CHAPTER XXX THE MOST TERRIBLE ACCIDENT OF ALL

“What in goodness’ name is the matter down there? Where did that shell strike us?” shouted Ned, anxiously, through the speaking tube, while both Alan and Bob tumbled downstairs in answer to Buck’s frantic appeal from the engine room.

“Put on every ounce of pressure you can,” they signalled up to the boy in the pilot room presently. He did so, and for a bit the _Flyer_ showed a spurt of her old speed, leaving the Zeppelin a dwindling speck in the distance. Within twenty minutes, however, despite the application of every power appliance in the equipment, the speed again began to diminish until the airship was not making more than fifteen miles an hour.

As the velocity gradually decreased, the huge wing-like exterior planes automatically unfolded, but, to the horror of the boys, no sooner had they attained full expansion than the whole lateral series on the right side of the hull collapsed into mere wreckage, dragging the _Flyer_ violently over in that direction and hurling the young aeronauts off their feet.

The bursting shell had indeed done effective damage. It had struck the armored magnalium hull just about amidships, ploughed its way through the metal, leaving a great jagged hole in the twisted sheets of steel, and had exploded just outside the engine room, one partition of which was demolished with various alarming damage to the machinery. At the same time, some flying pieces of the exploding shell must have struck the exterior plane and propulsion mechanism, snapping the supports and rendering the entire outside wings wholly useless.

In his confusion, when the right lateral plane series collapsed, Ned threw on every particle of power at his command, mindful that an increase of the vessel’s velocity would cause the disabled planes to fold away again automatically out of the wind and so lessen the imminent danger of overturning. The acceleration was only momentary though, and the _Ocean Flyer_ seemed in danger of rolling over sidewise at any minute.

“Ned, shut off ‘juice’ on those main outside propellers and try to run on the interior auxiliary propeller!” yelled Buck up the speaking tube.

“That ought to give us a little extra speed while we are trying to cut away the plane wreckage which is dragging us over sidewise!”

Ned was rattled. He had not thought of that before, but he instantly did as he was bid. Despite the damaged mechanism, the _Flyer_ responded to this new application of power and speeded up until a fifty mile an hour velocity was registered on the instruments.

Leaving Buck on his knees beside the half-incapacitated engines, Alan and Bob seized sharp axes and rushed out upon the exterior runways extending two-thirds of the way around the hull. A cry of astonishment burst from both boys simultaneously:

“The sea! We are passing out over the ocean!”

It was true. Dim in the distance behind them stretched the broken coast line of Germany, while beneath, to north, to east, to west, tossed the angry gray waters of the North Sea. The misty shape of the British Isles lay like a low-hanging cloud to the southwest. Almost directly below the airship a huge merchant vessel could be seen steaming grandly along.

“Say, I wish that we were all down there aboard that big ship instead of where we are,” said Allan.

“Not for me!” replied Bob, emphatically. “Don’t you remember hearing how both the English and Germans have declared an absolute embargo on all merchant ports and have mined the entire ocean to interrupt each other’s commerce? Dangerous as our position up here now is, I’d lots sooner be here in a crippled airship than down there.”

Even as he spoke, there came a terrific explosion far down below. Sparks and broken spars were hurled high. The big merchantman appeared suddenly to rise straight up on her beam’s ends. Immense funnels of ocean water spurted hundreds of feet in the air all around her and, as the vessel settled down again, she seemed to snap in the middle and to disintegrate as if the bolts and bars from every clinch and support had been suddenly removed. Her stern began slowly disappearing beneath the churning, white-crested waves. Fire broke out amidships and dense volumes of black smoke half obscured the terrible disaster from the horrified boys’ view.

They saw the attempted launching of two long lifeboats. Both were swamped almost before they had been lowered into the water. The sea all around the doomed ship became dotted with human heads and floating pieces of wreckage. Then, all at once, a whirlpool seemed to form about the ship and to be dragging it resistlessly down into the icy depths. The water boiled over it and nothing save a few scattered bits of driftwood remained to mark the spot.

Alan shuddered and closed his eyes as he leaned against the _Flyer’s_ taffrail.

“Awful!” he muttered huskily. “All of those poor souls--noncombatants at that--hurled into eternity without warning or provocation. Do you suppose that the vessel struck a submerged mine?”

“Either that or it was torpedoed,” answered Buck. “They say that the whole North Sea and English Channel swarms with German submarines for this sort of thing. But quick now, Alan; to work cutting us free of these dragging planes, or we ourselves will soon feel the water at our necks!”

It was hard work getting through those rivet supports of the huge planes. Bolts had to be cut away, steel cables to be sawed through, and seasoned wood supports hacked away. The boys’ hands became sore and calloused, and their fingers stiffened. Despite the cold air sweeping past, their faces were damp with perspiration.

The airship staggered in bewildering fashion, but the auxiliary engines kept it going at a speed that quickly put England beneath them. The young aeronauts had no leisure to study the effect of their appearance upon spectators below, however, for the airship was sagging more and more surely to one side. Fortunately they passed over no large towns and so were not fired on.

“At last!” gasped Alan, as with a final vicious blow he chopped loose the final attachment of the great lateral planes on his side of the airships and saw them plunge downward into the sea.

“Same here!” shouted Bob from the gangway on the other side. “I’ve just managed to cut us free over here!”

The beneficial effect of this lightening of the drag was at once apparent. The _Flyer_ righted itself and picked up a fair degree of speed. The elevation was increased to 2,000 feet, where propulsion was less modified by earthly wind currents. The little auxiliary propeller was performing its extra duties gallantly. It was now getting well along in the afternoon and daylight was failing rapidly. Far ahead of them showed a thin rim of silver beyond the dark shadow of the land.

“A river?” questioned Alan.

“The Irish Sea,” replied Ned shortly.

“Where we going to land?” asked Bob, a bit anxiously.

“It’s not safe here. I had thought of crossing to the coast of Ireland and following along as far as our gas holds out--supply’s running mighty low--in the hopes of getting as close to Queenstown as we dare. Then we’ll drop in some deserted spot and arrange to ship the _Flyer_ back, while we get passage out of Queenstown for good old New York.”

“But we haven’t the slightest idea where we are,” objected Alan.

“We’ll know after we hit land again; we’ll light long enough to get our bearings. Somebody go down below and relieve Buck. He must be about worn out.”

But Buck refused to leave the wrecked engine room, where, stripped to the waist and grease from head to foot, he still tinkered with the faulty-acting machinery. In spite of his efforts the speed gauge needle steadily shifted back. A bare twenty miles an hour was all it showed.

Sunset flamed across the sky. Then gloaming came, and by and by the stars appeared one by one.

Towards midnight there was a perceptible lessening of the airship’s momentum which no mechanical efforts of Alan in the pilot room could counteract. When the velocity had decreased to ten miles per hour, he grew so alarmed that he was tempted to call Ned and Bob.

“But no!” said he. “They are worn out, poor fellows. As long as there’s no land in sight I’ll let them sleep as long as I dare.”

It was about five in the morning when Buck’s voice coming up through the speaking-tube startled Alan out of the doze into which he had fallen as he sat there at the wheel.

“What is it, Buck?” Alan asked anxiously. “Nothing new has developed, has there?”

The voice at the other end of the tube was hoarse with desperation:

“Wake up the other boys! Quick, Alan! This is the end! The sulphuric ether and gasoline won’t mix properly in the engines any longer. Two of the magnalium cylinders are damaged beyond all hopes of repair and I can’t get any concussion in the explosion chambers. The ammonia fans are gradually slowing down and the turbines are getting red hot. Within ten minutes more the engines will stop altogether and we will drop into the sea like so much lead. This is the last of the _Ocean Flyer_.”