Billy Barcroft, R.N.A.S.: A Story of the Great War

To be a little more definite it was bordering that part of the North Sea that merges into the narrow Straits of Dover and almost within range of the German shore batteries of Ze...

FLIGHT SUB-LIEUTENANT BARCROFT scanned the expanse of water beneath him. The "Hippodrome" was now a mere speck far away to the west'ard. Four distinct trails of smoke betokened...

"AND Billy arrives by the ten-fifty. No, I don't think I'll wait here for three hours and then stand a chance of missing him. I'll get back home and give him a fitting welcome t...

"WE'LL have to foot it, man," declared Entwistle decidedly. "Unless we can get a car to pick us up on the road. Zeppelins, by smoke! Whoever would have thought it? I didn't; not...

"COME in," he continued, assisting his companion over the threshold. "I won't switch a light on in the hall until I close the door. Jolly queer about it being open. There'll be...

"Good evening, Mrs. Carter," he said as the door was opened revealing the domestic stopgap with her head covered by a shawl--the recognised head-dress of the working-class women...

OBER-LEUTNANT JULIUS VON LORINGHOVEN recoiled a couple of paces in sheer amazement. The compartment in which he stood was strictly limited in point of size, or he might have ste...

The stopping of the railway service had upset his calculations, for instead of the train running into Barborough Station it had come to a stand still at Wolderton, a little town...

For perhaps half a minute he listened intently. He was not mistaken in his surmise, but there was still the haunting doubt that the benighted wayfarer might be proceeding in a d...

Owing to Billy Barcroft's absence on leave a change round had been effected in the composition of the crews of the seaplane carrier "Hippodrome's" little nest of hornets, and as...

SIEGFRIED VON EITELWURMER, the German Secret Service Agent, sat and shivered in the after-gondola of the returning Zeppelin. He was not feeling at all happy. Apart from the phys...

More, he was still on board the airship, but his surroundings were different. The intense darkness had given place to light--not artificial luminosity of electric agency but the...

"WHY did I leave my comfortable bunk and try my hand at fishing at night upon the wild North Sea?" enquired Lieutenant Fuller as he withdrew his benumbed hands from his airman's...

"I beg your pardon----" began the flight-sub, rather taken aback not by his sire's brusqueness, for Barcroft Senior when engaged in the non-creative work of proof-reading was li...

He made his way towards the cornmarket. Here the traffic was at its height. Nobody would have thought that twelve hours ago a Zeppelin had sought to terrorise these Lancashire f...

The prisoners had no option. They descended the almost vertical steel ladder and found themselves in practically the bow compartment of the vessel. It was the crew space of the...

"Eight bells," midnight, had just gone--silently, for the destroyer was ploughing through the waves at break-neck speed, without navigation lights and as steadily as possible. S...

The deadlights screwed to the brass rims of the scuttles and the electric lights in the wardroom gave him the impression that it was still night, and it was not until he scrambl...

"BEHOLD US, Tress old boy!" exclaimed Fuller, when in the privacy of Lieutenant-commander Ronald Tressidar's cabin the old chums could forget the slight differences in their res...

"To come straight to the point, my dear Entwistle," said Peter Barcroft. "I may say that I have two reasons for looking you up. The first is purely a matter of form--to inquire...

The informant was a short, thick-set, bowlegged man, with features that had cunning stamped indelibly on every line. His watery blue eyes and stubbly grey moustache contrasted v...

"A MATTER O' fower moiles, sir," replied an old fisherman in answer to Peter's inquiry as to the way to Scarby. "That is, if you'll be taking t' cliff path, which I wouldn't adv...

"So I haven't been able to chuck you fellows yet," remarked Lieutenant-commander Tressidar. "And what is more I see no likelihood at present of so doing. We've just had a wirele...

"Even this donkey might be pressed into service," continued the flight-sub, indicating Butterfly, who, having been placed "under arrest," was browsing on the green surrounding t...

OFF Zeebrugge once more. In the pale grey dawn of a November morning yet another strafing operation was about to take place. The Huns, who had converted the peaceful little Belg...

Everything pointed to Barcroft's surmise being correct. Fuller's seaplane was in flight in a double sense. He had lost the superiority of altitude. His observer was replying to...

BOBBY KIRKWOOD was the first of the trio to recover his scattered senses. The impact had hurled him violently forward, and cannoning off Barcroft's back he had slid more or less...

AT the sight of the lean, cadaverous features of the Belgian Barcroft had to exercise a tremendous lot of restraint to control his desire to utter some sort of exclamation. He h...

Hitherto the air had been heavy and still. Now, almost miraculously, a stiff breeze had sprung up, blowing in the direction of the infernal gas cylinders, just as they liberated...

THE distant light from the lantern glittered on the bayonets of the sentries, who, sheltering as best they might from the rain, paced stolidly to and fro at the bleak cross-road...

RESISTING his first impulse to rejoin his companions Barcroft crouched upon the unsavoury bundles and drew the corner of the painted canvas cover over his head. In breathless su...

"MORNING, Norton; you are an early visitor," exclaimed Peter Barcroft. "Five minutes later and you would have found me out--to use a contradictory phrase. I'm just off for a mor...

He spoke jocularly, yet in his mind there was a haunting suspicion of doubt. Not that there was any reason for it as far as Peter Barcroft was concerned, although--did he but kn...

"So you've turned up again like three bad halfpennies," remarked the Senior Officer of the base to which the "Hippodrome" was attached, as the three airmen reported themselves....

"AN accident," declared Peter confusedly. The appalling event had completely unnerved him. He hardly seemed to realise that his son had turned up at a most opportune moment. "An...

Billy Barcroft merely nodded. It was "a big thing," this impending movement. Something that was well worth the risk, but at the same time the chances of the participators in the...

THE sight was an unfamiliar one. Many a' time had Barcroft seen a British battleship from above, but never before one of the firstclass units of the Kaiser's navy. This one was...

KIRKWOOD was quick to grasp the nature of the calamity that had overtaken his chum. Although considerably shaken by the concussion the observer was still in possession of his se...

A WEEK later found Flight-sub-lieutenant Barcroft a patient in a large Naval Hospital somewhere on the East Coast. His case was an interesting one as far as the medical officers...