“I know the machine, now,” suggested Buck. “I thought I did once before but now I do. I’ll tell about it; how it was made and all about their nightly experiments. You tell about the trip, how it’s to be made and how the thing is to be navigated. And don’t forget to get in an account of the Airship Boys.”
Not being under the pressure of a press hour, neither reporter finished his work that night. In the morning their duties in the setting-up shed called them to the plant. But at noon, when Alan told them over the telephone that the new plan had been approved and that they were to report at the Herald office at once, they were off on the first train, their pockets stuffed with manuscript and camera films. Ned and Alan left for Newark on the three o’clock train with the engineer’s completed sailing charts and at eight Buck and Bob had completed almost nine columns of the big story.
This work was not done in the big local and telegraph room of the paper but in an adjoining editorial office. It was in charge of Mr. Latimer, the night city editor of the Herald, who for four days, representing both the Herald and Telegram, had been preparing for the great event. He told Buck and Bob of the special edition which contained features of all kinds that might interest Englishmen or represent the good wishes of Americans from Canada to the West Indies.
The engineer’s final report on the direct or “as a bird flies” route between New York and London was complete in all details. To Alan, a mathematician and calculator himself, it appealed as a fine picture interests an art connoisseur. Although the company expert gave the initial direction from the Battery (magnetic course N. 67° E, and the compass point as E. N. E.), and the names of the larger towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts over or near which a direct line to Ipswich, Massachusetts, would take the aerial navigators, he left this portion of the line of travel to be worked out for land marks and other details by the boys themselves.
For the use of the pilot he had furnished full directions covering the trip between Ipswich and Fogo Island, off the east coast of Newfoundland, and for the ocean voyage proper, a North Atlantic Pilot Chart plotted on rhumb lines, and a table of true and magnetic courses with latitude and longitude indicated. The directions and table were carefully printed that they might hang in front of the pilot. The chart was mounted so that the observer could check off the advances.
As soon as Newark was reached the two boys provided themselves with large scale maps of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ireland and England. Late that evening when the elated journalists reached the hotel, Ned and Alan were yet busy with rule and dividers locating land points, towns, railroads, rivers, hills and lakes. The data on the water voyage and the big northward bend of the charted ocean route instantly mystified Buck.
“Do you mean to tell me,” began the astounded Bob, “that when we start for London we’re goin’ to begin by crossing over Connecticut?”
“Forty miles up the sound,” explained Ned.
“Why don’t we go right at it and hit the water?” added Buck. “What’s the use of losing time to make that big curve? Want to keep over the land as long as you can?”
“Say,” laughed Alan, “you fellows didn’t happen to try to tell anything about our course in your story, did you?”