The Great Airship Part 16

The wretchedly ragged fellow outside this guard house did indeed cut anything but a soldierly figure. He lolled against the post, his face drawn and thin and vacant, and innocent of soap and water for days past.

And when, seeing an officer draw near, he shouldered his rifle, it was in an uncouth and distinctly unmilitary manner.

"Like to see one of our tars give a salute like that," said d.i.c.k bridling. "If the Turks are all like him, which I doubt, it ain't surprising that those jolly Bulgarians and their allies have made such a running. But let's get on. That's completed the round of the mosque. Now we enter and see what's doing."

Unabashed by the presence of a sentry at the door of the mosque, d.i.c.k marched boldly up to him and once more acknowledged a salute. Then he donned a pair of shoes lying in the doorway and entered without hesitation.

"It is empty," said the man over his shoulder. "I have orders to keep all people from entering, all save those who command."

d.i.c.k nodded curtly. He wondered whether he ought to make some reply; but fearing that the man would suspect him at once he went on without halting.

"Though I've got to chance it some time," he said. "I've got to ask questions so as to get information. Lor! why didn't I think of it before? I'll be a foreign officer serving with the Turks. It's said that there are something approaching a hundred German officers here in Adrianople. Right! I ain't over particular which sort of a country it is I come from. But I'm foreign. That's why I can't talk the lingo perfectly. Now we take a look round and then come back to gather information."

His tour of the mosque proved it to be much the same as others, except that this was huge and more brilliantly decorated than those d.i.c.k was accustomed to. It was deserted, without a doubt, not even a mullah being present.

"They are gone in fear lest sh.e.l.ls should strike the building,"

explained the sentry at the door when d.i.c.k questioned him. "Pardon, your papers, please."

"Papers? Eh?" gasped d.i.c.k.

"All foreign officers carry papers to prove their ident.i.ty. I took you for one of our own nationality at first, but now that you speak, though better than the majority, I see that you are foreign. Your papers, please."

It was an awkward moment, and perhaps few others would have escaped from it as did the light-hearted d.i.c.k. He gazed at the man in amazement. He stamped his feet with seeming rage and fumed and growled loudly.

"What! You ask for papers while sh.e.l.ls fall into the city and there is fighting! You expect me to take such things into the trenches, then?

What next! I keep such things in my quarters where you can see them if you come with me."

"Ah! Pardon, I did not think," the sentry answered abjectly. "Of course, it is not the time to make such a demand."

"As if one could enter or leave the city!" growled d.i.c.k, pretending to be only half appeased. "But there! let it pa.s.s. Tell me for what reason is there a guard-house yonder?"

"To house the patrols who police the streets. In times of peace the place is unoccupied."

"And now?" asked d.i.c.k curiously.

"There are a few men there. I myself shall be relieved by one of them."

"And prisoners?"

The sentry looked astonished. "Prisoners?" he asked, looking suspiciously at d.i.c.k.

"Yes, prisoners," declared that young fellow without a falter. The high hand he had played already had served his purpose wonderfully. Then why not continue? "Did I not say prisoners plainly?" he asked curtly, at which the man nodded abjectly. "Then why this surprise?"

"But--but pardon, sir, you asked as if it were not merely curiosity. It seemed as if you might be interested in some other way," said the sentry, emboldened for the moment and again surveying d.i.c.k in a manner which, if it did not show suspicion, at least told of his dislike of all foreigners. As for the midshipman, his interest was stimulated by the curious stubbornness of the man. d.i.c.k recollected that he was in search of Major Harvey, and that the latter had disappeared, had failed to signal to the airship, and was lost for the moment. Supposing there were prisoners yonder? Supposing this fellow and his mates placed in the guard-house to police the neighbourhood of the mosque had seized upon the Major and were holding him a prisoner? Was it likely that they had reported their action? Hardly at such a time when the allies were pressing an attack, and if they had sent in a report a day before, no doubt in the hurry and bustle of hastening troops to meet that expected a.s.sault the matter had been forgotten. However, this was all guesswork.

d.i.c.k had yet no certain information that prisoners were located in the guard-house, though he had his suspicions.

"And I'm pretty sure that this fellow is trying to throw dust in my eyes," he told himself. "It ain't difficult either to see why he's so stubborn and sly. I'm a foreign officer attached to the Turkish army.

Half a mo'; I ain't. But that's what he takes me to be. Well, then, supposing he and his fellows had bagged the Major, they'd expect me to kick up a shindy and----"

In one instant he saw it all, and his suspicions were heightened.

"You have prisoners in the guard-house," he said severely. "Foreign prisoners. I will see them. Stay here, man; have a care what you do and say. Tell me, you reported the taking of these men?"

The sentry stood to attention, looking shamefaced and frightened.

"We could not," he excused himself. "No officer has visited us for two days now. There is heavy fighting."

"Ah!" d.i.c.k regarded him severely. "You dared to neglect to report," he cried angrily. "You took these men prisoner, careless whether they were friends of your army or not. There will be more said upon this matter, for learn this, idiot that you are. These men are wanted by His Highness Shukri Pasha himself. Yes, by the general in command of the defenders."

d.i.c.k positively blushed at his own a.s.surance and cheek, while the unhappy sentry actually trembled. For this foreign officer was without doubt very angry and filled with indignation.

"I--we," he began in an effort to excuse himself.

"March down to the guard-house with me," commanded d.i.c.k. "You shall be relieved instantly, and shall yourself conduct me to these prisoners. A more disgraceful and high-handed proceeding I never experienced, and His Highness shall hear of it. To think that he is waiting for these men, these foreigners, while you, you fools, sitting here near the guard-house, hold them as prisoners."

d.i.c.k ought to have been an actor, for he stamped and raved at the unfortunate fellow, and altogether impressed him so much with the heinousness of the act he had committed that the sentry was ready to sink into the ground or do anything to repair his blunder. He was a very humble individual as he shambled down to the guard-house in front of d.i.c.k and surlily bade his comrade make for the mosque and there relieve him.

"Now, take me to these men," commanded d.i.c.k. "There are two?"

"No--three, sir," came the answer.

"Three!" d.i.c.k's hopes fell of a sudden. This statement that there were three prisoners took the wind entirely out of his sails and robbed him for the moment of his high-handed a.s.surance. "Three!" he muttered. "I've been groping in the dark all this while, guessing wildly. But I've also been putting two and two together, and seeing that the Major was to make for the surroundings of the great mosque and expected to meet his friend there, why, when I gathered that this fellow and his comrades had made prisoners of foreigners I made sure there must be two. If it had been one that might still have been the Major taken prisoner before he had met this Charlie. But three! That's a stunner!"

For a little while he stood watching the shambling figure of the man going to take post at the door of the mosque. And then, roused by the detonation of a sh.e.l.l in an adjacent place, he turned sharply upon the fellow who stood before him.

"Three prisoners whom you have dared to hold without reporting!" he cried. "Lead on, man; this is monstrous. Take me to them."

Thoroughly scared now by the anger of the foreign officer, whom he imagined to be doing service with the Turkish army, and conscious that by making captures and failing to report he had been guilty of a serious offence, the man upon whom d.i.c.k, with his unblushing cheek and wonderful a.s.surance and resource, had so completely turned the tables proceeded to obey his orders with a meekness which was apparent. In fact, he was obviously anxious to appease the anger of this officer, and so escape punishment for his remissness.

"Follow, sir," he said. "There are three prisoners as I have told you, and it may be that when you see how ready I am to act on your orders, you will forget the fact that I failed to send a report, remembering too, that the times are very unsettled."

They were that without a doubt, for all this while the distant rattle of musketry could be heard, rolling round the defences, now breaking out here with a severity which showed that an attack was probably being forced home, perhaps even at the point of the bayonet, and then dying down quite suddenly only to break out with virulence in another direction. And every now and again, sometimes very frequently, at others after quite a lull, heavy guns would open, sh.e.l.ls would scream through the air, and rarely now one of the monsters would drop into the streets of the city or plunge amongst the houses, when the succeeding explosion would be followed by heartrending shrieks, by piercing cries, by the anguished calls of the helpless and defenceless.

Yes, the times were unsettled enough; d.i.c.k had his own troubles and could therefore sympathize. He bade the man hasten, and followed into the guard-house.

"And there was good reason for making these men prisoners," said the Turk, pushing his fez to the back of his head and turning to our hero, still with the hope that he might excuse his own breach of the standing orders of the army. "I will tell you. One, a big man----"

"Yes, a big man," said d.i.c.k eagerly. "The Major without a doubt," he told himself.

"A big man, and fat, very."

"Ah! Fat! Then that cannot be the Major. Get along with it," cried d.i.c.k peevishly, his hopes wrecked in a moment.

"Fat and big," went on the man. "We saw him in converse with some of the stragglers who had left the lines of trenches. He was inciting them to stay away."

"Or to return to their duty, which?" asked d.i.c.k curtly.

"The former, we thought," came the answer. "We arrested him. He was angry and shouted and threatened; but since he could speak only a few words of our language we could not understand the cause of his anger.

Then there were two others, foreigners."