When, the next morning, the great bird of passage was driven aloft, and leading a flock of lesser ’planes, the wheelmen on the job were Billy Barry and Henri Trouville.
There were fourteen, all told, on board, and Lieutenant Moppa was in command. Two guns showed, one fore and the other aft, manned by practiced marksmen, while equally proficient in their line were several riflemen in the crew. The two lieutenants could be depended upon to take care of the explosive-dropping assignment.
Though the motion of the huge machine through the air was very smooth and graceful, the roaring sound made by the four powerful engines, as the airship forged ahead, high above the sea, was nothing less than terrifying.
The commanding officer kept his sailing orders to himself, but, nevertheless, the belief among those aboard, which would not down, was that the big craft was going over the Bosphorus batteries, straight to Islam’s capital, to give the ancient city, for the first time in history, an air bombardment.
When the rumor reached Billy, he thought of Sergius’ remark about “dying at the top of the profession!”
To his brother wheelman, close enough to catch his words, he had just been saying:
“This is the kind of a gear we will have to put together for our trip across the Atlantic.”
Then the thought that the contract they had immediately on hand, if the rumor had foundation, might take all they had to give.
A few miles from the entrance of the Bosphorus, Lieutenant Moppa, instead of issuing a stop order, in stentorian voice sounded the word:
“Attention!”