The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service
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"It's Chance!" exclaimed Ned, hastening aft, followed by Herc.
"A block tore loose from above and struck him on the head," one of the followers of Herr Muller was explaining as the boys came up.
The leader of the strange band bent over the unconscious man and felt his head with a manner that betokened some medical skill.
"It is only a flesh wound," he said, "but the shock has made him unconscious. Carry him below, some of you. He'll soon be all right again."
Kennell was one of those who volunteered for this service. Merritt was another. As they passed the two boys, carrying their limp burden, Kennell turned to Ned:
"Well, my young sneak, they've got you collared this time," he said with a leer, "you walked into the trap like a baby taking candy."
Ned did not deign to reply to the fellow. Instead, he listened to Herr Muller who was talking excitedly.
"Of all unlucky things to happen at this time," he was saying. "We shall be within the wireless zone of the fleet at any time now, and the only man on board who understands wireless is incapacitated. It is most unfortunate."
A sudden idea came to Ned. Possibly by volunteering to act in Chance's place he might find a way out of the maze that involved them.
Acting on his impulse he stepped up to Muller.
"I understand wireless," he said; "what messages do you want taken?"
"I don't know yet," rejoined Herr Muller, looking much relieved. Then suddenly his manner changed.
"But you understand the naval code, too, don't you?"
The manner in which the question was worded put Ned on his guard. He saw that it would be better to reply in the negative.
"No," he said, shaking his head, "I haven't had much to do with the signal part of man-o'-war work; but, of course, I learned something of wireless at the naval school."
"Good!" exclaimed Herr Muller; "come with me."
He ushered the boys below – for Herc had trailed along – and into the small wireless room Ned had noticed.
"I am expecting a message at any time now," he said; "but it will come in cipher. Get it absolutely accurate and you will not suffer by it."
Ned nodded.
"Better see about hoisting your aerials," he said.
Herr Muller hurried off on this errand, while Ned looked over the instruments surrounding him. They glistened with brass and polished steel in the smoky light of a bulkhead lamp. But despite the evident haste with which they had been installed, it was easy to see that the apparatus was the finest obtainable.
"What on earth can be up now?" wondered Herc, as Ned took up the metal headpiece and adjusted it.
"Don't know yet," said Ned. "It's evident, though, that Muller is in hopes of picking up some information from the fleet by eavesdropping on its wireless. I'm mighty glad now that I didn't tell him I could read cipher."
Further conversation was interrupted by the re-entrance of Herr Muller. He stepped brusquely up to Ned.
"You had better be ready to catch anything you can," he said; "everything is in readiness above, and we should be picking up messages at any moment now."
Ned nodded and sat down on the stool set over against the table, on which the glittering array of instruments were fastened.
For a long time – or so it seemed to him – he sat thus. Suddenly, in his ears, there sounded the faintest of scratching sounds. It was as soft as the footsteps of an invalid fly. But Ned knew that somewhere out on the sea ship was speaking to ship, and that what he heard was the echo of their talk.
Suddenly he picked up a pencil and began to write rapidly. Herr Muller bent over his shoulder. He watched with keen absorption as Ned's pencil flew over the paper.
"Yes, she's all right; but she's not as pretty as the blonde operator at Key West."
"Is that the message you were expecting?" inquired Ned blandly, gazing up at Herr Muller.
"What nonsense is dot?" sputtered the other, lapsing into his foreign accent.
"Well, since you ask me," rejoined Ned, "I think it's the operator on one coasting steamer talking to the wireless man on another vessel about a blonde young lady at Key West."
Herr Muller exploded.
"Vot I care aboudt blonde young vimins?" he demanded, pounding the table angrily. "Der message I vant iss a navy message, you onderstond dot?"
"Oh, that's it, is it?" inquired Ned, assuming great innocence. "I thought you wanted every message that came through the air. – Hullo! – Hush! – Here she comes now!"
Suddenly a new note had struck into the wireless channels. The quick, imperious call of a battleship summoning the wireless ears of another sea-fighter.
"M-n! M-n! M-n!"
"It's the Manhattan being called by the flagship," muttered Ned. "Hullo! now they're answering."
"Squadron will rendezvous at Blackhaven Bay. Will await further instructions there," he translated rapidly. But his translation was mental only. To Herr Muller he handed only a string of figures, the cipher the two vessels had been using. Muller hastened off with it to Chance's cabin. The man had now recovered from his swoon and might be able to translate the message.
Ned took instant advantage of the situation.
With quick, nervous fingers he began pounding the sending key. The lithe, white spark crackled and flashed across the terminals. It crackled like a bunch of firecrackers.
"M-n! M-n! M-n!" was what the boy kept pounding out.
Would the Manhattan never answer?
The spark crackled on, but no answering flash came through the air.
"The apparatus is too weak," groaned Ned, despairing at the long silence. But at the same instant his heart gave a great pound. His pulses began to leap. Through space had come an answering message.
Ned lost no time. His fingers began to pound the sending key once more.
"Danger. At Blackhaven– "
Bang!
The interruption was sharp and startling. Splinters flew from under Ned's fingers as the bullet smashed the sending key to smithereens. He turned swiftly. In the doorway stood Merritt, revolver in hand. It was the recreant seaman who had fired the shot and interrupted Ned's warning message.
"So you thought you'd tip us off to the Manhattan, eh?" he snarled. "Well, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. I know something of wireless telegraphy myself."
Ned was conscious of nothing but a hot flame of anger that seemed to bathe him from head to foot in its fury. He flung the helmet from his head and sprang at Merritt like a tiger. Taken utterly by surprise, the fellow was carried clean off his feet by the assault. He crashed backward with Ned on top of him just as Herr Muller rushed out of Chance's cabin, waving the cipher message delightedly.
"The fleet is going to rendezvous at Blackhaven!" he was shouting. "I was right, and – "
He stopped short as he almost stumbled over the struggling forms of Ned and Merritt. In the semi-darkness of the cabin and his excitement he had not noticed them before.
"Donnervetter, vos is diss?" he cried as he took in the situation and speedily sensed the fact that Merritt was getting the worst of the struggle.
He picked up a heavy chair that stood close to his hand. He was swinging it and was about to bring it crashing down on Ned's head when something collided with his chin.
As Herr Muller, seeing a whole constellation of stars, reeled backward, dropping the chair with a bang, he dimly realized that that "something" had been the brawny and freckled fist of one Herc Taylor.
CHAPTER XX
NED, CAST AWAY
But as Herc and Herr Muller crashed floorward together a rush of footsteps came down the companionway stairs. The shot that had destroyed the sending key of the sloop's wireless had been heard on deck. Rescue was at hand for the two scoundrels who had been overborne by the Dreadnought Boys.
Before hands could be laid on Herc, however, the freckle-faced youth had banged his fists twice into Herr Muller's face. He raised his hand for a third blow when a sharp pain shot through him, and he sank back with a groan of helpless pain. Something had flashed in the anarchist's hand for an instant and had buried itself in Herc's side.
"Ned! Ned!" cried the lad in accents of shrill alarm, "the fellow's stabbed me."
With a superhuman effort, Ned flung Merritt's arms from him and dashed across the cabin. Herr Muller had struggled to his feet. He rose just in time to be spun clear across the cabin by the infuriated Dreadnought Boy. Such was the force in Ned's righteously indignant blow, that before the anarchist leader ceased spinning, he crashed clear through a wooden panel.
"Herc, old fellow!" cried Ned, sinking to his knees beside his comrade, "are you badly hurt?"
"I – I – I'm all right, old chap. Save the ships!" mumbled Herc and his eyes closed. The freckled face grew fearfully white.
Before any of the excited crew could lay a hand on him Ned picked up Herc as if he had been a child, and began backing toward one of the cabin doors with him.
"You scoundrels will pay dear for this!" he shouted angrily as he went out.
Paralyzed for the time being by the lightning-like rapidity of events, not one of the men made a move just then. Ned bore Herc into the cabin unmolested. Chance, leaning on one elbow, was lying in the lower bunk. His head was bandaged, but Ned tumbled him out by the scruff of his neck.
"Out of that, you traitor!" he shouted, "and make room for a real man-o'-war's-man."
While Chance, still weak from the effects of his blow, tottered about the cabin, Ned laid Herc on the bunk as gently as a woman might have done with an infant. Herc opened his eyes and smiled up at his shipmate.
"Thanks, old fellow," he breathed, "I – I'm all right. You – "
He lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
Ned ripped his shirt open with a quick movement. With another he tore it into sheds and bandaged the wound in the lad's side. Luckily, in the struggle, Herr Muller's aim had not been good, and the knife thrust was little more than a flesh wound, extending up under Herc's armpit. But the pain was considerable.
Ned had hardly finished his work before the men outside came out of their half-stunned period of inaction. Headed by Merritt, they charged at the cabin. Ned sprang for the door to close and lock it against them, but Chance was too quick for him. The fellow had been leaning back against the bulkhead. As Ned swept forward he extended his foot, and the Dreadnought Boy came to the floor in a heap. In another instant they were all piled on him. Ned struck out furiously.
His blows were driven by steel-plated muscles, but they had little effect on the sprawling mass of humanity piled above him. Before many minutes had passed Ned was a prisoner, tied and bound as securely as Herc had been when he was carried on board.
To his surprise, no violence was attempted by his captors. They worked in grim silence. Ned wondered vaguely what was going to happen to him. In his dazed state he didn't much care. Under Herr Muller's orders the lad was roughly thrust into the wireless room and the door locked upon him.
While this was being done he noted with satisfaction that upon the faces of both Herr Muller and Merritt sundry large, angry-looking swellings were beginning to obtrude themselves like purple plums.
"At any rate, I've spoiled Merritt's beauty for him," thought Ned with a grim satisfaction.
He was left unmolested in his prison place for what seemed hours. Finally, after an interminable period, he began to notice that the rough rolling motion of the sloop had ceased. Had the sea gone down, or were they at anchor in some sheltered haven, he wondered. He was not to be long in doubt.
The door was flung open. Merritt, Kennell and Muller entered. At a word from Muller the powerless Ned was shoved and half carried through the portal. Then he was propelled up the companionway stairs.
"Are they going to chuck me overboard?" he found himself wondering.
A swift glance showed him that the sloop was anchored in a small bay. The sky was clear and a bright moon showed the surroundings to be sand dunes and desolate barrens.
"Is the boat ready?" he heard Muller ask.
From over side, where the sloop's dinghy was floating, came a response in the affirmative. The next instant Ned found himself tumbled from the sloop's low side into the small craft. The fall bruised him considerably, but if his captors had expected him to make any outcry they were deceived. He uttered no word of complaint, although, what with the tightness of his bonds and the jouncing his fall had given him, he was in considerable pain.
Herr Muller, Chance, Merritt and Kennell dropped into the boat after him, taking the places of the two men who had unlimbered it from the stern davits.
Evidently their plans had been prearranged, for Chance and Merritt fell to the oars without uttering a word. Muller and Kennell, grim and silent, sat in the stern.
It was a short row to the shore, and presently the bow of the boat grated on a sandy beach.
"Chuck him out!" growled Herr Muller.
Ned was tumbled unceremoniously out on the sands. In the moonlight he could see that the men in the boat were keeping him covered with pistols. Muller leaped out by his side.
"Keep him covered while I cut him loose," Ned heard Muller grate out.
The anarchist bent over him and severed his bonds.
"What on earth is he doing that for?" wondered Ned. But he was duly grateful as he felt his limbs free once more.
The task of cutting the ropes completed, Herr Muller lost no time in jumping back into the boat. But he need not have feared Ned, the lad was too stiff and sore to do more than feebly stretch his limbs. As soon as Muller was on board, Chance and Merritt laid hold of the bow of the boat and shoved off. They leaped nimbly on board as the little craft floated.
As they fell to their oars Muller stood up in the stern and shouted something back at Ned. The boy could not catch all of it, but he was to realize its import before long. All his ears could get of the message was something about "Island – rot there!"
Then came the rhythmic splash of oars as the boat was pulled swiftly back to the sloop. After a while Ned, although the effort made his cramped limbs wince, managed to get to his feet. He was just in time to see the sails of the sloop being hoisted and the little vessel, as they filled, stagger and move out toward the open sea once more.
"And poor Herc, wounded and alone, is on board her," was Ned's bitter thought; "but, thank goodness," he murmured the next instant, "I'm on land and free, and it won't be long before I find some means of running down that sloop."
He sat down and chafed his ankles and wrists, and after a while was able to move about freely. As soon as he did so he struck off across the sandy dunes on which he had been set ashore. A few minutes of walking brought him to a broad arm of water. It flowed swiftly under the moonlight.
A sudden flash of fear shot through Ned. He gave a slight shiver as an alarming idea shot through his mind. But he shook off his presentiment and struck out once more. It was not till he had made the third circuit of the shifting, grass-grown dunes that he realized, with a flash of horror, the bitter truth of his situation.
The inexplicable fact of his freedom and of his bonds being cast off was fully explained now.
Herr Muller had marooned the lad on a desolate island. It was cut off from the shore by a swift flowing arm of water, its current so broad and so rapid that even such a strong swimmer as Ned did not dare trust himself to try to cross it.
By a stern effort of will Ned repressed a desire to cry aloud. Was this to be his destiny? To perish on a sandy islet off the Atlantic Coast, while the sloop forged ahead on her errand of destruction?
CHAPTER XXI
A STRIKE FOR UNCLE SAM
How long it was that Ned sat reviewing the situation in all its bearings he never knew. But it must have been a considerable period, for, when he began to take notice of his surroundings once more, the first flush of an early summer's dawn was visible behind him as he faced what he judged to be the mainland.
The light showed the character of the country across the broad channel which separated him from it to be much the same as that of the island on which he had been marooned by the anarchists. It was criss-crossed with sand dunes till it resembled a crumpled bit of yellow parchment. Scanty, spear-like grass grew in hummocks on the undulations. As the light became stronger sea birds began to whirl about him, screaming weirdly.
Ned gazed seaward. Far out on the horizon was a smudge of black smoke. It was too great in volume for one vessel to have made. The cloud reached as far as the eye could see; as if a gigantic and dirty thumb had been swept across the sky line. To Ned it meant one thing.
"The fleet has passed down the coast on its way to Blackhaven," he mused. "Oh! for a chance to get to the mainland."
For a time he was in hopes that some fishing craft, or small boat, might pass within hail. But nothing of the kind occurred.
"I've got to get something to eat pretty soon," thought Ned, who was beginning to feel faint, "or – hullo! where have I seen that log before?"
His gaze was riveted on a big spar that was drifting idly through the arm of sea that swept between him and the land.
"I saw that fellow go through here last night; the tide must have turned and it's drifting back. Well, that settles it. There's almost as much water and current in there at low water as at high."
He fell to pacing the beach moodily. Once in desperation he waded into the turbid water and essayed to swim. But he was instantly swept from his feet, and a strong undertow seized on his legs and drew them down. When, panting and trembling, he stood once more on shore, he resolved not to risk his life in that manner again.
"An elephant couldn't swim that," he said to himself sadly.
All at once he looked up, from one of his despairing moods, to see something that caused him to choke and gasp with hope. Bobbing about on the water, not a hundred yards from the shore, was – of all things – a small boat!
Ned watched it fascinated.
Would the current drift it within his reach, or would it be carried tantalizingly past him? At the moment he gave little thought as to how it came to be there. It was enough for him that it was a boat, and offered – providing he could reach it – a means of getting to the mainland.
In an agony of apprehension he watched the little craft as it came on, dancing merrily on the choppy ripples of the inlet. Now it shot in toward the shore, as if it meant to drive bow-on upon the beach, and then, as Ned sprang forth to grasp it, the current would sweep it out of his reach. At last it was abreast of him, and in the next second it had passed beyond. Ned grew desperate.
"Better die in the effort to get to land than perish here of starvation and thirst," he thought.
Without bothering to kick his shoes off he sprang into the water, which was deep right up to the margin of the shore, and swam out after the boat.
In a flash he felt the undertow grip him. He struck out with every ounce of reserve strength that he possessed, but the current proved the stronger of the two. Ned, weakened by his long fast and rough experiences, found himself being rapidly drawn under.
Fighting every inch of the way he was gradually submerged. With a last effort he struck out again, but the final struggle proved too much for his already depleted muscles.
The boy was sucked under like a straw.
Where his head had appeared a second before, there was now nothing but the whirl of the waters.
Suddenly, just as it felt as if his lungs must burst, Ned was shot up to the surface once more. Too weak to strike out he flung out his hands in a desperate effort to clutch at anything to sustain his weight.
His hands closed on something solid that buoyed him up refreshingly. It was the gunwale of the boat!
Ned hung limply to her side, getting back his strength as she glided along. After several minutes he felt equal to the effort of trying to board her. He kicked his way round to the stern and clambered over the transom.
Once on board he lay languidly on the thwarts for some time, too much exhausted even to move. But by-and-bye, his strength began to trickle back. He raised himself and looked around him. About the first object his eyes lighted on was a bit of crumpled paper in the bottom of the craft.
"Maybe this is some sort of a clew as to how the boat happened along so providentially," thought Ned.
He opened the paper, scanned the few words it contained, and then his jaw dropped in sheer amazement. The words of the note were in Herc's big, scrawly handwriting.
"Ned, Hope you find the boat. I heard them say they had marooned you on an island, so I cut the rope. Herc."
Ned saw at once what had happened, even if a glance at the cut end of rope in the bow had not told him. Herc had managed to reach out of the cabin port and slash the rope by which the dinghy had been attached to the sloop's stern. It had been a long chance, but it had won out.
"I don't believe there's another chap in the world like good old Herc," thought Ned tenderly, with a suspicious mist in his eyes as he thought of his absent comrade; then he took up the oars.
"Now where shall I row to?" he asked himself, as he pulled the boat along.
He scanned the barren-looking coast, with its inhospitable sand dunes and melancholy-colored grass, with the sea birds wheeling and screaming above.
"Humph! Not much choice, apparently. I guess I'll pull just inside of that little point yonder, and then strike out across the country. I'll have to trust to luck to find somebody who'll give me a hand."
Half an hour later Ned pulled the small boat ashore and abandoned it.
When he landed he had cherished some hopes of finding a fisherman's hut, or "beachcomber's" dwelling behind the rampart of sand dunes. But no trace of even such primitive habitations met his eye. Salt meadows, threaded by muddy, sluggish creeks, lay inland, and beyond was rising ground dotted with clumps of woodland.
This looked hopeful. Determined to keep pegging along to the uttermost that was in him, Ned struck out across the salt meadows.
It was harder work than he had thought. Under the hot sun the miasmic salt land steamed and perspired. Rank odors arose, and the muddy creeks steamed. Once or twice he had to wade through the foul water courses, and, at such times myriads of bloated-looking crabs, that had been sunning themselves, scuttled, with splashes, into the water.
To add to his discomfort, as the sun grew higher, millions of black flies and stinging midges arose to plague him. They settled on him in swarms. Every time Ned wiped out a legion of the tormentors that had settled on his face, his countenance bore a red smudge. By the time he had – he hardly knew how – traversed this bad bit of country and found himself on a dusty white highroad, Ned was scarcely a presentable-looking object. Mud, from the creeks he had waded, caked his legs; his face was red and bloody from the onslaughts of the insects. His clothes were tattered from his fight on the sloop, and, altogether, he was not an object to inspire confidence.
To add to his misfortunes, he had no money, and Ned knew enough of the world to know that a lad in his condition, tattered and penniless, does not, as a rule, excite any feeling but suspicion. However, when about half a mile further on he came to a small house nestling among rose vines and creepers, he walked bravely up to the door and knocked.
A prim-looking old maid, in a checked apron, opened the door. As soon as her eyes fell on Ned she uttered a shrill scream and slammed the door with an exclamation of alarm and indignation.
"Get along with you, you tramp!" she cried.
Ned turned and trudged down the footpath. But, as he reached the gate, he heard a commotion behind him. He turned just in time to face a big, savage-looking bulldog that was about to fly at his leg. Ned raised his foot and planted it fair and square on the snarling animal's mouth.
The dog fled with a yelp of pain. Ned followed it with his eyes.