NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE

With her smoke trailing behind her and the guns barking in rapid succession, the Colodia raced toward the scene.

NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE

OR

ANSWERING THE WIRELESS CALL FOR HELP

BY

HALSEY DAVIDSON

Author of “Navy Boys After a Submarine,” “Navy
Boys Chasing a Sea Raider,” etc.

NEW YORK

GEORGE SULLY AND COMPANY

BOOKS FOR BOYS

NAVY BOYS SERIES

By Halsey Davidson
12mo, cloth, illustrated.

NAVY BOYS AFTER A SUBMARINE
Or Protecting the Giant Convoy

NAVY BOYS CHASING A SEA RAIDER
Or Landing a Million Dollar Prize

NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS
Or Sinking the German U-Boats

NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE
Or Answering the Wireless Call for Help

NAVY BOYS AT THE BIG SURRENDER
Or Rounding Up the German Fleet

GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
Publishers New York

Copyright, 1919, by

GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY

Navy Boys to the Rescue

Printed in U. S. A.

NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE

CONTENTS

NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER I—THE FRIENDLY GRIP

“And yonder’s a snap-dragon; and that’s a buttercup. That is feverfew growing over there; and there’s foxglove right there in that swampy place. Those are cowslip blossoms—the English cowslip is different from ours.”

“Whew!” blew Phil Morgan, unpuckering his lips and breaking off the haunting little air he had been whistling. “I wouldn’t believe you knew so much about the flora of this strange land, Frenchy.”

“Oi, oi! Is it Flora he’s bragging about? Then Frenchy’s got a new girl!”

“Sounds to me,” mumbled Al Torrance, who lay along the flower-bestrewed bank with his hat over his eyes, “that he was discussing the fauna of the country—with his snap-dragons, and fox’s gloves, and cows slipping.”

“Ignoramus that you are!” scoffed Michael Donahue, otherwise “Frenchy.” “I am talkin’ to Whistler. He knows something and appreciates the profundity of me learnin’.”

“Ye-as,” drawled Torrance, otherwise “Torry,” as their leader began droning away, his lips puckered again. “He knows just enough to whistle the same awful tune for an hour. What is it, anyway, Phil?”

“The tune the old cow died on, I guess,” suggested Ikey Rosenmeyer.

“It’s a tune Phoebe was playing on the piano a good deal the last time we were home,” said Whistler with some gravity. “Wish I’d hear from the folks again. I am worried about Phoebe.”

He spoke of his eldest sister, who during the last few months had not been well. Although, like many brothers and sisters, Philip Morgan, by his chums usually called Whistler, and Phoebe had their differences, now when far from home, “the folks” seem nearer and dearer than ever in his mind.

Philip Morgan lay with his chums on a bank beside a tiny trickle of water called a brook in that shire, although it was nothing more than a rill. They were high up on “the downs,” overlooking a port in which the American destroyer Colodia lay at anchor amid a multitude of naval vessels of three nations.

Over the sea a thick haze, on land the yellow sunshine, so welcome when it is seen in England that it seems more beautiful than elsewhere. The boys had forty-three hours’ shore leave, and for that brief space of time they desired, as most sailors do, to get just as far away in spirit and in surroundings from the ship as possible.

They had tramped into the country the day before, spent the night in four wonderful beds in an old inn that might have harbored some of Sir Francis Drake’s men at the time of the Armada, and were now due at the wharf in a few hours.

Life aboard a destroyer or an American submarine chaser in foreign service is not very pleasant if it is exciting. The space for sleeping, for instance, on these fast vessels is scarcely greater than that assigned to the crews of submarines. As Ikey Rosenmeyer, who possessed a riotous imagination, had said at the inn:

“Oi, oi! sleeping in a real bed again is better than bein’ at home in Ireland, and Frenchy says that’s heaven ’cause his mother came from there. Why, it is better’n heaven! You could spread out your legs and wiggle all your toes without havin’ the master-at-arms down on you like a thousand of brick.”

Frenchy, in a dreamy and poetic mood, not infrequent when the romantic Irish blood in his veins was stirred, was gazing off over the sea at the fogbank.

“Think of it,” he murmured, “How many hundred an’ thousan’ of ships have sailed out of this harbor into just such a fogbank as that—”

“And never came back,” interrupted Torry. “Some tough old gobs, the ancient British seamen, boy.”

“‘Tough’ is right,” chuckled Frenchy, his poetic feelings exploded. “And they haven’t got over it yet. They’ve got old-timers in the British Navy now that can remember when the cat was used on the men’s backs, reg’lar.”

“And every British sailor had tar on his breeches—that’s why they used to call ’em ‘brave British tars,’” scoffed Torry. “Can it! These English chaps are all right. They aren’t much different from us garbies.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Ikey, whose sharp eyes allowed little to escape them. “What kind of a deep-sea crab do you call this comin’ down the road right now, I want to know?”

Phil Morgan paid no attention to what his mates were talking about. The peaceful English landscape charmed his eye.

Down the gently sloping road which, after a mile or so, led into the Upper Town, as it was called in distinction from the port, or Lower Town, the stone cottages—some almost hidden by vines—stood sentinel-wise along the way.

One rather larger house was a schoolhouse. Nothing at all like the schoolhouses in America in appearance. But Phil Morgan knew it was a schoolhouse, and that the school was in session, for he had seen the children filing in not long before and their voices had been raised in song just before Frenchy had begun to note the different flowers.

The excited chatter of the other boys finally aroused Morgan from his contemplation of the peaceful scene. In the other direction, toward which his mates were looking, the outlook was not so peaceful. At least, not at one particular spot in the hedge-bordered road. It did not need a sailor’s weather eye to see that the situation was “squally.”

The “deep-sea crab,” the presence of which Ikey had announced, proved on further examination to be two individuals, not one. But they were closely attached to one another and the way they “wee-wawed,” as Torry said, from one side of the road to the other, certainly would lead to the supposition that intoxication was the cause of such tacking from hedge to hedge.

“And one of ’em’s one of our own garbies,” declared Frenchy. “Isn’t that a shame?”

“But look at that big feller, will you?” gasped Ikey. “Why, he must weigh a ton!”

“You’re stretching that a bit, Ikey,” admonished Whistler, breaking off in his tune to speak. “But he is a whale of a man.”

“Biggest garby I ever saw,” breathed Torry, amazed.

It was the big fellow only, it proved, who was partly intoxicated. He was a British sailor. His companion was both perfectly sober and perfectly mad. His face was aflame as he and his unwelcome companion approached the four Navy Boys.

The big fellow gripped him by the collar of his blouse, and it was utterly impossible for the Yankee lad to get away from “the friendly grip.”

“Talk about this ‘hands across the sea’ stuff,” murmured Torrance. “Here’s a case where it is going too far. We’ll have to rescue a brother garby, won’t we?”

“Believe me, that’s a reg’lar mamma’s boy Johnny Bull has got his grip on, too,” chuckled Frenchy.

“Hush up, you fellows,” advised Phil Morgan, with sudden interest. “I believe I know that fellow.”

“Not Goliath yonder?” cried Ikey Rosenmeyer. “I didn’t know you sailed with such craft.”

“The other chap,” Morgan explained.

“If he’s a friend,” began Torrance, commencing to roll back his sleeves suggestively.

“Sit down!” advised the older boy, sharply. “We’d look nice piling onto that big fellow, wouldn’t we?”

“And the whole of us couldn’t handle him,” murmured Frenchy.

“You never know till you try,” said the optimistic Torrance.

“This is a case for strategy,” stated Morgan. “Now, don’t any of you fellows lose your heads.” Then he hailed the two tacking along the road:

“Ahoy! Hey, you!”

The American lad who was held in durance by the British sailor looked up and showed something besides the red flag of annoyance in his countenance.

“I say, you fellows!” he cried. “Help me out of this, will you?”

At this the huge British seaman for the first time appeared to see the four boys on the bank beside the road.

“My heye!” he bellowed, standing still, but wagging his head from side to side in a perfectly ridiculous way. “My heye! ’Ere’s a ’ole bloomin’ ship load of ’em. Ahoy, me ’earties, let the heagle scream!” and he led off in a mighty cheer that awoke the echoes of the heretofore peaceful countryside.

Frenchy and Ikey, in great glee, sprang up and cheered with him. But the expression in the countenance of the giant’s captive caused the two older Navy Boys to smother their amusement.

“That’s the way he’s been going on for four hours—and more,” groaned the captive. “Why! he hung on to my collar all the time we were eating dinner up there at that inn. Made the barmaid cut up his victuals for him. Paid her a shilling for doing it.”

“Say, is her name Flora?” Ikey asked, at once interested. “Is that the girl Frenchy was just talking about?”

But Torrance quenched him with a hand on his mouth. The situation of the Yankee youth in that giant’s hands seemed more serious than they supposed. The grip of the big hand never relaxed.

“’Ere we are, all together, me ’earties,” rumbled the giant. “Hi’m glad to know yuh. Hi’m Willum Johnson, ’im that ’ad a barrow hin the Old Kent Road before the war. Hand jolly well knowed Hi was to the perlice,” confessed the man frankly.

“Hit allus took six bobbies to take me hin, lads. Hand now one o’ the bloomin’ hofficers makes me walk a chalkline, haboard ship. Hi tell yuh, ain’t this war terrible?”

“That’s what it is,” admitted Frenchy, staring at the man with wide-open eyes.

“Come over here and sit down—and tell us all about it,” Whistler Morgan said, beckoning.

“Hi’ll go yuh!” declared the giant seaman. “Hand so wull me friend—one o’ the nicest little Yankees Hi ever come across.”

The strange Yankee sailor was too much disturbed by his situation to look very closely at Phil and his comrades. The viselike grip of the semi-intoxicated giant on his collar was the principal thing in the victim’s mind.

Almost as soon as the British seaman sprawled on the grassy bank his head began to nod and his eyes to close.

“He’s going off,” whispered Al Torrance.

“You’d think he would,” returned the victim of the over-friendly seaman, in the same tone, “if you could have seen him eat and drink. You never saw such an appetite! He had everybody at that inn standing around and gaping at us.”

It was evident that the young sailor felt his position deeply. He was a nice looking fellow, very neat in his dress, and with delicate features.

“How did you come to fall in with him in the first place?” Al asked, as the giant began to snore.

“Why,” explained the stranger, “I started to walk down to the port because it was so pleasant. He was sitting outside the place where I stopped for tea and muffins after I’d walked a way. I had no idea he was so—so far gone. But he must have been drinking for days,” casting a disgusted glance at his close companion whose hamlike hand never relaxed. “He learned where I was going, and he at once got a grip on my collar. He hasn’t let go since—I never saw such a man!” concluded the stranger morosely.

“His hand will drop off when he gets sound asleep,” Whistler said comfortingly. “Then we’ll sneak.”

“Don’t you believe it!” whispered the other in vast disgust. “He fell asleep after dinner, but his fingers are just clamped on to my collar. When I tried to wriggle away, he awoke. See!”

He tried to pull away from the friendly grip. At once the British seaman half aroused; but his fingers never relaxed.

“William Johnson his my nyme—
Seaman’s my hav-o-cation!
Hi’m hin this war for a penny-bun—
Hand so is hall my nation!

Hoo-roo!” mumbled the gigantic sailor, and fell asleep again.

“Now, what do you know about that?” demanded the victim of brotherly love. “And me—Well, I’m due aboard the Colodia to-day.”

“The Colodia!” exclaimed the four Navy Boys in chorus.

None of them wore a designating mark, for they had on their white service caps. But the Colodia was the Yankee destroyer to which Morgan, Torrance, Donahue and Rosenmeyer belonged. The four gazed on the stranger with increased interest at his statement.

“Say,” Whistler asked, “aren’t you George Belding? Didn’t you and your folks come up to Seacove from New York five or six years ago and spend the summer in the old Habershaw House? I’m Phil Morgan. We lived right next to the Habershaw House.”

“My goodness!” exclaimed the strange youth, sticking out his hand to grab Whistler’s. “And your father, Dr. Morgan, and mine went to college together. That’s what brought us up to Seacove. Sure! My mother wasn’t well. We all got fat and sassy up there. I declare I’m glad to see you, Phil Morgan!”

“Me long lost brother!” whispered Frenchy to the others. “Have you still got the strawberry mark upon your arm?”

But Al Torrance was quite as serious as Whistler and the newly-introduced George Belding.

“Say, fellows,” Al said, “if he’s going to be one of us on the old destroyer, we’ve got to help him out of this mess.”

“Go ahead! How?” demanded Ikey.

Al produced a pocketknife which he opened quickly. It had a long and sharp blade. He approached the snoring giant on the bank.

“Oi Oi!” gasped Ikey Rosenmeyer. “Never mind! Don’t kill him in cold blood. Remember, Torry, it’s Germans we’re fightin’, not these Britishers.”

“What are you going to do?” demanded Belding.

“Cut your collar away,” said Torrance. “That’s about all you can do. If he wants to hang on to the collar, let him.”

“It’ll spoil his shirt,” objected Ikey.

“Sh! Go ahead,” murmured Belding. “It’s a good idea. I couldn’t get at my own knife and do it, with him hanging on to me so tightly.”

“Take care, Al,” advised Whistler. “And you other fellows stand aside. Be ready to run when George is free.”

His advice was good. The giant seaman still snored, but it would not take much to rouse him.

The five boys were now so much interested in the attempt to get Belding free that they took no heed of anything else. So they were all shocked when a chorus of steam whistles and sirens suddenly broke forth from the port below them. A gun boomed on the admiral’s ship. Pandemonium was let loose without warning.

“Oh, my aunt!” groaned George Belding, “what is that?”

“Willum Johnson” awoke with a start and a grunt, and, sitting up on the bank, demanded of everybody in general, “’Oo’s shootin’ hof the bloomin’ gun?”

But Whistler and Torry had whirled to look out to sea. They had heard a similar alarm before. Out of the blue-gray fogbank over the sea, and high, high up toward the hazy sky, whirled a black object, no bigger at first than a bird. But how rapidly it approached the port, and how quickly its outline became perfectly clear!

“A Zep, boys!” cried Al Torrance. “There’s a raid on! That’s a German machine, sure’s you are a foot high!”

“Are you sure?” murmured Belding, who had been dragged quickly to his feet by the giant.

“Hit’s the bloomin’ ’Uns—no fear it ain’t!” ejaculated the big British seaman. “Ah! There goes the a-he-rial guns.”

Splotches of white smoke sprang up from several shoulders of the hill that overlooked the port. The watchful coast-defense men were not unprepared; but the enemy airship, rapidly growing bigger in the boys’ eyes, winged its way nearer to the land, boldly ignoring the shells sent up to meet it.

“She’s going to drop her bombs right over the town!” gasped Whistler, grabbing Belding, who was nearest.

CHAPTER II—THE HUN IN HIS FURY

Wheeling up from behind them on the higher shoulder of the hill, an airplane spiraled into the upper ether, in an attempt to get above the huge machine that had, two minutes before, appeared out of the sea fog. But this attempt to balk the Hun, like those of the anti-aircraft guns in their emplacements about the port, promised little success.

The fog had made the close approach of the huge Zeppelin possible, and now the rumble of the motors of the enemy machine could be heard clearly by the four Navy Boys on the hillside and their two companions.

“Oh, cracky!” gasped Al Torrance. “She’s coming!”

“And right this way!” gulped Ikey Rosenmeyer. “If she drops a bomb—”

“Good-night!” completed Frenchy in a sepulchral tone.

“Let’s get under cover!” cried George Belding, striving again to get away from the “friendly grip” of the British sailor, Willum Johnson.

“Hold on!” commanded Whistler Morgan. “No use losing our heads over this.”

“If one of those bombs lands near us we’ll likely lose more than our heads,” grumbled Torry.

“Wait! If we run like a bunch of scared rabbits, we are likely to run right into danger rather than away from it.”

“Those horns down there say ‘Find a cellar!’” whispered Frenchy.

“Oi, oi!” added Ikey. “There ain’t no cellars up here on this hill yet.”

“Keep cool,” repeated Whistler. The other boys were used to listening to him, and to following his advice. He was a cautious as well as a courageous lad, and his chums were usually safe in following Philip Morgan’s lead.

These four boys, all hailing from the New England coast town of Seacove, had begun their first “hitch,” as an enlistment is called, in the United States Navy as apprentice seamen, several months before America got into the Great War, and some months before the oldest of the four was eighteen.

They had now spent more than a year and a half in the service, and their experiences had been many and varied. After their initial training at Saugarack, the big Naval training camp, the four chums, with others of their friends and camp associates, had been sent aboard the torpedo boat destroyer, Colodia, one of the newest, largest, and fastest of her type in the United States Navy.

The Colodia’s first two cruises were full of excitement and adventure for the four Navy Boys, especially for Philip Morgan; for he fell overboard from the destroyer and was picked up by the German submarine U-812, and his experiences thereon and escape therefrom, are narrated in the first volume of this series, entitled: “Navy Boys After the Submarines; Or, Protecting the Giant Convoy.”

The second of the series, “Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider; or Landing a Million Dollar Prize,” relates the experiences of these four friends on a longer and even more adventurous cruise of the Colodia. Under the command of Ensign MacMasters, the Navy Boys as members of a prize crew, took the captured Graf von Posen into Norfolk; and their experiences on the captured raider made a dramatic and exciting story of the day-by-day work of the boys of the Navy.

Through their kind friend Mr. Alonzo Minnette, who was holding a volunteer position at Washington in the Navy Department, the four chums obtained a chance to cruise with the superdreadnaught Kennebunk, a brand new and one of the largest of the modern American fighting machines launched during the first months of the war. The Colodia having gone across the Atlantic while the boys were with the captured raider, they with Ensign MacMasters were very glad to join the crew of the huge superdreadnaught in the interim.

The third volume of the series, “Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns; Or, Sinking the German U-Boats,” took our heroes into perils and adventures which they will long remember, for they included work in the gun turrets of the Kennebunk, a wreck that threatened the lives of all four chums, a mix-up with German spies, and finally a record trip across the Atlantic by which the huge superdreadnaught arrived at the rendezvous in time to take part in a naval engagement which put a part of the Hun navy to flight.

Now the four friends were back on the Colodia which was doing patrol duty off the English and French coasts, and convoying troop and food ships through the submarine and mine zones. The base of the squadron of which the destroyer was a member was at this English port, on the hillside above which Philip Morgan, Alfred Torrance, Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer have been introduced just as they met the American sailor lad, George Belding, and his doubtful friend, the giant ex-coster, “Willum” Johnson.

“Keep cool,” Whistler urged again, as the Zeppelin sailed inland. “There is no use running——”

His further speech was smothered by a terrific explosion from the port below. A lurid burst of flame, stronger than the sunlight, shot into the air where a wharf and warehouse had been. Smoke followed, instantly hiding the mark the bomb from the Zeppelin had found.

This daylight raid was the boldest the Germans had attempted. The enemy must have supposed the fog was over the land as well as the sea, or he would never have risked the attack.

Again a nerve-racking explosion following a flash of light that seared their eyeballs, and the middle of the town—the market place—was shrouded by thick smoke.

“The dirty ’ounds!” bawled the British seaman, suddenly finding his voice. “The dirty ’ounds! They’re killin’ women an’ kids down there! Lemme get my bloomin’ ’ands on ’em!”

He dropped George Belding’s collar at last and would have started in a clumsy run down the hill. It was Whistler who stopped him, with a two-handed grip on the Englishman’s collar now.

“What good would you be down there, man?” the American youth demanded. “You’d only get yours, too, maybe. Those bombs are falling two or three thousand feet.”

“Argh!” growled Willum Johnson, shaking his huge fists in the air, his face raised to the coming Zeppelin. The growl was animal-like, not human. “Argh! Lemme get ’em——”

A third bomb exploded. A big house below them, half way down the hillside, disappeared. It was as though a monstrous sponge had been wiped across that spot and erased the building!

“Oh! Look out! Look out!” sobbed Frenchy, and covered his eyes with his hands.

His chum Ikey shook beside him, but could not close his eyes to the horror.

The Zeppelin was curving around, evidently determined to make for the sea and the fogbank again. Beneath it, on either side, even above it, the bursts of white smoke betrayed the explosion of aerial shells the defense guns were firing at the enemy machine. And all the time the single British airplane on duty was climbing skyward.

“If that thing can only get above the Zep.!” murmured Al Torrance.

Suddenly the airplane darted toward the sea, in a sharp slant upward. Bravely the pilot sought to cut off the Zeppelin’s escape into the fogbank out of which she had burst five minutes before.

Guns from the Huns’ airship began to bark. They were firing on the British plane. The latter’s guns made no reply as she continued to mount into the upper air.

The course of the Hun machine was changed again. In approaching the hills surrounding the port the Zeppelin was brought much nearer to the earth.

The ship was indeed a monster! Swung landward to escape the mounting airplane, the Zeppelin, its motors thundering, came closer and closer to the spot where the American sailor boys were standing.

“Bli’me!” roared the apparently fast-sobering Britisher. “They are goin’ to drop one o’ them blarsted buns on our bloomin’ ’eads!”

“‘Buns’ is good,” groaned Al. “Here she comes!”

It seemed as though the great airship was directly above them. The boys actually saw the bomb released and fall!

There was no possible mistake on the part of the brutal crew and commander of the Zeppelin. They knew very well the bomb would fall upon no warship in the harbor, or any possible storage place of munitions. Up here on the hillside were nothing but little dwellings and—the schoolhouse!

As though it were aimed at that house of instruction, the great shell fell and burst! If teacher and pupils had descended into the cellar at the first alarm of the horns and guns, it would scarcely have availed to save them. The shot was too direct.

One moment the green-tiled, freshly whitened walls of the schoolhouse stood out plainly against the yellow and green landscape. Then, with a roar, it was wiped out and a huge balloon of whitish brown smoke took its place.

The explosion shook the air and the earth. The group of Navy Boys were struck to the ground. Only the gigantic figure of Willum Johnson remained erect, and he wavering on his feet and mouthing threats at the enemy.

“They killed ’em! They killed ’em!” he bawled, when he could be heard. “The women an’ the kids!”

He started on a staggering run, up the road this time, as though trying to follow the wake of the fast descending Zeppelin. The British airplane was above the enemy machine and was raking it with machine gun fire. Some damage had been suffered by the Zeppelin. She was descending, out of control.

But Morgan ran down the hill, toward the bombed schoolhouse—or the place where it had been. The other boys followed him. Frenchy was frankly crying, and Ikey clung to his hand as though afraid to let go.

CHAPTER III—THE MISSING MAN

The smoking ruins of the schoolhouse and its outbuildings were now visible. The five boys came to the edge of the crater which marked the effect of the explosion of the bomb from the Zeppelin.

From somewhere appeared an old man in a smock, and his hard, weather-beaten face writhed with an emotion unspeakable. His outstretched shaking hand pointed to the spot where the schoolhouse had stood.

“I saw her face at the pane but the moment before. She waved her hand to me,” he said.

His awestricken tone made the American lads tremble. A younger man with his face bloody from a wound above the temple appeared beside the boys with the same startling suddenness.

“’Twas his gran’darter. She teached here,” whispered the wounded man. He laid hold upon the old man. “Come away, Daddie,” he said. “Come away wi’ me now.”

A woman screamed up the road just as Phil Morgan spied a motor ambulance with a huge red cross on it, mounting from the port. Rescue parties were afoot already. There really was nothing the American lads could do at the wrecked schoolhouse. The shrill cry of the woman above them caused all five to turn to look.

“’Tis down! ’Tis down!”

The Americans were just in season to see the Zeppelin crumble like a huge concertina and dive toward the earth. Fire broke out amidships.

The landing of the Hun airship took place far up on the open hill, in a pasture above the road. The boys could see the gigantic British seaman toiling toward the Zeppelin. He was the nearest person to the burning airship as it came down, although there were other men running over the downs toward the spot.

“Cracky!” exclaimed Al Torrance to Belding, “your big chum is going to fight them single handed!”

“Come on, fellows!” Whistler cried, starting away. “We can do no good here. But those Germans must not escape!”

“No chance!” exclaimed Ikey. “They won’t even try. If the English hung every member of the Zep crews they caught the Kaiser would soon have hard work finding men to man the bomb-droppers.”

“Right you are,” Frenchy agreed. “The baby-killers!”

He was still sobbing. Right then and there the Navy Boys would have been glad to take vengeance on the crew of the Zeppelin. The first man was descending out of the burning machine. The Americans saw the huge British sailor spring upon him.

“There was no kamerad stuff,” Torry observed. The two locked and went to the ground, disappearing in a wallow.

At this sight the boys uttered a cheer and leaped the hedge beside the road. They tore up the hill as fast as they could run. A shot sounded, and the spurt of flame and smoke marked the appearance of a farmer with a shotgun. He, however, was firing at the balloon of the Zeppelin, not at her crew.

From the machine a second figure dropped to the ground, and just as the farmer fired his second barrel. This second member of the crew darted away from the burning wreck and disappeared into the furze that covered the summit of the hill.

“That Heinie’s running away, Whistler!” cried Al, but kept on himself with the younger boys toward the airship.

Belding looked at Whistler. “Shall we let him beat it?” the former asked the Seacove boy.

“Not on your life!” Whistler cried. “Come on! If we’re not a match for one Heinie—we two—then——”

They turned directly up the hill, and in two minutes were over the ridge. Instead of the smooth pasture land they had just crossed this side of the hill was of barren soil and covered with boulders. To follow a trail here was scarcely possible, but the two American boys soon found traces of the Hun, where he had broken through the bushes on the summit.

“We don’t know this country,” Whistler said cautiously. “There may be lots of hide-outs around here.”

“He doesn’t know it, either,” Belding declared.

“We don’t know that,” the other boy said sharply. “They say every square foot of England was mapped by German spies before the war. Somehow, that Heinie slipping away the way he did, looks fishy.”

“How so?”

“They always give up—these Zep crews. They know the worst will happen to them is internment. Running away like this will put him in dead wrong, if he’s caught,” added Whistler.

“I suppose that’s so, Morgan,” agreed Belding. “But maybe the poor fish was scared out of his five senses.”

“Let Frenchy tell it, these Heinies don’t own five senses,” Whistler chuckled. “He says they haven’t got more than two.”

“Uh-huh. That might be. Maybe this fellow ran for quite another reason.”

“What’s that?”

“Because he is a spy.”

Whistler digested that idea slowly. It looked reasonable. He knew that it was said sometimes the bombing machines dropped spies on British soil.

“We’d better be careful, then,” he said at last. “The chap may be armed.”

“No ‘maybe’ about it. He’s sure to be,” Belding said vigorously. “We’d look nice getting shot ashore here by a Heinie. What would our folks say?”

“By the way, George,” Whistler Morgan said, “how are your folks? Do you hear from them? When did you come across the pond?”

“One at a time!” exclaimed Belding. “Lil writes me—you remember my sister, Lilian? She was all legs and lanky yellow hair when we were up there in Seacove that summer.”

“I remember her,” Whistler admitted. “She’s a pretty girl.”

“Huh! Think so? She isn’t a patch on your sister, Alice, for looks. And that reminds me—have you heard the news?”

“I’ve not heard much news from home lately, if that is what you mean,” said Whistler. “Guess my mail’s been delayed.”

“Why, say! let me tell you about it. First of all, I came across two months ago and have been on father’s yacht, the Sirius—sub. chaser, you know. Course it isn’t called the Sirius any more. He let the Navy Department have it, you know.”

“Why, George!” gasped Whistler, “I didn’t know you folks had a yacht.”

“Father owns a slew of freight ships. It’s on one of his ships that they are all sailing next month for Bahia.”

“That’s in South America,” said Whistler thoughtfully.

“Yes. Father thinks there is going to be the biggest kind of commercial opportunity in Brazil and other South American states after the war. The Germans will be in bad down there. Father is going to establish a branch of his business in Bahia, and stay himself for a year or more—perhaps until the war’s end.”

“You don’t say!”

“Yes, I do, Country!” laughed Belding. “And Lil and mother are going to take your sisters with them.”

“Wha—what’s that you say?” Whistler ejaculated, in blank amazement.

“I guess you haven’t heard from home lately,” Belding said. “Didn’t you know anything about it?”

“Not a word.”

“They’ll sail on the Redbird. That’s one of father’s biggest ships. You see, Doctor Morgan was in New York and came to see us, so Lil wrote me. And he said how much he desired to send your sister Phoebe off on a long sea voyage. So they made it up, right there and then. Your sister Alice is going, too, and my mother will chaperone the crowd. Tell you what, Phil, if it wasn’t for this man’s war, I’d like to drop everything here and go with them. Some sport! What wouldn’t we do to those girls when the Redbird crossed the equator!”

The boys had been standing in the lee of a big rock while thus conversing in low tones. Suddenly Whistler saw a movement on the hillside below them. A man dived behind a boulder, disappearing like a flash.

“There!” whispered Whistler. “I saw him! Did you?”

“I saw something,” admitted Belding. “Wish that big Johnny Bull friend of mine was here.”

“He’d be a bigger mark for a pistol ball—if the Hun is armed—than we make!”

“Good-night!” breathed Belding. “I don’t wish to consider myself as any such target.”

Nevertheless the two lads did not hesitate to approach the spot where they had caught a glimpse of the escaping German. Whistler Morgan, at least, had been in many a perilous corner since he had joined the Navy as apprentice seaman, and he was not likely to show the white feather now. As for George Belding, Whistler did not know much about him; but when they were some years younger and George had visited Seacove, he seemed to be as courageous a boy as one would wish to meet.

The boys on shore leave of course were without arms of any description. And, as had been suggested, the German might be armed. The Americans took no chances in their search for the enemy.

There was a big boulder just ahead, and at Whistler’s suggestion the two climbed this and, lying flat on their stomachs, wormed their way to the summit, from which a better view of what lay below on the side hill could be obtained.

“Sh! That’s the fellow!” hissed Belding, seizing Whistler’s arm almost at once.

The Seacove boy saw the olive-gray figure at the same moment. The two lay and watched the German making himself comfortable in a little hollow between two rocks some rods below their station. The man had evidently scrutinized all his surroundings and believed himself to be unobserved.

“What’s he got in his bundle?” whispered George Belding.

“Got me. I saw he had that when he dropped from the burning Zep.”

The two had not long to wait to learn just what the man carried with him. Being assured that he was alone, he dropped the bundle and proceeded to untie it. Then he began to remove his flying clothes.

“A disguise,” were the words Belding’s lips mouthed, and Whistler nodded.

The latter was making a thorough scrutiny of the German’s face. Whether they captured the man or not he proposed to know him again if he met him—no matter where.

He was lean-faced, with a prominent nose, and eyes that Whistler thought were gray or a pale blue. He wore a tuft of black whisker on his chin and a little moustache. This, and the way he wore his hair—long and shaggy—made him look anything but Teutonic.

The boys beheld the fellow, stripped of his outer garments, don loose trousers, a farmer’s smock, and a cap. Although he did not look English in the face, he was dressed much as the boys had seen the neighboring agriculturists and drovers dress. He even put on a pair of heavy boots instead of the laced shoes he had worn in the Zeppelin.

“That chap means business,” whispered Belding. And then he suddenly grunted almost aloud, for out of his bundle the spy produced a pair of automatic pistols which he proceeded to hide under the loose blouse he now wore.

“He is prepared to fight,” agreed Whistler under his breath. “We can’t capture him without help, George.”

“You’ve said something, Whistler! One of us will have to go for help.”

“Which shall it be—you or I?” asked Phil in the same cautious tone. “Al and the others would be glad to be in on this.”

“And my friend Johnson, from the Old Kent Road. He’s sober now and worth two ordinary men in a scrimmage,” and Belding smiled broadly.

“Shall I go?”

“All right,” agreed Belding. “But be quick. And if I’m not here, I’ll drop papers to show my trail. I’ve plenty of old letters in my pocket to tear up.”

“Good idea,” said Whistler, preparing to slide feet first down the rock. “Don’t get into trouble with that fellow, George.”

With this admonition he left the other American lad and started back up the hill on the other side of which the huge airship had fallen to the earth.

CHAPTER IV—THE PAPER CHASE

Once again on the summit of the hill Whistler Morgan could overlook all the sloping pastureland bordering the pleasant road he and his friends had been strolling upon when the Zeppelin appeared; and he could view all the port and the harbor, as well.

It was no peaceful scene now. The bombing of the port had done no damage to the shipping; but there were fires burning in three places in the town, as well as on the site of the schoolhouse and where the Hun airship had fallen. No second Zeppelin had appeared from the sea; but the guarding airplanes had now gathered like vultures, floating high above the port.

Whistler did not wish to look in the direction of the schoolhouse site a second time. The shock of the destruction of all those innocent children was too fresh in his mind for him to be willing to view the spot closer. The crowd gathered about the steaming ruins were made up for the most part, probably, of the bereaved parents and friends of the victims.

In the opposite direction, up the road, where the twisted wreck of the Zeppelin lay, the American lad could distinguish the figures of some of his friends. He hurried in that direction, and as he drew near he saw that the crowd here gathered was very much excited. The man who had previously used the shotgun was waving his weapon threateningly, and some of the other people of the countryside were shouting at the group of gray-green figures that was plainly the crew and officers of the wrecked airship.

One of these Germans—a big fellow—showed marks of a serious beating. He was the fellow, Whistler was sure, that Willum Johnson had attacked.

The giant British seaman and the Colodia boys were right up in the forefront of the threatening crowd facing the Germans. But Whistler saw that there was a British Naval officer and several constables in charge of the prisoners.

“Remember, my man, that you wear the King’s uniform,” the British officer was saying to the giant as Phil approached. “I shall have to report your attack upon this prisoner. They all gave themselves up—”

“And they were all armed—every one of them,” put in Frenchy, sotto voce.

The officer glared at him; but it gave Willum Johnson courage to add:

“Who says they didn’t try to escape? Hi got the first bloke hout of the machine, Hi did. Then hother folks run up an’ ’twas hall over.”

“I saw one run,” Frenchy declared, looking boldly at the Naval officer.

“So did I, sir,” added Al Torrance.

“You mean that one of these Germans tried to run after the seaman here made his unwarranted attack upon them?” asked the officer sharply.

“Bill jumped on the first fellow out of the machine,” Al said with confidence. “The second chap ran up over that ridge and disappeared.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the officer. “Here are fourteen—all that were in the crew, so their commander says.”

“And Hi wouldn’t believe him if ’ee swore hit hon a stack of Bibles as ’igh as a ’ouse!” cried the Coster.

Just at this juncture Whistler Morgan interfered. He said very respectfully to the Navy officer:

“Beg pardon, sir, but the German that escaped is over behind the hill now. One of my chums and I chased him, and——”

“Do you mean to tell me there were fifteen members of the crew of this Zeppelin?”

“I’m not sure of that. He may not have been an accredited member. I think he is a spy brought over for some purpose and dropped here.”

“You know where he is?” demanded the officer.

“Yes, sir. My friend is watching him now. He had a bundle with a disguise and pistols in it. You’d never know him for a German the way he looks now.”

“Horray for Whistler, fellows!” shouted Al Torrance. “Let’s all go after the Heinie!”

The boys from the Colodia started away from the wreck at once, but the British Naval officer called after them:

“Hold on, my lads. I can’t have you going alone on such a mission. If there really is a spy at large——”

“He’s at large, all right, sir,” Morgan interposed. “Give us Willum Johnson and we’ll get the fellow, sure.”

“Aye, lad!” cried the giant sailor. “We’ll git ’im, dead or alive.”

“You see that you get him alive, Bill,” said the officer, sternly. “No mistake about that. I’ll have to explain your pounding this fellow all up.”

“Bli’me!” said Johnson, “Hi didn’t begin to treat ’im rough enough.”

But this was under his breath and after he had turned away to follow the four Navy Boys. The officer did not hear the comment.

By Whistler’s advice they all stooped at the summit and crept over the ridge among the bushes and rocks, endeavoring to keep their bodies out of the view of anybody below on the hillside, where Phil had left George Belding and the German spy.

“Hit’s a fair chance, lads, they seed me,” remarked the British seaman. “But mebbe they’d spot muh for a bloomin’ cow!”

“Where’s that other fellow, Whistler?” asked Al. “Belding, did you call him?”

“Yes. You ought to remember him, Torry. He was all one summer at Seacove. And say! his folks and my folks are in the most wonderful mix-up—wait till I get a chance to tell you all about it!”

The party dodged from rock to rock and from one clump of brush to another. Soon Whistler was rather surprised that they did not spy George Belding. He was not lying on the big rock where Whistler had left him.

“W’ere’s your chum, lad?” asked Willum Johnson.

“I guess the spy must have moved. George would follow him,” Whistler said with confidence.

“But how shall we know which way they have gone? We’re no Red Indians on the trail,” Frenchy observed.

“Oi, oi!” added Ikey Rosenmeyer. “It’s near sunset, too.”

“Don’t be afeared, lad,” advised the big sailor, wagging his head. “Nothing will bite yuh around ’ere.”

Whistler then explained that Belding had agreed to drop bits of paper by which they might follow his trail, and this encouraged them all. Near the rock and the hollow in which Whistler himself had seen the spy change his clothes they found no sign of either Belding or the Hun.

The latter must have carried his bundle of clothing with him when he moved from this spot. It was some minutes before Ikey’s sharp eyes descried the first handful of torn paper which George Belding had dropped.

“Here’s the trail!” he shouted.

“Hush up, youngster!” commanded Al Torrance. “Want to tell everybody all you know?”

“And it wouldn’t take him long at that—unless he stuttered,” said Frenchy, pounding Ikey between the shoulders.

“Oi, oi! I forgot,” explained Rosenmeyer, hoarsely. “Let up, Mike Donahue! Who are you taking for a bass drum?”

“Come on now, fellows,” Whistler said, leading the way. “Keep together and try to make as little noise as possible. We don’t know how near that spy may be.”

He had already found the second bunch of torn paper. Torry, walking close behind him, asked: “Will you know that German if you see him, Whistler?”

“Sure. He’s dressed like one of these farmers or drovers. But he’s got a goatee and a little moustache. He doesn’t look German at all.”

“You lads just point ’im hout to me!” grumbled Willum Johnson, walking next in line after Torry.

They got into a piece of woods after a little, finding that the paper trail led along a well defined path. Whether the German spy knew, or did not know, this part of England, he seemed to have a direct object in view, if George Belding’s trail was a thing to judge by.

This wood was nothing like the ordinary woods the American boys were used to around Seacove. It was cleared out like a grove, all the dry limbs lopped off the trees and stacked in certain places for firewood, and even the hedges thinned out for the same purpose.

“Why,” Al Torrance said, “we’d burn all that stuff as rubbish, wouldn’t we, Whistler?”