking English said he knew we were one of the machines in the international race, and that two others had reported here at Cairo and had left again.”
“That is true,” answered the young airman. “Number seven is three days ahead of us, number eleven, six hours. Help get things in order, fellows. We can’t afford to lose any time now.”
When the Comet started up again the cheers and good wishes of the crowd were renewed. Dave made a fifty-mile run, came down in a lonely spot, and at once brought out the route charts.
“Look here, fellows,” he said, his finger tracing a course across the map; “there are three routes to choose from. From Morocco, the Azores, or Senegal; the Cape Verde Islands, St. Paul Island, and Cayenne. Those are the routes most talked about at the start. They are favored because they are the farthest north and the most direct. I have a better, a least safer, idea.”
“I’ll warrant you have, Dave, if it’s to be found,” declared Hiram.
“What is it?” inquired Elmer.
“The objection to those routes,” explained the young airman, “is that the water stretches are of wide extent. What I dread most is the fear of being caught away from land.”
“Is there a shorter route than those you speak of?” asked Hiram.
“Yes, there is,” asserted Dave.
“What is it?”
“Egypt, the Sahara Desert, the French Congo, Ascension Island, St. Helena, Trinidad, Rio Janeiro, and we are on American soil.”
“Capital!” cried Hiram.
“I wouldn’t lose an hour, Dave,” advised Elmer, with real anxiety. “Ever since we found out that there are two of the crowd ahead of us, it seems as if I’d be willing to sleep in the seat in the machine all the way to get ahead of them.”
It was a warm, clear day when the Comet came to a rest at the city of Mayamlia, in French Congo. Looking back over the ten days consumed in making the run across Egypt, through Fezzan, the width of the great desert, over darkest Africa, and into the Soudan, the airship boys had viewed a country never before thus inspected by an aerial explorer.
“Baked, boiled, and soaked,” was the way Hiram put it, good-naturedly, but very grimly.
“And sandstorms and deluges,” added Elmer, with a grimace.
The flight had certainly been a hardy but instructive one. More than once the adventurous young aviators had a thrilling experience amidst unfamiliar air conditions. Twice they had been discovered in temporary camps by natives. The watchfulness and skill of their pilot had baffled efforts at capture.
“Just to think,” said Hiram, gazing longingly at the ocean – “just a bit of water to cover, and we are on home territory.”
“Yes,” smiled our hero, “it looks nice and easy on the map. Remember one thing, though, fellows: here at Mayamlia we take in full supplies. The food and fuel will be easy as far as Helena or Trinidad. Between those points and the final flight to Rio, though, the gasoline supply is what we must look out for.”
“We’re going to make it – I feel it in my bones!” crowed the optimistic Hiram Dobbs.
CHAPTER XXII
LOST IN THE AIR
“This is serious, fellows,” spoke Dave. “Get ready for the worst.”
“What is the worst?” inquired Elmer Brackett.
“A sudden drop. You had better have the breeches buoys ready.”
“Oh, Dave!” cried Hiram Dobbs, in actual distress. “You don’t mean to say that the brave old Comet is going back on us just as it looks as though the home stretch is right ahead of us?”
“It’s the fog, fellows,” explained Dave. “We have beaten around in it for twelve hours, until I feel certain we are all out of our course. In a word, we are lost.”
“Lost in the air!” exclaimed Hiram – “who’d ever have thought of it!”
“Yes, just like a ship in strange waters,” said Dave. “If we were not so far from the mainland we left last week, there might be some hope. According to my calculation, we have missed St. Helena. If that is true, we can count on no land this side of Trinidad.”
“That must be hundreds of miles away,” remarked Hiram.
“Worse than that,” declared Elmer, who was pretty well posted on chart and “log” details. “If the fog would only lift!”
“That is our only hope,” declared Dave. “I do not wish to alarm you, fellows; but we must face the music like men. I don’t believe the Comet will last out six hours.”
“As bad as that?” said Hiram, in a subdued tone.
“Yes,” asserted the young airman. “If we could sight some ship I would not hesitate to descend upon its deck. This fog, of course, shuts out any chance to depend on that. The trouble is with our wires. That strain we had in last night’s wind seems to have played havoc with the entire steering gear.”
“Can’t it be fixed?” inquired Elmer, anxiously.
“Not while we’re flying,” replied Dave. “You know, the post is really a lever and the wheel a handle. The cloche, or bell-like attachment that runs to the warping wires, has got out of kilter. You know, the steering post is made of one-inch, twenty-gauge steel tubing. At the lower end of this is a fork made of pieces of smaller tubing, bent and brazed into place. The fork forms part of the universal joint on which the post is mounted. From this run the warping wires through pulleys to the elevators.”
Hiram nodded intelligently at this technical explanation. Elmer, too, understood what their pilot wished to convey to them.
“Some of the tubing is loose,” continued the young airman. “I have felt it vibrate for the past hour. If any part gives way, and a puff of wind should come up, we will lose all control of the steering gear.”
“The mischief!” ejaculated Hiram, who always got excited readily. “We’re in a bad fix; aren’t we?”
“Bad enough to keep on a low level, for fear we may turn turtle at any moment,” declared Dave.
The young aviator had not misstated conditions. The situation was a critical one, and he had known it for some time. Even now, as they made a straight volplane, there was an ominous creak in the tubing joints, and the machine wabbled.
“Fellows, she’s going!” declared our hero. “We’ve got to drop or take a risk of a sudden plunge that may end everything.”
The Comet had no float attachment. Hiram got the breeches buoys and the life preservers ready. The fog was so heavy they could not see the sky above nor the sea beneath them. Dave allowed the machine to drift on a long, inclined dip. Something snapped. The Comet wavered from side to side but did not upset. There was a second sudden jar.
“Get ready. It’s a sure drop, any way we manage it,” shouted Dave.
All hands were ready to leap from the machine when it struck. Suddenly Dave shut off the power at a contact. The machine grated, ran on its wheels, and came to an astonishing but substantial standstill.
“Dave, Dave,” cried the delighted Hiram, springing out. “Land, solid land!”
“It can’t be! Must be a rock!” gasped Elmer, unbelievingly.
“Whoop! hurrah!” yelled Hiram. “Oh, glory!”
Dave’s young assistant acted mad as a March hare. He could not help it. He sang and danced. Then he reached down and grabbed up handfuls of the light sand at his feet, and flung it joyously up in the air as if it were grains of precious gold.
“Sure as you live,” exclaimed the bewildered Elmer. “It’s solid land – oh, what luck!”
The young aviator was filled with surprise and satisfaction. Such rare good fortune seemed incredible. He stood still, not caring if it was a sand bank or a desert island. They had escaped a fearful peril – and the Comet was safe.
“Who cares for the fog. Why, if it’s only a ten foot mud bank we’re so glad nothing else matters much just now,” declared the overwrought Hiram.
“It’s something better than that,” responded our hero brightly, all buoyed up now after the recent heavy strain on nerve and mind. “We must have landed on some island not down on the chart.”
“Let us explore,” suggested the impetuous Hiram.
“Let us eat first,” added the hungry Elmer. “It’s brought back my appetite, after that big scare.”
Dave went all over the machine, more with the sense of touch than actual eyesight inspection in that enveloping fog. He came back to his comrades not a whit discouraged.
“How is it, Dave?” asked Hiram.
“I can’t tell exactly,” was the reply. “Some of the tubing is loose and the gear is out of center. With what tools we have and duplicate parts, we may be able to fix things up good enough to carry on to the South American coast.”
“Let’s do it, then,” suggested the eager Elmer. “Those other fellows may get the biggest kind of a lead on us while we are delaying here.”
“They are probably having troubles of their own,” remarked Dave. “It would be impossible to do anything in this fog. Besides, it will take us at least a day to repair the Comet. We might just as well take a resting spell and a bite to eat.”
The food supply aboard the biplane was abundant, but no attempt was made to cook a meal. The airship boys indulged in a lunch composed of crackers, cheese and some lemonade, in the manufacture of which beverage Hiram had become something of an expert.
“I say,” he suddenly exclaimed, ten minutes later, as he bolted a mouthful of cracker – “look there!”
The speaker pointed, and all hands arose to their feet. In the far distance a growing yellow glow began to diffuse itself over the western sky. As suddenly and completely as the dense fog had come down upon them earlier in the day, a grand clearing up transpired.
“Why, it’s just like the rolling up of a curtain,” cried Elmer.
The airship boys stood viewing a swift panorama. Vague shapes and outlines began to stand out before their vision. The blue sky showed to their left, the ocean at quite some distance. The sinking sun sent up its radiant beams and they made out that they were on an island.
Its rounding end was disclosed as they swept the scene with interested glances. Little patches of forest and grassy plain showed.
“Why, a famous camping spot,” spoke the elated Hiram.
“How lucky we didn’t miss it,” added Elmer.
The young pilot could now inspect the Comet more clearly. He reported his conclusions after going over every part of the machine.
