“But they’ve been mighty good to us since then,” went on Pudge. “They have allowed us to have a substantial hangar built after our own peculiar pattern within reach of the water here at Dunkirk, though we are not so many miles away from where the Allies are fighting the Kaiser’s men who are in Belgian trenches.”
“Yes,” added Billy Barnes, who had once been a lively reporter, now a member of the aëroplane manufacturing company engaged in making the remarkable type of airships invented by Pudge’s scientific father, Doctor Perkins, “and during these weeks we’ve been able to get our machine together, so that right now it’s in prime condition for making a flight on the sea or in the air.”
“Whisper that next time, Billy,” cautioned Frank, casting a quick glance about him as the three boys continued to walk along the road leading out of Dunkirk, which in places even skirted the water’s edge.
“Why, what’s up, Frank?” exclaimed the talkative Billy. “Do you think these bushes and trees have ears?”
“No, but there might be some sharp German spy hanging around this place,” replied the other earnestly. “You know they do say they’re everywhere. I’ve heard British soldiers in Calais and Dunkirk tell of mysterious strangers who disappeared when approached as if they were made of smoke. This spy system the Kaiser’s men have down to a fine point. It’s hard to keep anything from being carried to German Headquarters these days.”
“Still, there are a lot of things they haven’t learned before they happened,” declared Billy. “That first British army of some eighty thousand soldiers came over to France, and nobody knew a thing about it until they were on the firing line. But, Frank, do you reckon the Germans have been watching the three of us working here with our hangar and hydro-aëroplane?”
“I’m as sure of it as I am of my own name,” declared the other firmly. “Why, the very fact that our hangar differed so much from ordinary ones, being so much larger for one thing, would make them suspect. Then there has been a heap of talk going on about this wonderful airship of ours, which was carried, every word of it, to German Headquarters.”
“Batter and butterflies!” spluttered Pudge, who seemed addicted to strange exclamations, especially when excited, “we’ll certainly have to watch out, then, now that our wonderful Sea Eagle is in working order.”
“Yes,” said Billy Barnes earnestly, “it would be a tough joke on the company to have some clever thieves get away with it, just when we are ready to show the French Government that it is away above ordinary seaplanes.”
“There’s the hangar, boys,” remarked Frank, with a vein of relief in his voice, as though grave fears may have been giving him more or less uneasiness. “Stir your stumps, Pudge, and we’ll soon be under our own roof. I may have a suggestion to make after we’ve looked around a bit that I hope both of you will agree with.”