CHAPTER XXIX THE BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Almost before the words had passed Ned’s lips, an ugly black muzzle was protruded from a window in the hanging body of the nearest Zeppelin. Then came a puff of bluish smoke, a dull roar and flash of flame:

BZZ--Zz--z--z--z--z--z--z....

A huge shell had passed athwart the _Ocean Flyer’s_ bows in stern warning for her to stop and await inspection.

Perspiration started out profusely on the boys’ foreheads. The huge German war balloons were approaching in a rapidly narrowing circle. There were at least fifty of them, and soon an advance patrol of military “Taube” aeroplanes came skimming back to support them. Cannon were shoved menacingly out of a score of portholes. There was no mistaking the determination of the Germans.

“Heavens!” groaned Alan, his cheeks blanched. “What shall we do? If we don’t stop in a minute, they’ll all get our range and blow even our stout magnalium covering to bits. We haven’t a single weapon on board that can compare with those heavy cannon!”

“Don’t surrender unless there is absolutely nothing else for us to do,” cried Buck.

Bob added: “No, because then they’d simply lock us up in some German prison and use the _Flyer_ for their raid on England!”

The two nearest Zeppelins could now be seen letting gas out of their huge sausage-like bags as they settled down towards the almost stationary airship. As they changed position, it left a narrow break in the ring of enemies.

“Shall we risk a chance on breaking through there? That’s our only hope,” said Ned quietly.

“Yes, yes. Quick--full power ahead before they think to close the gap!”

Ned jammed the acceleration lever hard down in its socket; the machinery groaned with the pressure of too suddenly added power; the exterior planes folded automatically before the rapidly increasing rush of air. The _Ocean Flyer_ swept upwards at an abrupt angle, heading straight for the only opening left unguarded.

Simultaneously the Zeppelin crews saw the boys’ desperate intent. Flame belched from twenty cannon mouths. Shells burst screaming all around. Four light aeroplanes skimmed like swallows up and over to cover the gap in the ring. The two huge Zeppelins bearing down upon the Flyer from above converged and charged her, head on.

“There’s only one thing for us to do,” groaned Ned, “and that is to ram them. We can do it, but it means that the Zeppelins we hit will be destroyed and with them I don’t know how many men. Those craft carry a crew of forty or more, you know.”

“I hate to think of it too, but they themselves have made it our lives or theirs!” yelled Alan. “So go to it, Ned.”

The _Ocean Flyer_ had now attained an incredible velocity. It was only a matter of minutes, of seconds, or instants, before it would crash straight into the huge but clumsier enemy advancing to meet it. There was a bare glimpse of drawn, panic-stricken faces crowding the hanging compartment. The pointed snout of the _Flyer_ tilted suddenly at an eighty-degree angle and--

_B o o m--m--m--psthsh--sh--sh--ss!_

She had struck and pierced the huge gas bag of the Zeppelin, leaving a huge, gaping rent from which the gas rushed as the craft sagged sidewise more and more. Several of the heavy cables supporting the car from the bag parted with reports like shell explosions. The Zeppelin began slowly to sink, while her sister craft sheered off from the rushing destroyer.

Wild-eyed and remorseful for the awful necessity of their deed, the boys now saw the light aeroplanes darting up to block their path. The futility of their trying to stop an airship when a Zeppelin twenty times their size had failed, did not seem to occur to those daring German aviators.

They sat braced there in their narrow seats among the intricacy of wire rigging, guiding their frail craft with one hand and shooting rapidly with the other. Rifle and revolver bullets rattled against the _Flyer’s_ magnalium sides like hailstones.

The rush of wind set in lateral motion by the velocity of the huge airship nearly capsized two of the little craft. The planes of a third one were brushed roughly by the _Flyer_ as it rushed past.

The sun had now dissipated the last of the mist and the shapes of the other Zeppelins could plainly be seen sailing down upon their prey. The whole sky seemed to be full of them. No wonder England was terrified by such a menace as this!

The _Ocean Flyer_ now had, however, a clear field in front of her and the situation resolved itself into a race to get out of range. Here was where the tremendous motive power of the airship stood her in good stead. No Zeppelin could maintain such a terrific speed as Ned set.

The guns of the Zeppelins roared almost continuously, but a moving target is hard to hit. Most of the deadly shells either fell short or went wide of their mark. One by one the huge “bologna sausages” began to drop behind and abandon the pursuit. Finally there were only two left--one a quarter of a mile in the rear and the other hanging almost stationary to the left of the _Flyer’s_ course. The last Zeppelin had evidently been foremost of the raiding squadron.

“Good-bye, old chaps,” Bob yelled mockingly, just as the Zeppelin to the left let fire a broadside with every one of her seven cannon. The “kick” of the discharge caused her to careen backward amid clouds of powder smoke.

Shells droned gruesomely past the speeding _Flyer_--overhead, beneath, on both sides.

A rending thud that hurled the airship on her beam ends ... the splintering crash of wood and metal ... frenzied cries for help from Buck down in the engine room. A perceptible “missing” of the engines and an alarming tilt to one side.

The _Ocean Flyer_ had been hit!