CHAPTER XVIII
TURNING THE TABLES
For a few seconds Dick stood dumfounded. The smith, full of apologies for the deliberate insolence of his assistant towards a German officer, hurriedly explained.
"The swine is an English prisoner," he said. "He was lent to me from a camp at Meseritz. If the rest of these Englishmen give so much trouble as this one I feel sorry for the good Germans to whom they are hired out. I pay this rascal a mark a week and feed him, and only by threatening to send him back to camp for punishment could I get him to work at all. But I was beginning to think I had broken his spirit, and now he goes back to his old ways."
"Let me see if I can cow him, smith," said Dick. "You cannot speak the English tongue, I suppose? No; well, I can, although it is a barbarous language, hardly fit for good Germans to use. I will frighten him. He will know what it means to refuse to work at the orders of a Saxon officer."
"The matter is in your hands, herr leutnant," replied the smith, obsequiously.
"It's all right, my man," began Dick, addressing his luckless fellow countryman. "Don't look astonished. I'm supposed to be jawing you. Look as sullen as you can. That's better. This is part of a British machine. We're stranded three miles out. Set to work as hard as you can, without giving the show away, and I'll do my level best to get you away. We're in a bit of a hole ourselves, but with this job set right we can make another start."
"Thought something was fishy, sir," replied the man. "Hun flying officers don't sport 'wings'; leastways, I've never seed 'em. Yours puzzled me a bit, but I'm getting past being astonished at anything."
"It's lucky for me that this old smith isn't as cute as you are," rejoined Dick. "Now I'll tell him I've made you promise to slog in. I'll let him know that you are to carry the rod back to the battleplane. I'll order him, and he daren't refuse."
"His bad fit is soon over this time, her leutnant," remarked the smith, as the prisoner resumed his post at the bellows. "And this is peculiar metal—so light. Do I temper it in water or oil?"
"Oil," replied Dick promptly, not that he was sure of it, but because it was unwise to profess ignorance.
Half an hour later the smith, puffing and blowing like a grampus, completed the task, apologising for the roughness of the finish.
"It will be as strong as ever it was," he declared. "The roughness is to be regretted, but after all, the makeshift job will last until you return. Is it to the Russian front, herr leutnant?"
"No, to the Bulgarian," replied Dick. "Only this terrific gale blew us out of our course. We were indeed lucky to land at all, except as a crew of corpses. Now, how much is your charge?"
The smith named quite a small sum. Experience had taught him the folly of demanding anything more of a German officer.
Dick paid him by means of the mark notes that Athol had taken from the spy, Karl von Secker, and with which his chum had thoughtfully provided him before setting off for the village.
"And now," he continued. "I must have your English prisoner to carry the thing back. I will make him return within three hours."
"He may take it into his head to escape, herr leutnant," objected the smith. "You will understand that I am responsible."
"I order you," said Dick sternly.
"In which case I must obey," replied the German. "But if your excellency will permit me, I will go with him. It will ease my mind of a lot of worry, and in these times one has quite enough trouble what with war taxes and food tickets."
"It is forbidden to criticise the actions of the government," said Dick sternly.
"True, true, herr leutnant. I deeply apologise. I trust it will go no further," said the smith tremblingly. "But it is permissible that I go with the man?"
"You seem fonder of the man than I do," grumbled the pseudo-Saxon. "Does it always pour like this in Posen? Come along, then, we must hasten."
The English prisoner shot an enquiring glance at Dick as the smith began to don a heavy coat.
"It's all right," said the lad reassuringly. "The old fool insists upon coming. We'll deal with him all right later on."
With no additional protection from the driving rain, which was now full in their faces, the thinly clad British Tommy shouldered the repaired rod and followed Dick into the street. The smith brought up the rear, cursing to himself as his weakly legs sank into the mud, that he had to dance attendance on an officer and a Saxon. There was one consolation, he argued. His patron might have been a Prussian, in which case kicks, not paper-money, might have been his reward.
Upon clearing the outskirts of the village Dick struck the sunken lane, keeping, as before, on the higher ground by the side, although by this time the deluge had left little to choose in the matter of a firm footing. He kept steadily onwards, striving the while to locate the place where he had to turn of across the trackless waste. The British Tommy, he knew, would stick closer than a brother; whether the smith would persist in forcing his company upon him troubled him but little. Even if the fellow was shrewd enough to discover that the battleplane was not a German one not much harm was likely to result, unless the smith proved particularly obstreperous.
Dick had already gained the comforting information that there were no troops within twenty or thirty miles, and that the village was practically devoid of able-bodied men; so that, in the event of missing the spot where Blake and his comrades were, the lad would have no hesitation in firing a revolver to attract their attention. For the present, however, he refrained from using the weapon. For one thing he was rather anxious to return unaided; for another the direction and force of the wind rendered futile all sound signals until he was very much closer to the stranded battleplane.
At long intervals Dick glanced over his shoulder. The now drenched soldier was trudging stolidly along; the smith was making heavy going, and showing visible signs of distress. Had Dick wished he could have outstripped the man without difficulty.
"Can't be far off now," he soliloquised. "Seems to me I've tramped nearly five miles."
He stopped and scanned the surrounding countryside. As far as the driving rain permitted the land presented a flat appearance without any outstanding characteristics—a treeless expanse of mud.
The smith must have guessed the lad's perplexity, for a curious look overspread his coarse features.
"Herr leutnant has lost his way?" enquired he. "Or, perhaps, the machine has flown off?"
"Silence!" exclaimed Dick fiercely. This time there was no need to impersonate the irate officer: he was genuinely furious with the fellow.
"Some one signalling, sir, on our right," declared the Tommy, whereat the smith, either surprised at the Englishman's audacity or anxious to vent his spleen upon the luckless prisoner, stooped, picked up a handful of mud and hurled it at him.
"They are our friends," exclaimed Dick joyously. "Keep yourself under control a few minutes longer. We mustn't let this low-down rascal smell a rat until we're ready for action again. May as well make him useful."
"Stop there till I tell you," ordered the lad, addressing the German. "You can keep a sharp eye on your assistant from where you are standing."
Then, bidding the Tommy follow, he hurried across the intervening hundred yards that separated him from his comrades. Unbeknown to all, Dick had actually passed within almost hailing distance of the battleplane without seeing it or being seen by Athol and the sergeant, until the hollow in which the machine rested was well on his right hand.
"Whom have you here?" asked Blake.
"A British soldier, hired out as a sort of slave to the village blacksmith," explained Dick. "We'll have to keep up the deceit until we set the rod in position; then it will be a huge joke to enlighten the rascally Hun on certain points."
Having given a rapid report on what had taken place, Dick assisted the inventor in replacing the actuating rod. In twenty minutes the work was completed, although on testing the machine Blake discovered that owing to some slight and almost imperceptible curve in the metal the rod was nearly a quarter of an inch shorter than before.
"May make a slight difference to our trim," said Blake. "However, flight alone will prove that. You see we haven't been idle. We have been repairing the larger rents in the wings. Now, all aboard. Dick, show your protégé the way. We'll give him a dry suit and some hot grub. Poor beggar, he's half dead with hunger and exposure."
"'Arf a mo', sir," protested the man. "Before I go can I have a word with yon chap?" And he indicated the still waiting smith, who was now heartily sick of the whole business, and was wishing that he had taken his chances in letting his assistant go alone.
"Very good," agreed Blake, thinking that the Tommy wished particularly to say something to the Hun.
The man plodded stolidly towards the smith until he got within a couple of yards.
"Put your dooks up, old sport," he exclaimed, at the same time "squaring up" to the astonished German.
Having no longer an iron bar with which to assert his authority, the smith showed no great eagerness to accept the challenge. If he expected the officers to intervene he was grievously mistaken.
At length in desperation, for the Tommy was edging nearer, with grim anticipation written on his gaunt features, the Hun threw himself into a defensive position. That was all his former assistant required; for the next moment the bully was sprawling on his back in a foot of liquid mud.
Apparently the British soldier considered that old scores were wiped out, for with the utmost magnanimity he hauled the helpless smith out of the mire and set him upon his feet. This done he unconcernedly strolled back to the battleplane.
"Couldn't help it, sir," he explained apologetically. "Had to get it off my chest. Let bygones be bygones, they used to drill into my head at school. I reckon that proverb ought to be wiped off the slate after what our chaps have gone through out yonder. Penal servitude ain't in it: it's slaving with starvation chucked in."
"Let's hope your troubles are now over, my man," quoth Blake as he took his seat at the helm. "All ready, Dick?... Hold on a minute."
The smith, finding that his assistant was on the point of being spirited away in the huge flying machine, came floundering towards them. Much as he feared being left alone with the pugnacious Englishman he dreaded having to report his loss to the commandant of the prison camp.
"Good-bye, smith," shouted Dick in German. "Don't be in too great a hurry to inform the authorities that you have been aiding the English by repairing one of their battleplanes. Kaiser Wilhelm might be very angry with you."
The next instant the machine rose with a bound, and fleeting before the still strong westerly gale, resumed her flight towards the Russian frontier, leaving the astonished and dumfounded smith to realise the magnitude of his unwitting offence against the German Empire.
For the next few hours the aerial voyage was comparatively uneventful. The rescued prisoner, who gave his name as Private Tom Smith, of the "Chalkshires," and who had been taken prisoner early in the campaign, was now fast asleep, after a good hot meal and a change of clothing.
The battleplane, flying at an immense height, was now far above the rain-clouds and bathed in brilliant sunshine. Looking downwards nothing was visible of the earth, a seemingly unlimitable expanse of dazzling white clouds forming an effectual screen between the airmen and the dreary soil of East Prussia.
"Time we descended to verify our position," announced Blake. "Although in this case it is preferable to overshoot the mark we don't want a long flight against this gale if we can help it."
Cleaving her way through the clouds and leaving an eddying wake of fleecy vapour behind her, the battleplane again came within sight of the earth.
It was no longer raining. A clear view could be obtained for miles—but instead of the flat plains of Russia a vast sea met the airmen's gaze.
"We're a bit out," declared Blake. "We're right over the Baltic."
Before either of the lads could comment upon the somewhat disconcerting nature of the discovery Blake suddenly thrust a lever hard over, automatically locking the wings.
"Take charge, Athol," he exclaimed hurriedly. "Keep her as steady as you can, and check any tendency for her to heel. I'm going outside for a few moments."
To the young airmen's astonishment the inventor began to discard his heavy coat and boots.
"What's wrong?" enquired Athol.
"Only that rod," replied Blake. "The securing nut is working loose. We can't afford to let both drop or it will mean complete disaster for us all."
"Then I'm the man for that job," decided the lad promptly. "I'm light and agile and—and——"
He stopped abruptly. It was on the tip of his tongue to add the words "you are not," but checked himself in time.
Every moment was precious. There was no time for argument. Blake instantly realised the force of his young assistant's remarks and acquiesced.
Knotting a rope round his waist, and holding a spanner in his mouth, Athol dropped lightly upon the rigidly locked wing, gripping the foremost edge in order to save himself from being swept away by the terrific rush of air.
Foot by foot he made his way along the trembling fabric until his head and shoulders projected beyond the tip of the aluminium wing. Although by this time well acquainted with dizzy heights the lad dare not look down upon the distant expanse of water. He kept his eyes fixed upon the loose nut, a foot or so on the underside of the wing. Only three or four threads were holding. In a few minutes, had not the defect been noticed, the actuating rod would have become detached, with the result that the wing, no longer held in position, would have folded itself. Like a crippled bird the battleplane would have crashed through thousands of feet with incredible speed, sealing the fate of all on board.
"Got you, you brute!" ejaculated Athol triumphantly as he gave a final wrench to the now secure nut.
The task accomplished it was no easy matter for the lad to regain the chassis. Temporarily exhausted with his exertions and buffeted by the cutting wind he lacked the strength to haul himself from the wing to the upper side of the fuselage; but Dick came to Athol's aid, and at length the lad was dragged into safety.
"Good man!" exclaimed Blake approvingly as he again actuated the wings.
There was little margin to spare. Already the battleplane had volplaned to within a thousand feet of the sea.
It was not until the mechanical bird had regained her former altitude that her crew were able to discuss the factor that had carried them so far out of their course. An explanation was necessary in order to explain satisfactorily why, instead of being over the province of Courland, the airmen found themselves miles from land and over the expansive Baltic.