The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History

Suddenly I wondered if their gaze upon me was some evil omen.

Next second I laughed within myself at such an absurd thought. It was the first time in all my life that such an idea had ever crossed my mind, therefore I at once dismissed it. Such thought was most foolish and utterly ridiculous.

Yet, again, I glanced at him, unable to withdraw my gaze entirely. Those dark, beady eyes of his, set slightly askew, were certainly most uncanny. Their gaze seemed cold and relentless, and yet at the same time exulting.

Sight of them sent through me a strange creepy feeling, but, with resolution, I turned away, busying myself in my preparations for starting.

Perhaps it was knowledge that strangers had been prying into our experimental plant out at Gunnersbury that had somewhat upset me, yet, after all, though they had cruelly assaulted poor old Theed, no very great success had been theirs.

Who were they? That was the vital question.

Just as I was on the point of starting I saw Lionel Eastwell coming from the hangar, walking behind his own machine, which was being pushed out by his man Barnes and two others.

I waved to him from my seat, and he waved a merry greeting back to me.

Then, all being ready, I motioned to Theed to let her go, and with a deafening rush I shot forward, leaving behind a pungent blue trail from the big exhaust.

I rose quickly and had begun the ascent, the engine running beautifully, when of a sudden, before I was aware of it, something went wrong.

A sharp crack, a harsh tearing sound, and one of my wings collapsed. Across the back I was struck a most violent blow just as she took a nose-dive, and then, next instant, all knowledge of what had happened became blotted out by a dark night of unconsciousness.

Chapter Seven

Reveals a Plot

The next that I recollect is, with my brain awhirl, I tried to open my eyes, but so painful were they, that I was compelled to close them again in fearful agony.

Somebody whispered close to me, but my mind was too muddled to understand what was said.

My eyes burned in their sockets; my brain seemed unbalanced and aflame. I tried to think, but alas! could not. When I tried to recollect, all remembrance of the past seemed as though it were wrapped up in cotton-wool.

How long I remained in that comatose state I have no idea.

Some unknown hand forced between my teeth a few drops of liquid, which with difficulty I swallowed. This revived me, I know, for slowly – very slowly – the frightful pain across my brow decreased, and my burning eyes became easier until, at last, blinking, I managed to open them just a little.

All was dead white before me – the white wall of a hospital-ward I eventually discovered it to be – and as I gazed slowly around, still dazed and wondering, I saw a man in black, a doctor, with two nurses standing anxiously beside my bed.

“Hulloa, Mr Munro,” he exclaimed softly. “You’re better now, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “But – but where am I?”

“Never mind where you are. Just go to sleep again for a bit,” the doctor urged. “You’re all right – and you’ll very soon be up again, which is the one thing that matters,” I heard him say.

“But, tell me – ” I articulated with great difficulty.

“I shan’t tell you anything, just yet,” said the man in black firmly. “Just go to sleep again, and don’t worry. Here. Take this,” and he placed a little medicine-glass to my parched lips.

The effect of the drug was sleep – a long sleep it must have been – for when I again awoke it was night, and I saw a stout, middle-aged night-nurse seated at my side, reading beneath a green-shaded lamp.

As soon as she noticed me moving she gave me another draught, and then, thoroughly revived, I inquired of her what had actually happened.

I saw her motion to some one behind her, and next moment found Roseye bending over me, pale-faced and anxious.

“Oh! I’m so glad, dear,” she whispered eagerly into my ear. “Once we thought you would never recover, and – and I’ve been watching and waiting all the time. They wouldn’t let me see you until to-night. Teddy has been here constantly, and he only left at midnight.”

“But – darling – but what has happened?” I managed to ask, looking up into those dear eyes of hers utterly amazed.

“May I tell him, nurse?” she inquired, turning to the buxom woman beside her.

The nurse nodded assent, whereupon she said:

“Well – you’ve had a nasty spill! One of your wings suddenly buckled – and you fell. It’s a perfect miracle that you were not killed. I saw the accident just as I was going up in a spiral, and came down again as fast as ever I could. When I reached you, I found you pinned beneath the engine, and everybody believed you to be stone-dead. But, happily, they got you out – and brought you here.”

“What is this place?” I asked, gazing around in wonderment. “Where am I?”

“The Hendon Cottage Hospital,” was her reply.

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days. The papers have had a lot about your accident.”

“The papers make a lot of ado about nothing,” I replied, smiling. “To them, every airman who happens to have a nose-dive is a hero. But how did it happen?”

“Nobody knows. You seemed to be ascending all right, when suddenly I saw your right-hand plane collapse, and you came down plumb,” she said. “As you may imagine, darling, I rushed back, fearing the worst, and through these four awful days I have dreaded that you might never speak to me again.”

“What does Theed say?”

“What can he say? He has declared that before you started everything was perfectly in order.”

“Has Teddy examined the bus?”

“I think so, but he’s entirely mystified – just as we all are,” said my well-beloved. “Dad and mother are dreadfully worried about you.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “I’ll be all right soon – but I’m stiff – jolly stiff, I can tell you!”

“That doesn’t matter,” said the nurse cheerily. “No bones are broken, and Doctor Walford has said that you’ll be up again very soon.”

“Well – thanks for that,” I replied with a smile. “My chief desire at the present moment is to know why my machine failed. Yet I suppose I ought to be thankful to Providence that I wasn’t killed – eh?”

“Yes, Claude, you ought. Your smash was a very bad one indeed.”

“Has the guv’nor been here?”

“Every day. But of course you’ve been under Doctor Walford, and he’s not allowed anyone to see you.”

“I suppose the guv’nor has been saying to everybody, ‘I told you so,’” I remarked. “He had always said I’d kill myself, sooner or later. My reply was that I’d either fly, or kill myself in the attempt. Have there been any more Zeppelin raids while I’ve been lying here?”

“No raids, but gossip has it that Zeppelins have been as far as the coast and were afterwards driven off by our anti-aircraft guns.”

“Good. When will Teddy be here?” I asked, raising myself with considerable difficulty.

“In the morning,” was my love’s response, as she took my hand in hers, stroking it softly, after which I raised her slim fingers to my lips.

Seeing this, the nurse discreetly left us, strolling to the other end of the ward, in which there were about twenty beds, while Roseye, bending down to me, whispered in my ear:

“You can’t tell how I feel, dear Claude, now that God, in His great goodness, has given you back to me,” and she cried quietly, while again and again I pressed her soft little hand to my hot, fevered lips.

Teddy Ashton, bright and cheery at news of my recovery, stood by my bed at about nine o’clock next morning. The doctor had seen me and cheered me by saying that I would soon be out. My first questions of Teddy were technical ones as to how the accident happened.

“I really can’t tell, old chap,” was his reply. “I’ve had the bus put into the hangar and locked up for you to see it just as it is.”

“Is it utterly wrecked?” I inquired anxiously, for I feared the guv’nor’s wrath and his future disinclination to sign any more cheques.

“No. Not so much as we expected. One plane is smashed – the one that buckled. But, somehow, you seemed to first make a nose-dive, then recover, and glide down to a bad landing.”

“But how could it possibly have happened?” I demanded. “All was right when I went up, I’m certain. Theed would never have let me go without being perfectly satisfied. That I know.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Teddy agreed. “But the affair has caused a terrible sensation at Hendon, I can tell you.”

In an instant the recollection of that podgy man, with those black eyes set askew, crossed my mind.

Yes. After all, sight of him had been an omen of evil. Hitherto I had scorned any such idea, but now I certainly had positive proof that one might have a precursor of misfortune. I deeply regretted the accident to my Breguet for, not knowing the true extent of the damage, I began to despair of bringing our secret experiments to a satisfactory issue.

“Look here, Claude,” Teddy said at last, bending over me and speaking in a low tone. “Has it struck you as rather peculiar that the appearance of those strangers at Gunnersbury should have been followed so quickly by this accident of yours?”

“By Jove! no!” I gasped, as the true import of his words became instantly impressed upon me.

“We have enemies, Teddy – you and I – without a doubt. We’ve made a discovery which is destined to upset the enemy’s plans – therefore they want to wipe us, and all our knowledge, out of existence. That’s what you mean – isn’t it?”

My chum nodded in the affirmative.

“That’s exactly what I do mean,” he said in a hard, meaning tone.

“Then my accident was due to treachery!” I cried angrily. “We must discover how it was all arranged.”

“Yes. Somebody, no doubt, tampered with your machine,” Teddy declared very gravely. “Because I believe this, I’ve left it just as it was, and locked it up safely with a man to look after it. We’ll examine it together later on, when you’re fit to run over.”

Well, to cut a long story short, we did examine it about a week later. With Harry Theed, Teddy and Roseye, we made a very complete survey of every strainer, wing-flap hinge, nut-bolt, taper-pin, eye-bolt, in fact every part of the machine, save the engine – which was quite in order and practically undamaged.

For a whole day we worked away, failing to discover anything, but late in the afternoon I noticed one of the bolts missing, and called the attention of both my companions.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Teddy. “Why, that’s the weak spot where the plane must have buckled!” Then, bending closer to the hole in which the missing steel bolt should have been, he cried: “Look! What do you make of this – eh, Claude?”

I bent eagerly to where he indicated, and there saw something which caused me to hold my breath.

In the hole where the steel bolt should have been was a plug of broken wood!

Wood! The truth became, in that instant, quite plain. The tested steel bolt, which was most important to secure the rigidity of the aeroplane, had been withdrawn, and in its socket a plug of wood had been placed by some dastardly and unknown enemy!

The Invisible Hand, of which I had spoken so many times, had very narrowly sent me to my death!

Who could have tampered with my machine?

All four of us stood gazing at each other, aghast at the discovery of that wicked plot against my life. My escape had been miraculous. I had risen easily from the ground, the wooden bolt holding the plane in position, but as soon as I had attempted to turn, strain had, of course, been placed upon the machine, and instantly the wood had snapped, so that I had come down to earth like a log.

“If there is a desperate plot against me, Roseye,” I said, looking straight at her, “then there is, surely, a similar one against you, and also against Teddy. Our enemies are desperate, and they know a good deal – that’s certain. Perhaps they have somehow learnt that we four possess the secret of how the Zeppelin menace can be combated. No secret however is safe from the owner of the Invisible Hand. Hence, if an attempt is made to send me to my death – attempts will also be made against you both.”

“Well – that seems quite feasible – at any rate,” remarked Teddy. “I don’t think Roseye should go up again – just for the present.”

“Certainly not,” I said. “There’s some deep-laid and desperate scheme against us. Of that, I’m now convinced. Our enemies do not mean to allow us to conduct any further experiments – if they can help it.”

“But they don’t know the truth, Claude,” chimed in Roseye.

“No. They are working most strenuously to get at it. That’s quite clear.”

“But who can they be?” asked my well-beloved.

“Ah! That’s a mystery – at least it is at the present. It is a very serious problem which we must seek to solve.”

“But we shall do so, sooner or later, never fear,” Teddy exclaimed confidently. “We hold the secret, and our enemies, whoever they may be, shall never learn it.”

A silence fell between us for several moments.

At last I said:

“I wonder who that woman was that old Theed declares he saw on that night out at Gunnersbury?”

“Ah! if we knew that, my dear chap, we might make some progress in our inquiries. But we don’t,” Teddy said. “Her identity is just as much of a mystery as that of the owner of the Invisible Hand – that hand that took out the steel bolt and replaced it with one of wood.”

“But I mean to discover the author of this infernal attempt upon me!” I exclaimed fiercely. “Whoever did it intended that I should be killed.”

“Never mind. You’ve cheated them finely, Claude,” Teddy laughed. “Get quite well, old man, and we’ll set to work to fathom this mystery, and give whoever is responsible his just deserts.”

“That we will,” I said resolutely. “It’s the dirty work of somebody who is jealous of us.”

“Yes. And I think that Miss Lethmere ought to exercise the very greatest care,” he remarked. “As they failed in their attempt upon you, they may very probably make one upon her.”

“By Jove! I never thought of that!” I gasped, staring at my friend. “And they might form a plot against you also – remember that, Teddy.”

“Quite likely,” said my chum airily. “I’ll keep wide awake, never fear. What about getting old Theed to suggest some good private detective?”

“No,” was my prompt reply. “We’ll be our own detectives. We’ll watch and wait.”

Chapter Eight

Some Suspicions

We waited, and we watched. And what we were able to discover was certainly astounding.

During my convalescence many of my flying friends called at my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue to congratulate me upon my narrow escape.

I had been shaken very considerably, but actually I was not much the worse for it. I felt quite fit and eager, but the doctor would not hear of me going out, except for a run in a closed car.

The real cause of my accident was kept a profound secret from every one.

The governor thought it was due to clumsiness or recklessness, and I was, of course, compelled to allow him to think so. Sir Herbert and Lady Lethmere, who called one afternoon, appeared to hold the same opinion, for the red-faced old steel manufacturer said:

“You must really be more careful, in future, my dear boy – far more careful. Accidents so quickly happen in aeroplanes.”

“Yes, accidents do,” I admitted. It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to him how some devilish plotter had attempted to take my life.

I was constantly haunted by the remembrance of a face – the face of that man in the crowd with the eyes askew. As I sat alone at my fireside, often reading the papers through, even to the advertisements, and out of patience with everything and everybody, those narrow beady eyes would rise before me. I would recognise that face with the curious exultant expression anywhere.

After long debate within myself I had come to the conclusion, however, that the man with the eyes askew was not actually the person who had substituted in my machine a wooden bolt for a steel one.

I recollect the expression upon that hard, furrowed countenance even now – a wildly exultant expression as though he were gloating over the death-trap so cunningly prepared for me. Yet, when I reflected during my convalescence, I knew that no lunatic’s hand was responsible for such crafty contrivance, and further, the person who had withdrawn the steel bolt would certainly not come forth so boldly to peer into my face as that podgy little stranger had done.

No. The man with the eyes askew might, perhaps, have gained secret knowledge of the dastardly plot, and come there to watch me rise to my death. But I was confident that his was not the Invisible Hand that had been raised against me.

From everybody – even from Lionel Eastwell and the insurance people – we concealed the truth. Lionel, who lived in Albemarle Street, not far away often came in to cheer me up, sitting with me, consuming cigarettes, expressing wonder at the reason of my accident, and gossiping technicalities, as airmen will always gossip. Indeed, at the Royal Automobile Club the air “boys” are the biggest gossips in that institution – which, not so long ago, Prince Henry of Prussia so completely “nobbled.”

Reminiscences of the “Prince Henry Motor Tour” through England have not been exactly popular since August 1914 – and any member mentioning His Imperial Highness’s name had become at once taboo. The remembrance of that tour through the heat and dust of the Moselle valley, and afterwards from south to north of England, is still with me. My pilot in Germany was a certain Uhlan captain, who afterwards distinguished himself as responsible for the atrocities committed upon the poor inoffensive Belgians in Dinant, on the Meuse. The lives of seven hundred of those poor victims, men, women and children butchered in cold blood in the Grand Place outside the church with the bulgy spire cries out for vengeance upon that fair-haired spick-and-span Prussian who sat beside me for many days chatting so amiably in English, and assuring me that Germany would ever be Great Britain’s firmest friend and ally.

Ah! How cleverly were we all bamboozled! Whenever I entered the portals of the club I remembered, as many of my fellow-members did, how completely we were gulled and blinded by that horde of German secret agents who came to us as friends and fellow-motorists, and partook of our hospitality while actively plotting for our undoing.

Lionel Eastwell sat discussing this with me one dark rainy afternoon.

“There’s no doubt that the Germans held out the hand of friendship and laughed up their sleeves,” he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke upwards from his lips. “Now that one remembers, one grows furious at it all. I confess that I liked Germany and the Germans. My people went to Germany each summer, for the mater was a bit of a musician, and we usually drifted to Dresden. I suppose I inherited from her my love of music, and that’s why I was sent to Dresden for a couple of years’ tuition.”

“And did you never suspect?” I asked. “Remember what Lord Roberts and many others told us. Recollect how we were warned by men who had travelled, and who knew.”

“Of course I read all those speeches and writings, but I confess, Claude, that I laughed at them. I never dreamed that war would come – not for another twenty years or more. I was lulled into a sense of false security, just as our Government and people were lulled.”

“True, Germany told us fables – pretty land, sea and air fables – and we were childish enough to believe them. If peace had been the Kaiser’s object, why did Krupp’s and Ehrhardt’s work night and day and Count Zeppelin carry on his frantic work of building giant airships?” I queried. “The greatest block head in a village school, with the true facts before him, could have done nothing else than suspect. But we are such a smug and unsuspicious people. We never like to hear an unpleasant truth.”

“True, we’re aroused now. This Zeppelin raid on London has inflamed the public mind. The people are clamouring loudly for something to be done. What can be done?” he asked. “How can we possibly fight those enemy airships – eh?” And he looked me straight in the face with those calm blue-grey eyes of his.

I paused.

I would have greatly liked to tell him of our secret discovery, for, after all, he was our most intimate friend. Yet I had given a promise to Roseye and to Teddy and, therefore, could not break it.

That Lionel Eastwell was a real stolid John Bull patriot had been proved times without number. We all liked him, for he was ever courteous to Roseye, and always wholehearted and easy-going with both Teddy and myself.

“You ask a question which I can’t answer, Lionel,” I replied at last.

“I thought, perhaps, you had some scheme,” he laughed airily. “You’re always so very inventive.”

Those words, when I remembered them in the light of after events, sounded somewhat curious.

“Inventive!” I laughed. “How can I put forward any scheme by which to fight an airship, except that of fast aeroplanes capable of mounting above the airship and dropping bombs? And, surely, that’s one which our Aircraft Factory have considered long ago.”

Lionel shook his head in reply.

“No. There must be some other mode than that – if we could only discover it. That poor women and children are being blown to pieces while in their beds is too terrible to contemplate,” he declared. “To-day Great Britain seems inadequately defended. But somebody will, of course, devise something. We can’t remain defenceless much longer. Whenever an arm of war has been invented, ever since the dark ages, somebody has always invented something to combat it. It will be so in the case of the Zeppelin – never fear,” he added confidently.

“Let’s hope so,” I replied, yet, truth to tell, it seemed to me very much as though he were trying to pump me regarding the secrets of that brown deal box which was reposing in a locked cupboard in the adjoining room. Perhaps, of course, mine was an entirely ungrounded suspicion. But there it was. I hesitated – and wondered.

At that moment Theed – who acted as my mechanic, valet, and man-of-all-work – rapped at the door and, entering, announced:

“Miss Lethmere, sir.”

Next instant Roseye, merry and radiant in a new fur motor-coat and close-fitting black hat, burst into the room.

She drew back on seeing Lionel, and then, recovering herself in an instant, exclaimed:

“Oh, Claude, I – thought you were alone! How are you to-day? I’ve brought you some flowers.”

“Thanks, dear,” I replied. “I’m feeling much better to-day. Teddy was in this morning, and he told me that you’d made a flight soon after breakfast. How far did you go? I thought you intended to rest for a bit?”

“I went to Chelmsford,” she replied. “I had a little engine-trouble before I got back, and had to come down in somebody’s park. I think it was somewhere near Watford. But I was able to put it right and get home, if a trifle lamely.”

“So Bertie Maynard told me,” remarked Lionel. “I saw him in the club just before lunch, and he said that you’d had engine-trouble.”

“Oh, it wasn’t very much really. Only, after Claude’s smash, I’m rather careful,” she said.

“One should always take every precaution,” declared Lionel seriously, as he rose and gave her his chair opposite me. “A lot of the boys are far too daring nowadays. They’ve followed Pegoud, and take needless risks long before they are qualified to do so. It’s easy enough to make the sensational loop if you are a practised hand. But when half-trained pupils try and attempt it – well, they’re bound to make a mess of it.”

Roseye glanced at me for a moment, and I knew that she was annoyed at Lionel’s presence. He was a good enough fellow in his place as a friend of her family, and a gossip who entertained her father so constantly, but she had no desire that he should be present at what she had intended should be a cosy tête-à-tête over our tea and muffins.

“Well. Have you seen the papers to-day?” I asked, in order to change the subject. “They are still full of the want of an efficient air-defence.”

“That will come all right, my dear Claude, I’m sure,” replied Lionel who, leaning back against the corner of my writing-table, had lit a fresh cigarette.

“I sincerely hope so,” returned Roseye. “What we sadly need is a Man who will be really responsible for air-defence – and air-defence alone – one who can make the most of the weapons that are now in our hands, and who has the wit, courage and initiative to use our own splendid airmen as they themselves desire to be employed – namely, to fight the enemy.”