Round the World in Seven Days Part 4

Smith waited with his hand on the lever until the fire-engine had dashed up.

"What the blazes!" cried the captain, as he leapt from his seat, looking from the motor-car to the aeroplane with mingled amazement and indignation.

"Good-bye, Billy," cried Smith; "I'll leave you to explain."

The propeller whirled round, the machine flew forwards, and in a few seconds was soaring with its booming hum into the air. Smith glanced down and saw the fireman facing Barracombe, his annoyance being evidently greater than his curiosity. He would have smiled if he could have heard Barracombe's explanation.

"W-w-why yes," he said, affecting a distressing stutter; "this kind of b-b-bonfire is a hobby of m-mine; it's about my only r-r-recreation.

M-m-my name? Certainly. My name's William bub-bub-Barracombe, and you'll find me in, any day between t-ten and f-five, at 532 mum-mum-Mincing Lane."

CHAPTER III

ACROSS EUROPE TO THE BOSPHOROUS

It had just turned half-past twelve on Friday morning when Smith said good-bye to his friend William Barracombe on Epsom Downs. The sky was clear; the moon shone so brightly that by its light alone he could read the compa.s.s at his elbow, without the aid of the small electric lamp that hung above it. He set his course for the south-east, and flew with a light breeze at a speed of at least two hundred miles an hour.

His machine was a biplane, and represented the work and thought of years. Smith never minimized the part which Laurent Rodier had had in its construction; indeed, he was wont to say that without Rodier he would have been nowhere. Their acquaintance and comradeship had begun in the most accidental way. Two years before, Smith was taking part in an aeroplane race from Paris to London. On reaching the Channel, he found himself far ahead of all his compet.i.tors, except a Frenchman, who, to his chagrin, managed to keep a lead of almost a mile. Each carried a pa.s.senger. Not long after leaving the French coast, a cloud of smoke suddenly appeared in the wake of the Frenchman's aeroplane, and to Smith's alarm the machine in a few seconds dropped into the sea. Instantly he steered for the spot, and brought his own aeroplane to within a few feet of the water. To his surprise, he saw that part of the wreckage was floating, and a man, apparently only half conscious, was clinging to one of the stays. But for the engine having providentially become disconnected in the fall, the whole machine with its pa.s.sengers must have sunk to the bottom.

Smith saw that it was impossible for him to rescue the man while he himself remained in his aeroplane, for the slightest touch upon the other would inevitably have submerged it. There was only one thing to do. Leaving the aeroplane to the charge of his friend, he dived into the sea, and rising beside the man, seized him at the moment when his hold was relaxing, and contrived to hold him up until a fast motor launch, which had witnessed the accident, came up and rescued them both.

The man proved to be the chauffeur of the aeroplane; his employer was drowned. Smith lost the race, but he gained what was infinitely more valuable to him, the grat.i.tude and devotion of Laurent Rodier. Finding that the Frenchman was an expert mechanician, Smith took him into his employment. Rodier turned out to be of a singularly inventive turn of mind, and the two, putting their heads together, evolved after long experiment a type of engine that enabled them to double the speed of the aeroplane. These aerial vessels had already attained a maximum of a hundred miles an hour, for progress had been rapid since Paulhan's epoch-making flight from London to Manchester. To the younger generation the aeroplane was becoming what the motor-car had been to their elders. It was now a handier, more compact, and more easily managed machine than the earlier types, and the risk of breakdown was no greater than in the motor-car of the roads. The engine seldom failed, as it was wont to do in the first years of aviation. The princ.i.p.al danger that airmen had to fear was disaster from strong squalls, or from vertical or spiral currents of air due to some peculiarity in the confirmation of the land beneath them.

Smith's engine was a compound turbine, reciprocating engines having proved extravagant in fuel. There were both a high and a low pressure turbine on the same shaft, which also drove the dynamo for the searchlight and the lamp illuminating the compa.s.s, and for igniting the explosive mixture. By means of an eccentric, moreover, the shaft worked a pump for compressing the mixture of hot air and petrol before ignition, the air being heated by pa.s.sing through jackets round the high-pressure turbines. The framework of the planes consisted of hollow rods made of an aluminum alloy of high tensile strength, and the canvas stretched over the frames was laced with wire of the same material. To stiffen the planes, a bracket was clamped at the axis, and thin wire stays were strung top and bottom, as the masts of a yacht are supported. The airman was in some degree protected from the wind by a strong talc screen, also wire-laced; by means of this, and a light radiator worked by a number of acc.u.mulators, he was enabled to resist the cold, which had been so great a drawback to the pioneers of airmanship.

In this aeroplane Smith and Rodier had made many a long expedition.

They had found that the machine was capable of supporting a total weight of nearly 1,200 lbs., and since Smith turned the scale at eleven stone eight, and Rodier at ten stone, in their clothes, the total additional load they could carry was about 900 lbs. Eighty gallons of petrol weighed about 600 lbs. with the cans, and twenty gallons of lubricating oil about 160 lbs., so that there was a margin of nearly 150 lbs. for food, rifles, and anything else there might be occasion for carrying at any stage of the journey.

Smith was in charge of the aeroplane attached to his ship, the Admiralty having adopted the machine for scouting purposes. It was only recently that he had brought his own aeroplane to its present perfection, after laborious experiments in the workshops he established in the corner of his father's park, where he toiled incessantly whenever he could obtain leave, and where Rodier was constantly employed. His machine had just completed its trials, and he expected to realize a considerable sum by his improvements. Of this he had agreed to give Rodier one half, and the Frenchman had further stipulated that the improvements should be offered also to the French Government. This being a matter of patriotism, Smith readily consented, remarking with a laugh that he would not be the first to break the _entente cordiale_.

Just as a voyage round the world was a dream until Drake accomplished it, so a flight round the world was the acme of every airman's ambition. It was the accident of his father's plight that crystallized in Smith's mind the desires held in suspension there. The act was sudden: the idea had been long cherished.

He had decided on his course after a careful examination of the globe borrowed from Mr. Dawkins, the village school-master. The most direct route from London to the Solomon Islands ran across Norway and Sweden, the White Sea, Northern Siberia, Manchuria, Korea and j.a.pan, and thence to New Guinea. But since it traversed some of the most desolate regions of the earth, where the indispensable supplies of petrol and machine oil could not be secured, he had chosen a route through fairly large centres of population, along which at the necessary intervals he could ensure, by aid of the telegraph, that the fuel would be in readiness.

And now he was fairly off. Constantinople was to be the first place of call. He knew the orographical map of Europe as well as he knew his manual of navigation. It was advisable to avoid mountainous country as far as possible, for the necessity of rising to great heights, in order to cross even the lower spurs of the Alps, would involve loss of time, to say nothing of the cold, and the risk of accident in the darkness. Coming to the coast, in the neighbourhood of Dover, about half-an-hour after leaving Epsom, he steered for a point on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the Channel somewhere near the Franco-Belgian frontier. As an experienced airman he had long ceased to find the interest of novelty in the scenes below him. The lights of the Calais boat, and of vessels pa.s.sing up and down the Channel, were almost unnoticed. On leaving the sea, he flew over a flat country until, on his right, he saw in the moonlight a dark ma.s.s which from dead reckoning he thought must be the Ardennes. The broad river he had just crossed, which gleamed like silver in the moonlight, was without doubt the Meuse, and that which he came to in about an hour must be the Moselle. At this point Rodier, who had been dozing, sat up and began to take an interest in things; afterwards he told Smith that they must have pa.s.sed over the little village in which he was born, and he felt a sentimental regret that the flight was not by day, when he might have seen the red roof beneath which his mother still lived.

After another half-hour Smith began to feel the strain of remaining in one position, with all his faculties concentrated. The air was so calm, and the wind-screen so effective, that he suffered none of the numbing effects which the great speed might otherwise have induced; but it was no light task to keep his attention fixed at once on the engine, the map outspread before him, the compa.s.s, and the country below; and by the time he reached a still broader river, which could only be the Rhine, he was tired. As yet he had been flying for only three hours: could he live through seven days of it? He had once crossed America in the Canadian Pacific, and though he got eight hours' sleep every night, he felt an utter wreck at the end of the journey. To be sure, he was now in the fresh air instead of a stuffy railway carriage, and he was riding as smoothly as on a steamer, without the jar and jolt that made journeys by rail so fatiguing.

Still, he thought it only good policy to pay heed to the first signs of strain, and so he slowed down until the noise of the engine had abated sufficiently for him to make his voice heard, and said:

"Roddy, you must take a turn. We're near the frontier between Baden and Alsace, I fancy. The Bavarian hills can't be far off. You had better rise a bit, and don't go too fast, or we may be knocking our noses before we know where we are."

"Right O, mister," replied the Frenchman. "You take forty winks, and eat some chocolate for what you call a nightcap."

"A good idea. I'd rise to about 4,500 feet, I think. Keep your eye on the aneroid."

They exchanged places. Smith ate two or three sticks of chocolate, took a good drink of water, and in five minutes was fast asleep. But his nap lasted no more than a couple of hours. It appeared to him that he never lost consciousness of his errand. When he opened his eyes the dawn was already stealing over the sky, and at the tremendous pace to which Rodier had put the engine the aeroplane seemed to rush into the sunlight. Far below, the earth was spread out like a patchwork, greens and whites and browns set in picturesque haphazard patterns; men moving like ants, and horses like locusts.

"Where are we?" he bawled in Rodier's ear.

The Frenchman put his finger on the map. Smith glanced at his watch; it was past five o'clock. They must be near the Servian frontier. That broad streak of blue must be the Danube. Another three hours should see them at Constantinople, the first stage of their journey. On they rushed, feeling chill in the morning air at the height of nearly five thousand feet. Lifting his binocular, Smith saw a railway train running in the same direction as themselves, and though from the line of smoke it was going at full speed, it appeared to be crawling like a worm, and was soon left far behind. Now they were in Bulgaria: those grey crinkly ma.s.ses beyond must be the Balkans. Crossing the Dragoman Pa.s.s, they came into an upward current of air that set the machine rocking, and Smith for the first time felt a touch of nervousness lest it should break down and fall among these inhospitable crags. Rodier planed downwards, until they seemed to skim the crests. The air was calmer here: the aeroplane steadied; and when the mountains were left behind they came still lower, following the railway line.

Here was Philippopolis, with its citadel perched on a frowning rock.

It seemed but a few minutes when Adrianople came into view, and but a few more when, descending to within five hundred feet of the ground, they raced over the plains of St. Stefano. Now Rodier checked the speed a little, and steering past the large monument erected to the memory of the Russians who fell in '78, came within sight of Constantinople. Smith was bewildered at the mult.i.tude of domes, minarets, and white roofs before him. It would soon be necessary to choose a landing-place, and Rodier planed upwards, so that he could scan the whole neighbourhood in one comprehensive glance.

"Slow down!" Smith shouted.

There was a large open s.p.a.ce below him; it was the Hippodrome. He made a quick calculation of its length, and decided not to alight. A little farther on he came to the Ministry of War with its large square; but there a regiment of soldiers was drilling. Rodier steered a point to the north-west, and the aeroplane pa.s.sed over the Galata bridge that spans the Golden Horn. The bridge was thronged with people, who, as they caught sight of the strange machine flying over their heads, stood and craned their necks, and the airmen heard their shouts of amazement. To the right they saw, beyond the hill of Pera, a stretch of low open country. Pa.s.sing the second bridge over the Horn, they came to a broad green s.p.a.ce just without the city. It was the old archery grounds of the Sultans.

"Dive, Roddy!" Smith cried.

Rodier jerked the lever back: the humming clatter of the engine ceased; and the aeroplane swooped down as gracefully as a bird, alighting gently on the green sward.

CHAPTER IV

A FLYING VISIT

It was Friday morning. Groups of Turkish women, out for the day, hastily veiled their faces and ran away, shrieking, "Aman! Aman! oh dear! oh dear!" Swarms of children, cl.u.s.tering, like ants, about nougat-sellers, fled in terror, screaming that it was the devil's carriage, and the devil was in it. Two Greek teams playing at football stopped their game and gazed open-mouthed; young naval cadets at leapfrog rushed with shouts of excitement towards the aeroplane; and a crowd of Jewish factory girls (for all races and cla.s.ses use this common playground), realizing with quick wit what it meant, flocked up with shrill cries: "C'est un aviateur: allons voir!" A grave old Turk mutters: "Another mad Englishman!" A Greek shouts: "Come on, Pericles, and have a look"; and suddenly, amid the babel of unknown tongues Smith hears an unmistakable English voice: "Oh, confound it all, Crawford, I'm in the ravine."

Peering through the crowd of inquisitive faces, Smith sees two golfers and hails them heartily. They elbow their way through, and Smith, who has not yet dared to leave the machine lest the mob should invade it and do it an injury, steps out and grasps the hand of a fellow Englishman.

"Well, I'm hanged!" cried the new-comer; "Charley Smith, of all men in the world."

"Hullo, Johnson!" said Smith, recognizing in the speaker a messmate of his middy days, now a naval officer in the Sultan's service; "I say, you can do something for me."

"I dare say I can," replied the other laughing, "but where do you spring from? I didn't know you were in these parts."

"Only arrived five minutes ago, from London."

Johnson stared.

"Not in that machine?"

"Yes, certainly. Eight hours' run; a record, isn't it? But I'm short of petrol. There's some ordered by wire from a man named Benzonana; can you put me in the way of getting it quickly?"

"Of course. Benzonana's a Jew, with stores at Kourshounlou Han. But there's no hurry. We'll get some one to look after your aeroplane, and you'll come back with me to the club: this sort of thing doesn't happen every day, old man. By Jove! Do you really mean to say you've got here in eight hours from London?"

"I left there at 12.35 this morning. Barracombe--you remember him--saw me off. But I'm sorry I can't come with you, d.i.c.k. I've only a couple of hours to spare, and must get the petrol at once."

"My dear chap, are you mad? You can't go on at once, after eight hours in the air. You'll crock up. Of course, if it's a wager--"

"It's a matter of life and death."