“Who are you, aeronauts?”
Bob answered him from one of the outer runways.
“Friends from Przemysl with a wounded soldier,” he shouted through a megaphone. “We want to alight in the city as near the largest hospital as possible. Will you show us the way?”
“What is the code word?” questioned the circling Austrian aviator, still suspicious.
“The Double-headed Eagle and a Third Crown,” replied Bob, as instructed by the governor.
This apparently satisfied the airman, who at once passed the word to his flying companions and the whole crowd of aircraft descended upon the city like a flock of sparrows settling down upon a telegraph wire. The Austrian flyers guided the Ocean Flyer’s direction of descent.
A landing was successfully accomplished in the Prater, which is a vast expanse of wood and park on the east side of the city between the river Danube and the Danube “canal.” Here in former times the fashionable and the blue-blooded rolled in stately carriages along the Haupt-Allee, and the light-hearted, pleasure-loving middle-classes whiled away their time boisterously in the Wurstel Prater.
Now all was very different though. This plaisance of indolent fashion was changed to a military aviation field. Flimsily constructed plank hangars dotted the terraces all around the celebrated Rotunda, and wireless apparatus towered gaunt and skeleton-like into the air. High-powered automobiles, driven with reckless speed, were rushing between there and the city across the canal.
It is hardly necessary to relate here the astonishment and curiosity of the Austrian aviators over the Ocean Flyer as it finally alighted in their midst. Alan was selected to remain in charge of it, while the three other boys and the wounded Racoszky were whirled rapidly into Vienna in one of the waiting automobiles. On the way Bob told the two officers who accompanied them the pathetic story of the invalid, and they were at once all sympathy for him.
“Since the old count is the sort of man you say he is, you will probably find him to-morrow dawdling in the ‘Inner City’ where the palaces are, or else driving here along the Ringstrasse,” said one of the officers. “You may not believe it, sir, but practically no steps have been taken to fortify Vienna here against capture. The military aviation corps is supposed to guard aerial approach, and nobody save the good old Emperor seems to take other dangers seriously.