WITH GUN RUNNERS IN THE GULF
A glance at the sodden map showed Smith that he had been driven at least fifty miles out of his course. He could not afford time to return to the Euphrates: he would now have to follow the course of the Tigris until it joined the larger river. It would be folly to attempt a direct flight to Karachi, for in so doing he would have to pass over the mountainous districts of Southern Persia and Baluchistan, where, if any mishap befel the aeroplane, there would be absolutely no chance of finding assistance. Luckily the moon was rising, and by its light he was soon able to strike the Tigris near the spot where it flowed between the hills Gebel Hamrin and Gebel Mekhul into the Babylonian plain. From this point, keeping the hills well on his left, he steered south-east until about midnight he came upon an immense expanse of water, shimmering below him in the moonlight, which he concluded to be nothing else but the Persian Gulf.
By this time he was both tired and hungry. Rodier and he had eaten a few biscuits spread with Bovril, and drunk soda-water, while they were examining the engine, but they both felt ravenous for a good square meal. Smith, however, had set his heart on completing his flight to Karachi, where his scheme would allow an hour or two for rest and food, and he was the more determined to carry out his programme, if possible, because of the delay caused by the storm.
His plan was to keep close to the left shore of the Persian Gulf, not following its indentations, but never losing sight of the sea. The coast, he saw by the map, made a gentle curve for some six hundred miles, then swept southward opposite the projecting Oman peninsula, and thence ran almost due east to Karachi. The coast was for the most part hilly, and as he was now travelling at full speed there was always a risk, unless he flew high, of his being brought up by a spur or a rock jutting out into the Gulf; and as he did not wish to maintain too great an altitude, he altered his course a point or two to the south, flying over the sea, but not far from the shore.
Rodier and he took turns at the engine, each dozing from sheer weariness during his spell off. They flew on all through the night, and when dawn began to break, saw straight ahead land stretching far to right and left. There was no doubt that this was the Oman peninsula, which, jutting out from the Arabian mainland, almost closes the Gulf. Steering now a slightly more northward course, and rising to clear the hills of the peninsula, Smith passed over the neck of land, and found himself in the Gulf of Oman, half-way between the head of the Persian Gulf and Karachi.
Now that it was light, there was no longer the same necessity for keeping out to sea. Indeed, it was merely prudent to come over the land, so that if anything happened to the engine he would at least have an opportunity of descending safely. The engine had worked so well that he scarcely feared a breakdown, but he was not the man to take unnecessary risks.
Glancing at his watch, he calculated that he was about two hours behind time. As he had been flying at full speed except during the storm, he could hardly hope to make up the lost time except by diminishing the intervals for rest which he had allowed for before starting. It was, at any rate, important to lose no more. He had just come to this conclusion when there was a sudden snap in the framework of one of the planes. Looking round anxiously, he at once reduced the speed, feeling very thankful that the mischief had not developed during the storm, when the aeroplane must have inevitably crumpled up. Now, however, the weather was fair, and he could choose his landing-place. He had no doubt that the accident was due to the enormous strain which had been put upon the structure by the storm. A glance showed him that the plane was still rigid enough to stand the strain of motion at a lower speed, but that would neither satisfy him nor achieve success, and so he decided to alight and try to remedy the defect.
As he began to plane downwards, Rodier pointed to a cluster of huts at the mouth of a small river. A dhow lay moored to a rough wooden jetty beyond the hamlet. Between it and the huts was an open space of considerable extent, and though when Rodier first drew his attention to the place they must have been more than a mile distant from it, he could see, even without his binocular, a crowd of people moving about the open space.
"We may find a forge there," shouted Rodier.
Smith nodded, but he felt a little uneasy. It seemed likely that he had now reached what is known as the Mekran coast, and he remembered the ill reputation it bore with the officers of British ships who had seen service in these waters. The people had been described as greedy, conceited, unwilling, and unreasonable as camels, and their treacherous and cruel disposition was such that, thirty or forty years before, Europeans who landed on any part of their seaboard would have done so at great peril. Smith, however, had a vague recollection of their having been taught a salutary lesson by the Karwan expedition, and no doubt the presence of British war vessels in the Gulf had done something to correct their turbulence. He had to choose between finding a landing-place inland, out of sight of the inhabitants of this fishing village, and landing among them on the chance of getting the use of a forge, for it would probably be necessary to weld the broken stay. Deciding for the latter course, he steered straight for the village, and, circling round it, dropped gently to earth in the open space near the jetty.
The aeroplane had been seen and heard some time before it reached the spot, and its flight was watched with open-mouthed curiosity by the men, who paused in their work of carrying ashore bulky packages from the dhow. When they saw the strange visitant from the sky descending upon them, they gave utterance to shrill cries of alarm, dropped their burdens, and fled in hot haste up the shore, disappearing behind the huts. As he alighted, Smith noticed, close to the aeroplane, one of these packages, which had burst open in the fall, and saw with surprise that it contained rifles.
"I say, Roddy," he said; "this is rather unlucky. We have interrupted a gun-running."
"Ah, no, it is lucky, mister," returned the Frenchman. "We shall not need now to buy rifles en route; we can help ourselves; these are contraband, without doubt."
"That's true, I suspect; rifles are sure to be contraband here; but this is a wild district, and the people won't be too well-disposed towards us, coming and stopping their little game. We've a right to impound the rifles, I daresay, but I really think we had better look the other way."
"Wink the other eye, as you say. Well, at present there is no one to look at. The people do not speak French, I suppose?"
"Nor English, probably. They are Baluchis, I suppose, and perhaps haven't seen a white man before. Just look and see what's wrong with the stay while I go up to the village and parley."
Rodier stripped to his shirt, got his tools out of the little box in which they were kept, and set to work in as unconcerned and business-like a way as if he had been in the workshop at home. Meanwhile Smith, puffing at a cigarette, walked slowly towards the nearest hut. His easy manner gave no sign of alertness; but in reality he was keeping a keen look-out, and had already descried some of the natives peeping round the walls of the huts. Having taken a few steps he halted, looked inquiringly around, and hailed the lurking villagers with a stentorian "Ahoy!" At first there was no response, but on his advancing a little farther and repeating the call two or three swarthy and dirty-looking men came slowly from behind the nearest hut. Smith noticed the long spears they carried. He smiled and held out his hand, but the men stopped short and eyed him doubtfully, jabbering among themselves. He bade them good morning, inviting them to come and have a talk, but saw at once by the lack of expression on their faces that they did not understand him.
Somewhat perplexed, and trying to think of signs by which he could explain what he wanted, he saw a different figure emerge from the background, a small, bent, olive-skinned old man, clad in a white turban and dhoti. He came forward hesitatingly.
"Salaam, sahib," he said humbly.
"Oh, I say, can you speak English?" asked Smith eagerly, suspecting that the man was a Hindu.
"Speak English very fine, sahib," replied the man, with a smile.
"Thank goodness! Well, now, is there a smith in the village? You know what I mean: a blacksmith, a man who makes iron things?"
It was not a very clear definition, but the Hindu understood him.
"Yees, sahib," he said; "smif that way." He pointed to a hut at a little distance.
"That's all right. Fetch the smith along, and I'll get you to tell him what I want."
"I know, sahib, I tell them. I do big trade in this place. They silly jossers, sahib; think you a djinn."
"Well, put that right, and hurry up, will you?"
The Hindu salaamed and returned to the group of villagers. An excited colloquy ensued, the man pointing now to the Englishman, now to the aeroplane, and now to the dhow alongside the jetty. Presently the Hindu came back.
"Silly chaps say what for you come here, sahib. You know too much, they say."
Smith guessed that they supposed his visit had something to do with the smuggling operations in which they were engaged. He explained quickly that he was merely an ordinary traveller, on his way to India in one of the new air carriages in which Englishmen were accustomed to make long journeys, and he promised to pay the smith well for any assistance he could give in repairing a slight injury which the carriage had suffered in a storm. The Hindu carried this message to the villagers, who were now increasing in number as they regained confidence, and after another discussion he returned, accompanied by a big man, the dirtiest in the crowd, the others following slowly.
He found it no easy matter, through his smiling but incompetent interpreter, to explain that he wanted the use of the smith's appliances. To quicken their apprehension he produced a couple of half-crowns, pointing out that they were worth four rupees, and offered these as payment when the work was done. The Hindu recognized the King's head on the coins, and eagerly assured the Baluchis that they were good English money; but the smith, true to the oriental habit of haggling, rejected them scornfully as insufficient, and was backed up by a chorus of indignant cries from the crowd.
Smith, impatient at the loss of time, and forgetting that any show of eagerness would merely encourage the natives to delay, was incautious enough to show them a half-sovereign. Though the Hindu appeared to do his best to persuade them that this was generous pay, they showed even greater contempt, and became more and more clamorous.
"Greedy chaps want more, sahib," said the Hindu deprecatingly.
"Very well," replied Smith, pocketing the coin. "We'll do without them."
He turned his back on them, and returned at a saunter to the aeroplane, the crowd, now swelled by the arrival of apparently all the inhabitants of the village, old and young, pressing on behind. It was evident that they had now lost their fear of the strange machine.
"How are you getting on, Roddy?" he asked. "These asses won't take half-a-sovereign to lend a hand."
"Imbeciles! But the stay must be welded."
"Well, we'll pretend we can do without 'em. I daresay that will bring them round."
For a few minutes the two men made a great show of activity, completely disregarding the crowd curiously watching them. The plan had the desired effect. The Hindu came forward and said that the smith would accept the gold piece, if he were paid in advance.
"Not a bit of it. If he likes to help he shall have it when the work is done," replied Smith, turning to resume his interrupted work.
The smith, now fearful of losing his customer, began to abuse the Hindu for not completing the bargain. At length, with a show of reluctance, Smith relented, and with the aid of the villagers the aeroplane was wheeled to the smithy. It proved to be very poorly equipped, having a very primitive forge and a pair of clumsy native bellows; but Rodier set to work to make the best of it, welding the broken stay with the smith's help, while his employer remained outside the hut to keep watch over the aeroplane, which the people were beginning to examine rather more minutely than he liked. To drive them off, Smith set the engine working, causing a volume of smoke to belch forth in the faces of the nearest men, who ran back, holding their noses and crying out in alarm.
Smith filled in the minutes by opening a tin of sardines and eating some of the fish sandwiched between biscuits. The sight of small fish brought from a box struck the villagers with amazement, which was redoubled when he removed the stopper from a soda-water bottle and drank what appeared to be boiling liquid. Presently, however, he noticed that some of the men were quietly withdrawing towards the huts, behind which they disappeared. Among them was the Hindu, who was apparently summoned, and departed with a look of uneasiness. Smith went on with his meal unconcernedly, though he was becoming suspicious, especially when he found by-and-by that all the men had left him, the crowd consisting now only of women and children.
"Nearly done, Roddy?" he called into the hut.
"Yes, mister. The smith has took his hook, though."
"All the men have gone behind the huts. I wonder what they are up to."
Rodier took up a hammer, and gently broke a hole in the flimsy back wall of the hut.
"There's a big crowd beyond the village," he reported. "Having a pow-wow, too. They've got spears and muskets."
"That looks bad. Hurry up with the stay. The sooner we get out of this the better."
He noticed that the smith had now rejoined the crowd. No doubt he intended to make sure of getting his money. The mob behind the huts was growing noisy, and Smith gave a sigh of relief when Rodier came out with the mended stay and proceeded to fix it in place. While he did this, Smith beckoned some of the lads forward, and made them understand by signs that he wished them to help him wheel the aeroplane round. The slope between it and the sea was very rough ground, but it afforded space for starting off, and the moment Rodier had finished his job he swung the aeroplane round and started the engine. The smith, looking on suspiciously, took this as a signal for departure and rushed forward, clamouring shrilly for the promised payment. Smith gave him the half-sovereign, then jumped into his place, Rodier running beside the machine as it moved down the slope.
At this moment there was a shout from the village, which swelled into a furious din as the men came rushing from behind the huts, and saw the white men preparing to leave them. The aeroplane gathered way. Rodier was on the point of clambering into his place, as he had often done before, by means of the carriage supporting the wheels. But the machine jolting over the rough ground delayed him. The yelling crowd rushed down, some hurling spears, and others endeavouring to seize the Frenchman. He kept his grip on the rail, but another jolt forced him to loosen his hold, the machine suddenly sprang upwards, and Rodier fell backward among his captors.
The machine suddenly sprang upwards, and Rodier fell backward among his captors.
Smith scarcely realized what had happened until he was many feet in the air; but seeing at a glance over his shoulder that Rodier was left behind, he put the helm over and warped the planes to a perilous degree. The aeroplane was fifty or sixty yards from the starting place when Smith's action caused it to swerve like a wounded bird; then it recovered itself, and turning in a narrow circle swept back towards the confused knot of men on the beach. Smith planed down straight upon them, intending to land and rush to Rodier's assistance. But perceiving that the Frenchman was struggling on the ground, with a dozen turbaned figures clustering over him, he steered straight for the middle of the group. There was a dull thud, and then another, and he felt a harsh jolt as the chassis struck some of the standing men. Smith had stopped the engine when he turned, and the aeroplane, brought up by this obstruction, sank to the ground, being saved from damage only by the spring attachments of the carriage.
Drawing his revolver, Smith leapt from his seat and dashed towards the group. Six or eight men lay on the ground, some of them too badly hurt to rise; the rest of the crowd had taken to their heels, and the whole population was in full flight, the children screaming with terror. In an instant, to Smith's relief, Rodier sprang to his feet. Together they turned the machine once more towards the sea.
"Are you hurt, Roddy?" asked Smith.
"Ah, the villains! they have given me a dig or two. Let us get away from this, mister. We are getting later and later."
He jumped into the car; Smith again started the engine; and as the machine rose into the air it was followed by a howl of rage from the baffled Baluchis. Half-a-dozen slugs pattered about it, piercing several holes in the planes. Already one of these had been gashed by a spear, which still stuck in it. But no serious damage had been done, and in a few seconds the aeroplane was flying at full speed over the sea.
It is one of the drawbacks of aerial travel that conversation can only be carried on in shouts. Smith would have liked to talk over things with Rodier, but the noise of the engine and the boom of the air as the machine cut through it smothered his voice unless he bellowed. Only a few words passed between them as they flew along a little distance out to sea. Rodier bathed two slight wounds he had received in the scuffle with water from the pots filled during the storm, and assured Smith that they were nothing to trouble about.
Some few minutes after leaving the inhospitable village they noticed the smoke of a steamer, a good deal nearer the shore than the dhows which they had seen occasionally on the Gulf. It was too far distant for them to determine its size and nationality, or to guess the direction in which it was bound. Smith decided to speak it in passing, but, observing that the stay had not been thoroughly fixed in the hurry of their departure, he looked about for a suitable landing-place, where the finishing touches might be given. The coast was rocky and precipitous, and the tops of the cliffs were strewn for a considerable distance inland with innumerable boulders, large and small, which would render landing dangerous, and starting perhaps more dangerous still. At length, however, just as he was thinking of running inland, in spite of the loss of time, Rodier caught sight of a large expanse of smooth rock, left bare by the falling tide. He pointed it out to Smith, who made a hasty calculation of its extent, and judged that it would serve his purpose. Steering to it, he circled round it and dropped gently upon its western end, scaring off a flamingo that was sunning itself there in solitary state.
"We came well out of that, Roddy," he said, as they set to work on the stay.
"But we lose time by all these stops, mister," replied Rodier. "We can perhaps make it up if you keep your gold in your pocket."
"I made a mistake there, certainly. If anything of the kind occurs again our motto must be 'take it or leave it.'"
"Just as you say to a cabby."
"You are sure you are not hurt much?"
"No more than with a cat's scratches. You came in the stitch of time, though."
"'A stitch in time saves nine,'" quoted Smith, smiling a little at the Frenchman's mistake. "That's why we had better make a good job of this. We don't want to stop again."
Ten minutes' work sufficed to fix the stay firmly in its place. Smith again started the engine, the aeroplane taking the air when it was only half-way across the rock. They looked around for the steamer when they were again going at full speed, but it was no longer visible. In a few minutes, however, the smoke again came into view, and as they rapidly approached it Smith was delighted to see that it came from the funnel of a small gunboat, which was steaming in the same direction as their own flight, making probably for Bombay or Karachi. The chances were that such a vessel in these waters was British, so Smith steered towards it, shouting to Rodier that they might perhaps arrange a tit-for-tat with the Baluchis.
There was much excitement on board the gunboat when the aeroplane planed down and soared over it at its own pace, just high enough to be out of reach of sparks from the funnel.
"Who are you?" shouted Smith through a megaphone.
"Gunboat Penguin, Captain Durward, bound for Bombay. Who are you?" came the answer.
"Lieutenant Thesiger Smith, of the Imperturbable, bound for Karachi."
"The deuce you are! What do you call that vessel of yours?"
"My pet lamb," replied Smith, grinning. "I say, sir, I've no time for explanations. Are you policing these seas?"
"This is my beat. Why?"
"Some Baluchis are gun-running fifty miles up the coast, that's all. Thought you'd like to know."
"Are they, begad! Thanks for the tip. Can you describe the spot?"
"A tiny village lying behind a point. A river runs through it, and there's a short jetty. Sorry I can't give you latitude and longitude. You'll catch 'em if you hurry up. Hope you will, and—run 'em in. Good-bye."
He set the engine at full speed again, and as the aeroplane soared on like a swallow its departure was followed by a lusty British cheer.
"Three hours late, mister," Rodier bawled in Smith's ear.