CHAPTER IXEASTWARD
Returning to the effulgence of the landing field, they found that preparations were well under way for their departure. David went at once to headquarters, where he was to join Mr. Hammond and the other officers. Dulcie, dodging hertüchtigerofficers, found Red, and had an earnest talk with him. When they parted, Red was shaking with laughter, and Dulcie, looking as though she was the kitten and had just eaten one of the canaries, went back to find the bereft Germans, all of whom hastened to assure her that they were coming to America immediately.
At last everything was ready, and at one forty-five the ship was walked out of the hangar. Good-byes were said, thanks exchanged, passengers counted and they rose, accompanied by cheers, waving handkerchiefs, and the furious blasts of a brass band. As the Moonbeam gained altitude she was followed by a giant spotlight that held her in a dazzling arc of radiance, up, and up, and up until the ray grew dim and was left behind.
Beautiful, bright Friedrichshafen was a memory, and Sunday, the twentieth of June, was over. David found Dulcie writing in the salon, and whispered, “Has he seen ’em yet?”
“Seen what?” asked Dulcie.
“The menagerie, of course.”
“Oh, it’s gone,” said Dulcie, calmly.
“Gone! Gone where?”
“Well, I hated to bother daddy, it’s so bad for his digestion; especially after all those German dinners. So I just farmed every one of ’em out. The crew has the marmoset, the reporters have the canaries, Red is taking care of the kitten, and best of all, Doctor Trigg has got the love birds. So it’s all fixed. Pretty clever of me, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Dulcie,” said David as soon as he could stop laughing. “And I’ll tell the world I’m learning about women from you.”
“Well,” said Dulcie reflectively, “I’m not so bad, at that.”
All conditions were perfect for flight, and the Moonbeam sailed gently along through the still clear night. David, standing the first watch, was alone but not lonely. Guiding his ship, planning his future, the “thoughts of youth” were “long, long thoughts,” and happy ones.
When Van Arden came to take the wheel, David gave it over reluctantly. He could not sleep. The greatness of their enterprise was growing on him with every hour; all the marvel of it. Behind and over him were human beings; the passengers, officers, and crew, all sleeping serenely and confidently in this immensity of space. Europe was slipping by beneath them. Somehow David discovered that its civilization and its eager interest in their progress was a comfort, a spiritual safeguard. Now, indeed, they were about to fare into a wild and savage country, where there were no hangars, and no materials for repairs. No landing crews would swarm over the Siberian wastes to seize the ropes and ease the stranger to the earth, should she desire to come. Ahead was Russia! The fierce recluse of the world, with her ragged mountains and her endless barren plains.
Long before dawn, David went again to the control room, where he found Mr. Hammond reading the log.
“We passed over Berlin at three-thirty, David,” he remarked. “If air conditions remain good, and we continue making seventy-five miles an hour, I think we can make up some of our lost time today.”
“I’m sure of it,” replied David, “especially if the wind stays with us.”
Monday dawned. It was a glorious soul-shaking dawn that appeared from nowhere, and without warning drowned the ship in splendor. As David watched, Dulcie came quietly to his side.
“Look, Davie!” she said. “See all those banners of gorgeous color. Don’t they look like endless lengths of silk, waving and billowing? And there are little silver ribbons, and all those chiffon clouds. See over there that deep orange and lavender, shading into rose and blue.”
“I’ll drop down,” said David. “Perhaps the earth is all dressed up, too.”
Slowly the Moonbeam lost altitude, sinking gently through the riot of color.
“Very dressy indeed,” Dulcie commented, as they gazed down at the ordered luxuriance.
“Funny everything over here looks like it had a clean white collar on. Even the woods. And see those farms. See the people waving. I suppose they are shouting, too.”
“Look, there’s one little speck running for the house,” cried Dulcie. “I’ll bet they have a telephone, and he’s gone to tell the neighbors in the next village about us. See, there is a group of houses away ahead.”
“Quite a little settlement. By George, you are right! Look in the square. See them come? I am going down a bit closer.”
They watched, and Dulcie waved madly. Below, the little toy people waved their arms and hats. Even aprons were torn off and brandished. A fat old man bowled about, waving and bowing with an air of authority easily discernible to the amused watchers above. As the ship passed on, children and dogs followed in a losing race.
“Wasn’t that fun?” said Dulcie. “You are nice, Davie. It is so understanding of you to know how they feel. That is the thrill that comes once in a lifetime for a lot of those people. And they wanted us to know how glad they were to see us.”
“Of course they did, and now they are telephoning ahead to other villages, and getting no end of a kick out of us. I will sail as low as I can, so they can see us plainly. They’ll be watching for us all along the way. Do you know, miss, that it is time for breakfast? Where do you suppose the commander is?”
“I’ll get him,” said Dulcie, “and then we’ll eat.”
She ran off as Van Arden, giving intangible signs of just having eaten a good meal, came in to take his turn at the wheel.
Mr. Hammond was already eating a substantial breakfast, arguing hotly the while about politics with Wally, who displayed a positive genius for saying infuriating things in an innocent and courteous manner. Mr. Hamilton and his secretary sat by a window, where Mr. Hamilton drank black coffee and ate unbuttered toast while he gazed spellbound at the shifting panorama below. Doctor Sims, at a table by himself, drank strong tea and read a treatise filled with unwholesome looking charts and figures. At a table with Dr. Forsythe and the correspondents, Doctor Trigg sat listening to the rapid fire of wit and slang and mild profanity which flashed from one to the other. They were full of anecdotes of their stay in Friedrichshafen, and the tales did not lose in the telling. But all stopped talking to greet David as he came in.
“’Morning, captain!”
“Hi, captain, what’s our next thrill?”
“David, how are you?”
Dulcie smiled. David was liked by everyone. No one could resist his brilliant smile, his thick rumpled hair that never would stay flat, his tall muscular body with its reassuring look of power. And David’s eyes, with their little laugh creases at the corners, were straight and very true.
He came in, greeting everyone at once with a manner which made each one feel that the pleasant word was especially his. It was characteristic that he noticed Doctor Sims sitting alone, and took a place at his table.
The doctor responded to David’s pleasant good-morning with a growl which was almost cheerful. Doctor Trigg and the star reporter, a keen-looking, gray-haired man, soon joined them. Doctor Sims closed his book with a baffled air. He never got enough time for research work, and he laid most of his interruptions to Doctor Trigg. Drat the man; he was always close by, ready to chat. Chat—who wanted to chat? What if they had been classmates in the long ago, and co-educators ever since? Why, by all the test tubes in the world, should a man as learned and profound as was Doctor Trigg in his chosen sphere, why should he want to chat?
Doctor Sims did not wait. He leaped upon his quarry.
“Yar-r-r-r-r-r,” he quoth forcibly. “Yar-r-r, Martin! What is your latest discovery this morning? More enthusiasm? More youthful prodigies, or more astonishing propensities? Let’s hear ’em, and get it over with.”
“Why, no, Sims, I can’t say that I have anything profound or of specific value to offer for your consideration today.”
“How did you like Friedrichshafen, Doctor Sims?” asked the star reporter. He was a friendly man.
“Wonderful, wonderful!” said Doctor Sims. “I ransacked the city and miles of its environs. I found rich returns for my labor.”
“He’s a collector,” explained Doctor Trigg to the reporter.
“Epitaphs,” added Doctor Sims proudly.
“Ep—” said the reporter, and stopped.
“Precisely,” said Doctor Trigg. “Ep-itaphs. On monuments, you know:
‘Here lieth the body of Israel Jones,Till Judgment Day shall uncover his bones’.”
‘Here lieth the body of Israel Jones,Till Judgment Day shall uncover his bones’.”
‘Here lieth the body of Israel Jones,Till Judgment Day shall uncover his bones’.”
“A very poor imitative effort on your part,” said Doctor Sims caustically.
“It was just a sort of sample,” Doctor Trigg defended his effort. “I will be willing to wager one of these excellent doughnuts that these young men, collectively, have never read six epitaphs in their lives.”
“I haven’t,” confessed David, his sunny smile full on Doctor Sims’ gloomy countenance. “I bet they are interesting. You could sure get a kick out of some of them. Like collecting stamps.”
“Much more enthralling, much more appealing.” Doctor Sims pushed back his teacup and book. “It’s like this: Paleontologists have found that from the most remote antiquity—”
Doctor Trigg interrupted. “Nicholas,” he said, “it is a pity to embark on a subject of such widespread interest at so inauspicious a moment, when you will certainly be obliged to discontinue your discourse before you have voiced a tenth of your thesis. Let me advise you to reserve your dissertation for a time when these young men will have finished their duties and be free to assure you a couple of hours of uninterrupted attention.”
He looked solemnly at the reporter, who looked solemnly back.
“That would be better, doctor, if you don’t mind. I’d hate to miss it, and I’ve got to dash off pretty soon, and make out my reports.”
Doctor Sims looked almost pleased. “All right, all right, and I will get my recent additions transcribed and cataloged, and the snapshots developed.”
“Just where are we, captain?” asked Doctor Trigg, hastily taking up a new subject.
David explained. “We must be approaching the border of Russia, now,” he added. They crowded to the window.
“What wonderful scenery!” exclaimed the star reporter. “It is growing much wilder and more rugged. Even those plains over there look harsh, and cold.”
They watched a gradual change take place and about ten o’clock they saw ahead a city which they knew must be Tilsit, East Prussia. They dipped low, and went slowly over it, while the populace surged out of buildings in black masses. They had been heralded by telegram and radio, and cheers went up, and flags were waved. When they hung over the public square, they dropped a bundle of postcards. Dulcie, hoping some child would pick it up, dropped a handkerchief with an American quarter tied in the corner.
Winds continued favorable, even and strong, and due east. They were now going seventy-five miles an hour, and were gradually making up some of the time lost in the storm over the Atlantic. All conditions seemed so kindly that David actually felt nervous. He watched the instruments, and tested the feel of the wheel every few minutes.
Luncheon came and went.
At about two o’clock, when the passengers were enjoying the passing view, someone exclaimed, “City ahead!”
“It is Dvinsk,” said Mr. Hammond. “Friends, we are now crossing the Soviet frontier.” He stood watching until the city, some miles to the right, had disappeared.
“We are in Russia,” he continued. “Leningrad and Moscow are ahead, but our course lies between them. Viatka is directly in our line of flight, about six hundred miles east of Moscow.”
David, still impressed by the size and loneliness of the country they were entering, slipped on an overall, and went up the ladder leading into the hull. He gained the catwalk, and made his cautious way along the narrow foothold that ran the entire length of the hull.
Reaching the end of the walk, David looked over the intakes of the fuel and water lines, which entered there. Everything was in perfect shape. He went back, and looked into the baggage room and then into the storage rooms for the cartridge-like cases of fuel gas.
Then he went down to Red’s cabin. Red was writing postcards, aided and abetted by the kitten.
“Hello, fella!” he cried. “Come up to see me cat? Ain’t he a beaut? You can tell he’s a cat at first glance, small as he is. Now a pup at that age might turn into anything between a dachshund and a Great Dane. Those seem to be the most popular breeds in this country. But a cat—well, a cat’s a regular cat from its first breath. Just a soft bundle of mews, and scratches, and devilment.
“Did Miss Hammond tell you, now, about how those little German bands gave her a menagerie? She farmed ’em all out on us. I think she’s partial to me, Dave, because she gave me the kitten. I suggested lettin’ Wally take care of the bit of a monkey, but she said she wouldn’t ‘trust to his finer feelings’. She didn’t make it clear whose she meant; just twinkled those devastatin’ eyes at me, and walked off, leavin’ me with this bit of fur. I’ve named him Trouble. He cries in a loud voice when I leave him, and I daren’t let him out for a second. Imagine those claws sprinting up a gas bag. So I spend most of my idle moments here, just to hearten him. But if you want fun, go see the crew and their share of the menagerie.”
“Well, Mr. Hammond will inspect around here some fine day, and then we will be in wrong,” warned David.
“Not a bit! Just the first roar, and Miss Dulcie will slip up the way she does, and she will say, ‘Why, they are mine, daddy, and these nice men are keeping them for me,’ and I’ll bet we will each get a medal.”
“Likely to be that way,” said David, laughing. “Do you see much of Cram lately?”
“Not so much. He sort of keeps to himself. I cross his path every little while. Gosh, Davie, the truth is I’m tryin’ to keep from giving him a sock.” Red sighed. “He’s my one bad dream.”
“I don’t see why you take him so hard,” said David. “You sound as though he had grabbed off your best girl.”
“Oh, of course he did that,” admitted Red easily. “With their first oil well. But that’s nothing. I always manage to have a few spares. It’s nothing like that. He did other things. Well, I won’t hit him unless he harms you, David, really tries to do you dirt. It’s the nasty way he has of sayin’ things that makes him dangerous. Not so much the things he says, but the way he says ’em.” Red shrugged his shoulders as though to rid himself of an unpleasant subject. “Say, how’s your little gadget comin’ on these days?”
David’s face lighted.
“It’s finished, Red, as far as it can be without a working model. You know, I feel as though I had stumbled on something darned good. Gee, I hope it wins that school prize. Ten thousand dollars! Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
“Good enough,” said Red, “but none too good. You know I’ve a sense for engines, and everything that concerns them and I’m telling you, you’ve got a great thing there.”
“I think so, Red. I’m like you; I feel pretty sure of it. I didn’t have that feeling for any of the other things I rigged up. I didn’t seem to have much interest in them, though they worked. You know, they are using a couple of them back at the plant, right now. But this is different. From the minute the principle of the thing flashed into my mind, I liked it. And think what it would mean to dirigible transportation!”
“I’ll say! It ought to increase the average speed of a dirigible fifteen to twenty per cent.”
“If it works,” hedged David cautiously.
“Oh, it’ll work! If we hadn’t come on this trip you could have tried it out before this, couldn’t you?”
“It will keep, and there will be plenty of time. It could be made in twenty-four hours, if necessary,” said David.
“Well, don’t let anything happen to the plans, and keep them under your hat,” advised Red.
“You bet,” said David. “Do you know that we are over Russia now?”
“Yeah! We crossed the frontier while I was down in an egg looking at an engine. One of those engineers is bugs on geography, and he spouted enough facts about Russia to fill a book. I’ll say they have some mad looking country, haven’t they? But not many people so far. Towns kind of scattered.”
“Wait a day or two,” David prophesied. “I have a hunch that this is Central Park to what’s ahead. Can you leave the cat long enough to look things over a bit?”
Red assented, and felt exploringly under his pillow. He brought out a small can.
“God help me, I even have to steal condensed cream for me cat!” he said.
Monday evening passed uneventfully. During the night the Moonbeam encountered a skirmish of winds which she rode so evenly that there was scarcely any discomfort on the ship. The instruments, however, as well as radio reports from Irkutsk, Chita, and Chabarovsk in Siberia warned them of thick and uncertain weather ahead.
Viatka was passed at ten minutes after ten Tuesday morning; and with daylight appeared the grim, austere peaks of the Ural Mountains. As the light became clearer, the mountains emerged from their enveloping fogs and reared their bleak monstrous crests as though reaching for the passing ship. The panorama was of surpassing grandeur. At ten-thirty they sailed over the city of Kisel. Here they approached as low as was safe, and dropped several sacks of mail.
Cold biting winds from the Arctic buffeted them. Overcoats, sweaters and mufflers appeared, but the elements could not keep the awed sightseers from the windows, where they watched the slow march of the Titans below. Their speed was reduced for safety’s sake here, for the winds were more and more uncertain. The mountains covered a vast space, but the general trend of the range was northeast, the direction that the Moonbeam was gradually following. About the base of the mountains were dark blots of forests, but they covered little of the great areas, bald, repellent, and threatening, that looked from the ship as though carved of solid stone.
They passed several tiny hamlets. To their surprise, the inhabitants observed the ship with unfeigned terror. They left their huts, looked, and one and all took refuge in the surrounding woods. With the glasses it was easy to see their terror as they fled, mothers carrying babies, and small children being dragged ruthlessly away to safety by agitated fathers.
“What fools!” said Wally to Dulcie.
“I don’t think so at all,” she replied hotly. “I suppose in their place you would know all about us by instinct? I am just as sorry for them as I can be.”
The squally winds over the mountains were beginning to be very apparent. They could feel the Moonbeam struggle against the intermittent gusts. Later the wind settled into a steady gale. The five great engines were doing their utmost, but the ship hung in the air as though anchored. David raised her to a higher altitude, but at three thousand feet above the mountains the wind still tore with a velocity against which they could make no headway. He dropped back and tried a southerly direction, but met with heavy squalls. Resuming their first course, he held the Moonbeam steady, her nose to the blast. Finally the wind, while keeping its intensity, began to come in gusts. Between them, David worked the ship north, turning nose on when the hurricane redoubled its fury. Slowly, with infinite care and patience, he maneuvered the ship high above the rough mountains, until he saw the plains far below.
With the stone peaks of the mountains past, he dropped down to two thousand feet, where he found comparatively smooth sailing. Working his way, he steered the Moonbeam at an angle which brought her into the course she had left hours before. The wind still blew hard, but the ship again made headway against it.
As they proceeded into lower country, plains appeared, many of them dotted over with clusters of lakes, some vast in size, others tiny pools. It was bitterly cold. They were well north of sixty degrees latitude, which runs just south of Seward, Alaska. During the night they touched the Arctic Circle.