Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; Or, A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils

by Alice B. Emerson

Crouching, ready to leap or run as the case might need, Tom approached the other end of the cabin. There he could see through the dim pane of the door, gaining a view of the afterdeck.

The mystery of the absence of all life forward was instantly explained. More than a dozen of the crew and officers were gathered on the afterdeck. They stood in a row along the deck, their heads bared, while the ober-leutnant read from a book.

Tom realized almost at once what the scene meant, and he shrank back from the door. The crew could not hear, of course, the words the officer pronounced; but they were all probably familiar with the service for the dead in the Prayer Book.

Somehow the ceremony affected Tom Cameron strongly. At the feet of the row of men were laid two bodies lashed in a covering, or shroud. They were the men mowed down by the machine gun which Tom himself had manipulated from the American airplane.

The Germans are sentimentalists, it must be confessed. They would take time on their way to raid an enemy city from the air in a most cowardly fashion, to read the burial service over their comrades.

For the airship was over the sea now, and, as though from the deck of a sailing ship, the dead bodies could be slid into the water. But the height from which they would fall was much greater than on any ocean vessel.

The book was closed. Two bearers at the head and two at the feet of each corpse raised them on narrow stretchers, the foot-ends of which were rested upon the rail. A gesture from the officer, and the stretchers were tipped. The bodies slid quietly over the rail and disappeared.

The officer put the Prayer Book in his pocket and adjusted his helmet and goggles. The men with him followed suit. He dismissed them, and almost at once the throbbing of the motors was increased.

Tom Cameron ran back to the closet and shut himself in. He felt sure the commander would come through the cabin to the forward deck. However, the German did not try the knob of the closet door.

Tom saw him pass along the deck to the pilot house, facing the stiff gale. His garments blew about him furiously, and it seemed that the wind had suddenly increased in violence.