It was a happy moment, then, for our Aviator Boys when at Helgoland they were told by the giant pilot of the seaplane, whose name proved to be Carl, that they were booked, not now for Kiel, but Hamburg, which was the center of great aircraft activity.
“No dungeon deep for us,” sang Billy, as he executed a clog step on the deck of the boat that later was taking them up the great river Elbe to one of the most remarkable cities of Germany.
“An aircraft town for sure,” cried Henri, when, with Carl as kindly captor and guide, Billy and himself fared forth from the docks into the streets of Hamburg.
In an hour the boys saw eleven sheds, each said to contain a Zeppelin, and at the air camp all manner and makes of aëroplanes were housed.
It was here that Carl presented his charges to Heinrich Hume, aviation lieutenant, who conducted the new recruits to a mammoth canvas house, where both aëroplanes and aëroplanists rest, when there is a chance to rest.
Billy had another pleasurable shock when Lieutenant Hume, in good old English, abruptly told Henri and himself to shake themselves out of their blue flannel outfits, and dive into a big camp chest filled with clothing of the lead color.
“Don’t mind the blue,” advised the lieutenant, “but it doesn’t mate with the other moving pictures here.”
“We don’t have to be sworn in, or anything like that?” anxiously inquired Billy.
“You’re more likely to be sworn at than in,” laughed the lieutenant. “Now to the point: Do you know enough about aëroplanes to roll one with the right end foremost? Carl says you kids were working an armored seaplane when they plugged you, but Carl is sometimes inclined to draw the long bow about adventures in which he has figured.”
Billy was inclined to hump his back at this, but wisely concluded to let action stand as the proof.