The Man from the Clouds Part 1

The Man From the Clouds.

by J. Storer Clouston.

PART I

I

IN THE CLOUDS

"My G.o.d," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!"

In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then vanished into the haze before I even answered him.

"Anything to be done?" I asked.

"Nothing," said he.

It had been growing steadily more misty even down near the water, and now as the released balloon shot up into an alt.i.tude of five, ten, and presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious defiance of fate and deliberate intention to do the coolest thing possible, which I am free to confess I felt myself. Probably not; Rutherford was the real Navy and I but a zig-zag ringed R.N.V.R. amateur. Still, the spirit of the Navy is infectious and I made a fair attempt to keep his stout heart company.

"What _ought_ to happen to a thing like this?" I enquired.

"If this wind holds we might conceivably make a landing somewhere--with extraordinary luck."

"On the other side?"

He nodded and I reflected.

It was towards the end of August, 1914. We were somewhere about the middle of the North Sea when the observation balloon was sent up, and I had persuaded Rutherford to take me up with him in the basket. Five minutes ago I had been telling myself I was the luckiest R.N.V.R.

Sub-Lieutenant in the Navy; and then suddenly the appalling thing happened. I may not give away any naval secrets, but everybody knows, I presume, that towed balloons are sometimes used at sea, and it is pretty obvious that certain accidents are liable to happen to them. In this case the most obvious of all accidents happened; the cable snapped, and there we were heading, as far as I could judge, for the stars that twinkle over the German coast. At least, our aneroid showed that we were going upwards faster than any bird could rise, and the west wind was blowing straight for the mouth of the Elbe when we last felt it--for, of course, in a free balloon one ceases to feel wind altogether.

Neither of us spoke for some time, and then a thought struck me suddenly and I asked:--

"Did you notice what o'clock it was when we broke loose?"

Rutherford nodded.

"I'm taking the time," said he, "and a.s.suming the twenty knot breeze holds, we might risk a drop about six o'clock."

"A drop" meant jumping into s.p.a.ce and trusting one's parachute to do its business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of that dive into the void, but I asked calmly enough:

"And a.s.suming the breeze doesn't hold?"

"Oh, it will hold all right; it will rise if anything," said he.

We had only been shipmates for a week (that being the extent of my nautical experience), but I had learned enough about Rutherford in that time to know that he was one of the most positive and self-confident men breathing. One had to make allowance for this; still, that is the kind of company one wants in an involuntary balloon expedition across the North Sea through a dense fog.

"And where are we likely to come down?" I enquired.

"We might make the German coast as far south as Bork.u.m or one of the other islands, or we might land somewhere as far north as Holstein."

"Not Holland or Denmark?"

He shook his head positively, "No such luck."

Though this was a trifle depressing, it was comforting to feel that one was with a man who knew his way about the air so thoroughly. I looked at our map, judged the wind, and decided that he was probably right. The chances of fetching a neutral country seemed very slender. Curiously enough the chances of never reaching any country at all had pa.s.sed out of my calculations for the moment. Rutherford was so perfectly a.s.sured.

"And what's the programme when we do land?" I asked.

"Well, we've got to get out of the place as quickly as possible. That's pretty evident."

"How?"

"You know the lingo, don't you?"

"Pretty well."

"Well enough not to be spotted as a foreigner?"

"I almost think so."

"First thing I ever heard to the credit of the diplomatic service!" he laughed. "Well, you'll have to pitch a yarn of some kind if we fall in with any of the natives. Of course we'll try and avoid 'em if we can, and work across country either for Denmark or Holland by compa.s.s."

"Have you got a compa.s.s?" I asked.

"d.a.m.n!" he exclaimed, and for a few moments a frown settled on his bull dog face. Then it cleared again and he said, "After all we'll have to move about by night and the stars will do just as well."

He was never much of a talker and after this he fell absolutely silent and I was left to my thoughts. Though I had fortunately put on plenty of extra clothes for the ascent, I began to feel chilly up at that alt.i.tude enshrouded in that cold white mist, and I don't mind admitting that my thoughts gradually became a little more serious than (to be quite honest) they usually are. I hardly think Rutherford, with all his virtues, had much imagination. I have a good deal--a little too much at times--and several other possible endings to our voyage besides a safe landing and triumphant escape began to present themselves. Two especially I had to steel my thoughts against continually--a descent with a parachute that declined to open, whether on to German or any other soil, or else a splash and then a brief struggle in the cold North Sea. I am no great swimmer and it would be soon over.

And so the hours slowly pa.s.sed; always the same mist and generally the same silence. Occasionally we talked a little, and then for a long s.p.a.ce our voices would cease and there would be utter and absolute quiet,--not the smallest sound of any sort or kind. We had been silent for a long, long time and I had done quite as much thinking as was good for my nerves, when Rutherford suddenly exclaimed,

"We are over land!"

He was looking over the edge of the basket, and instantly I was staring into s.p.a.ce on my side. There was certainly nothing to see but mist.

"I can smell land," said he, "and I heard something just now."

"At this height!" I exclaimed.

"We are down to well under six thousand feet," said he.

I wanted to be convinced, but this was more than I could believe.

"The smell must be devilish strong," I observed. "And I'm afraid I must have a cold in my head. Besides, it's only five-thirty."

As I have said, poor Rutherford was the most positive fellow in the world. He stuck to it that we were over land, but I managed to persuade him to wait a little longer to make sure. He waited half an hour and when he spoke then I could see that his mind was made up.

"We are falling pretty rapidly," said he, "and personally I'd sooner take my chance in a parachute than stick in this basket till we b.u.mp. If one is going to try a drop, the great thing is to see that it's a long drop.