The Great Airship: A Tale of Adventure.

by F. S. Brereton

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Besieged City

  "Steady! Now, lower very slowly, for we are close to the houses."

  Commander Jackson pressed the button of the electric indicator aboardthe platform on which he and Dick Hamshaw and Alec Jardine were beinglowered into the besieged city of Adrianople, and applied his lips tothe loud-speaking telephone. He barely whispered into the receiver, butDick and Alec knew well that his voice would be heard easily enoughaloft.

  "Stop! Move away to the right; we are directly above a very largebuilding."

  The platform of the lift jerked slightly as the motor above wasarrested, and for the space of a minute perhaps, it and its humanfreight rose and fell as the long steel wire stretched and thencontracted. Dick craned his head over the edge, for he was kneeling,just as he had been on that earlier occasion when the Commander camedown to his rescue. Below, barely visible in the all-pervading gloom, hemade out the dim, hazy details of a building, which stretched on eitherhand for some considerable distance. Then he turned on his elbow andstared upward, to find that nothing was visible. There was not even thebarest outline of the great airship which he knew well enough wasdirectly overhead, not a light, not a single sound, not even the gentletune of that humming motor. But down below there were sounds. Hark! Whatwas that?

  "Men marching through the streets," whispered the Commander. "We shallhave to be cautious, for it would never do to drop into the hands of theTurks. They would not understand our coming. We should be spies, as amatter of course. Hold on up there," his companions heard him whisperinto the receiver of the telephone. "Hoist a little higher. Now, moveahead."

  Somewhere in the distance a clock struck musically, the sound easilyreaching the ears of the adventurous three descending to the city. One,two, three.

  "Two hours more and we shall have the dawn," whispered the Commander."Listen! Troops are on the move. There must be thousands marchingbeneath us. No doubt reinforcements are being taken to some part where anew and fierce attack is anticipated. Ah!"

  Dick flushed as red as a beetroot in the darkness, and was thankful forthe cloak it lent him. For who could help starting violently under thecircumstances? A loud report had suddenly rung out away on their left, adetonation which set the air above the city reverberating. There was aflash in the distance, a streak of flame cutting into the darkness, andthen, heard perhaps half a minute later, a hideous shriek, gettinglouder and more insistent.

  "A messenger from the besiegers," said the Commander hoarsely. "Ah! Itplumped into the house away over there to the right. Lucky we weren'tdirectly over it."

  It was fortunate for all three without a doubt, for that messenger fromthe lines of the Bulgarians or from those of the Servians, who were nowaiding their comrades in this siege, was certainly not of the peacefulvariety. That shriek, in fact, was followed by a clatter, by the crashof a hard, heavy body striking against masonry. Then there was athunderous roar, a huge spot of flame and smoke and debris, and finallydarkness and silence, silence made more intense by the occasional lowmoaning of some poor injured person. A second later another gun spokefrom the distance, while the streak of flame from the muzzle wasfollowed by a third detonation from a different direction, and later byhalf a dozen more. Suspended in midair Dick and his friends listened tothe roar of the shells, to the clatter of tumbling masonry, and to theexplosions that followed with feelings which can hardly be described asprecisely comfortable.

  "George! A near shave," whispered Dick. "Hear it, sir?"

  "Hear it? Rather!" came gruffly from the Commander. "That shell wentover our heads, and I reckon there cannot have been more than a dozenfeet between it and us. Nasty, eh! if one were to hit the wire rope."

  "Ugh! What's he want to talk like that for?" Alec grumbled beneath hisbreath. He peered over the edge of the platform and shivered. Not thathe had not plenty of courage and spirit. But somehow the dangers of abombardment seemed greater when suspended between earth and sky thanwhen one has one's feet firmly planted upon Mother Earth. It seemed,too, that the jovial Commander felt the same also.

  "It'd be nasty to get that rope cut, eh?" he asked again. "We'd fallheavily. Let's move on. Do either of you lads hear any more troopsmoving?"

  A few minutes before there had been the muffled sound of a multitude ofrough boots treading upon uneven cobbles. Sometimes one heard the clinkof a sabre against the stones, or of one man's rifle against that of acomrade. And now and then voices had reached the three suspendedoverhead--sharp voices, as if officers were there issuing commands.

  "Hear 'em?" asked the Commander.

  "Moved on, sir, I think," responded Dick. "Now's the time for us to dothe same."

  "Listen! They've gone away to our left. You can hear their steps still,"said Alec. "Ah! That ends all sounds from them. I suppose this is ageneral bombardment, sir?"

  "Sounds like it," admitted the Commander. "Guns are directing shellsupon the city now from every side. It's time, as you say, Dick, to get amove on. Ah! The ship has carried us away from that building. What'sbelow us?"

  They craned their necks over the edge of the platform and peered downinto the darkness. "A garden, sir," suggested Dick.

  "Clear ground in any case," came from Alec.

  "Then lower away," the Commander whispered into the receiver. "Steady!Ah, she's bumped! Hop out, you fellows. All clear? Then hoist abovethere. We're safely in the city."

  Did they hear a gentle hum from high up overhead? Dick fancied he couldfor one brief instant as the lift shot upward. But it may have beenmerely imagination. In any case there came quickly enough other soundsto drown any there may have been from the airship; for a monstrous gunspoke in the distance. The air above this devoted city shook andvibrated, while the steel monster launched into space howled andshrieked as it rushed to its destination.

  "Down behind this wall," called the Commander, who had stood up to starein the direction from which the shot had come. "Down, quick! Thatshell's coming straight for us."

  Throwing themselves down upon the ground behind a low wall beside whichthe lift had dropped them, they waited breathlessly for the landing ofthat messenger. It shrieked a warning at them. It announced its comingin a manner there was no mistaking. Then suddenly it burst upon them.The shriek grew positively deafening, rising to such a blood-curdlingpitch that it would have shaken the pluck even of a veteran. But it wasmuffled all in a second. There was a ponderous thud within a dozenyards of the adventurous trio, an uncanny silence, and then a detonationthat threw them against the wall, and sent earth and stones and debrisin every direction. And what a sight the wide-spreading flames of thatexplosion presented! Dick saw buildings all about him, buildings overwhich stones and clods of earth were hurtling. To his left, within twohundred yards perhaps, was an enormous erection, the actual size ofwhich he could not hope to estimate. But the momentary flash of theexplosion showed him towers and minarets, proof positive that here was amosque, the mosque, no doubt, for which Major Harvey had aimed whendescending into the city. That fleeting flash gave him in addition justone glimpse of a huge shape floating almost directly overhead, no doubtthe gigantic outline of the airship.

  "Lor! Supposing she felt the shock?" he groaned. "Supposing the airshiphas sustained some damage."

  "Not she! As right as a trivet," came in somewhat shaking tones fromclose beside him, for unconsciously the young midshipman had spokenaloud. "But, jingo, what an explosion! I've been hanging on to my hairever since. Hope we don't get another of those gentlemen within suchclose distance."

  The hope was hardly expressed when a second shell announced its coming,and caused them once more to shelter close to the wall which had alreadygiven them protection. As for the giant airship, when Dick gazed aloftas this other messenger exploded, there was no longer a sign of her. Nodoubt Andrew and his nephew had set the elevators going, and were nowhigh overhead, out of reach of danger.

  "And so we've only ourselves to think about," said Dick. "What next,then? What are the orders, sir? I
caught a sight of the great mosque forwhich Major Harvey said he would make. It's close to us. I supposethat's where we shall begin our search?"

  Strangely enough there came no answer. Dick caught his breath, Alecgasped aloud. The midshipman could hear his breath coming fast and deepwithin two feet perhaps of where he was sitting.

  "Wait," he whispered. "He was just to my right. I'll crawl that way andsee where he has got to."

  Getting to his knees, for till now he had been prone beside the friendlywall which had sheltered them from stones and splinters sent hurtlingthrough the air by the shells which had fallen so close to them, Dickmade his way along the edge of the wall in search of the Commander. Andpresently his fingers lit upon his figure. The officer was huddled upagainst the brickwork; and though Dick pulled his sleeve violently therecame no response, not even when he kneeled above him, felt for his head,and spoke sharply into his ear.

  "Come along and join me," he called gently to Alec. "The Commander'shit; yes, hit in the head. I'm sure of that, for I can feel that hishair is wet; and listen to his breathing."

  Neither of those two young fellows had had up till then muchacquaintance with wounds and injuries. But Dick had once seen a manlying severely stunned, and now he recognized one at least of thesymptoms. For the unfortunate Commander was breathingstertorously--positively snoring--while he took not the smallest noticewhen his junior tugged at his clothing.

  "Bend over him and strike a light," whispered Dick when Alec had joinedhim. "We'll have to chance being seen. Got any matches?"

  Evidently Alec was well provided, for in a moment there came thetell-tale scrape of a lucifer being rubbed against the box. Then a tinyflame blazed out, a flame which Alec shielded with his hand, while hedirected a portion of it on to the unconscious Commander.

  "Yes; hit in the head. See, here's a big scalp wound," whispered Dick,making a rapid examination, and discovering blood welling from a nastywound just above the Commander's forehead. "I'm not much used to thissort of thing, Alec, but I imagine that he's not very badly hurt. He'sstunned, of course, and the thing is to know how to deal with him. Firstthing, anyway, is to tie a handkerchief round the wound. Get anothermatch ready. Strike when I tell you to. Now. I've got his head lifted onto my knee and my handkerchief unfolded. Strike now."

  With the help of that feeble glimmer, lasting perhaps for half a minute,they bound up the Commander's wound, and then, finding a raised piece ofground close to the wall, gently lowered his head upon it.

  "Better than nothing. It'll act like a cushion," said Dick. "Now?"

  "Ah--a dickens of a business! There's the Commander down and wounded,Major Harvey lost, perhaps dead for all we know, or only a prisoner; andthis Charlie, whom we've never seen, and hardly heard of, somewhere inthis awful city. What's to be done?"

  "That's what I asked you," came quickly from Dick. "Let's see, we couldmake a flare with your box of matches I suppose, and so call theattention of Mr. Andrew. Pish! That's funking. Never! Besides, theairship's gone by now. Didn't it strike three as we were descending?"

  "Three, yes; what's the time now?"

  "At a guess four o'clock. Might be less; feels as though it were a heapmore."

  That, in fact, was the position. So much had happened since they setfoot in this besieged city of Adrianople, that hours might have passed,and Dick really felt as if they had. And yet he knew well enough thatthat was not possible. But the mention of the hour made him recollectmatters of greater moment.

  "George!" he cried, "it will be light soon, and we shall be seen unlesswe manage to discover a hiding-place of sorts. Lor! This is the maddestkind of expedition I have ever been on, for here we are wanting a placein which to hide, and yet our job is to discover two individuals whom wecan't possibly recognize unless we see 'em in broad daylight."

  "While the airship has hooked it, eh?"

  "Certain. It's getting a trifle lighter already, and she might be seen,which would be dangerous. Well now, it seems to me that we must dosomething pretty soon or we shall find ourselves in chokey. Look here,Alec, are you game to stand by the Commander while I go on a tour ofinspection? The flash sent out by those two shells when they explodedgave me a rough idea of our surroundings. In any case I spotted a hugemosque away to our left, so I shall make over in that direction. I'llfollow this wall, and when it comes to an end I'll take good care to gethold of something which will tell me I am on the right road whenreturning. Ah! Listen to that! Rifle fire, eh? Getting lighter outsidethe city and the pickets are having shots at one another. Or it is areal attack opening. Yes, there go the guns again."

  This time the roar which came to their ears was, perhaps, not so loud,and it seemed probable that it emanated from the guns of the defenders.But whoever was responsible for the firing, the enemy ringing in thecity lost no time in replying. For these were the days of strenuousfighting about the beleaguered city. The allies, consisting of theBulgarians, the Servians, the Montenegrins, and the Greeks, had sweptthe Turks in all directions before them, till the former were withinstriking distance of Constantinople itself, while such important citiesas Salonica had been captured. But Adrianople still held out beneath thecommand of Shukri Pasha, while Scutari also resisted the Montenegrins.It may be imagined therefore, that the presence of a strong force ofTurks in Adrianople made it essential that the allies should detach aneven stronger force to watch and hem in their enemy. For weeks thearmies had, in fact, watched one another, passage out of the beleagueredcity being impossible, while actual fighting was intermittent andconfined to mere skirmishing. But now pour-parlers between the alliesand the enemy had broken down. Terms for peace had been rejected by theOttomans, and as a consequence the war had been resumed after anarmistice of some weeks' duration. To force the Turks to accede to theterms demanded by the allies, Adrianople must be taken, even at a greatcost, and it happened that the arrival of Andrew Provost and his friendshad coincided with this period. Indeed, a furious bombardment of thecity was to begin forthwith, shells were to pour into the streets andabout the houses, while the encircling forts were to be rushed one byone, at huge cost to the allies and the Turks, and the siege presseddaily closer. Here, then, was an explanation of this beginningcannonade.

  "Get down close to the wall," Dick called to his chum, as thoseanswering guns opened and that same tell-tale shriek sounded in thedistance. "Here come the shells. Hope they won't fall closer thanformerly, for what has happened to the Commander may very well happen tous. Look out! Get down close. Wish to goodness there was a trench herein which we could shelter."

  In spite of the fact that a huge shell had just whizzed overhead, Dickwent scuttling along beside the wall on hands and knees in search ofsome shelter. And hardly three minutes had passed before he was backagain close to Alec.

  "There's a bit of a ditch close to the wall farther along there," hesaid hastily. "Let's carry the Commander there. Wait, though, till thatbeggar has passed us."

  That beggar happened to be a shell whose advance they could hear, andevery instant they expected it to pitch in the ground somewhere beyondthem. But this time it failed to carry to such a distance, and landingwith a thud some few yards behind the wall beside which they lay, itexploded with violence, almost smothering them with dirt and debris andtipping stones from the wall upon them. At once Dick and Alec took theCommander by his legs and arms and carried his unconscious figure awayfrom this danger zone till they reached the ditch of which the formerhad spoken.

  "Better be in the open for a while than in one of the houses," saidDick, panting after such exertion, and bending over his officer. "I daresay we could manage to discover a house that's deserted, for there aresure to be numbers left untenanted at such a time. But the danger wouldbe greater there. If a shell happened to strike the place, and one werenot killed by it, one would stand the chance of being buried alive inthe ruins. Now, you're game to stick here and wait for a while?"

  Of course Alec was game. He was getting quite accustomed to thosefalling shells now, for more
guns were speaking in the distance, andshots were raining into the city. All he feared really was discovery,and when he came to think of it the risk at present was not so verygreat. Indeed, while there was darkness no one was likely to stumbleupon them, and less so just then when the enemy were battering theplace, and people had their attention fully engaged in looking aftertheir own security. It was when daylight came that the real danger wouldarise, so that it was urgent that one of them should at once seek out aplace which would provide a haven.

  "You hop off and leave the Commander to me, Dick," he said. "I ain'tafraid. If any of these Turkish beggars interfere with me, I'll--well,I'll shoot 'em."

  He felt for and handled the revolver with which Andrew had been carefulto arm his young friends, and then slipped it back into his pocket.

  "Right-o!" he said. "Off you go. But don't get lost and fail to find usagain. Remember, too, that it's getting lighter; we ought to be hiddensomewhere within an hour, eh?"

  "And shall be," answered the midshipman optimistically. "Keep your hairon if people come near you, and lie low. This place seems to be out ofthe way, so I don't anticipate you'll have any trouble. So long! I'mgoing."

  He rose swiftly to his feet and went off along the wall, the fingers ofone hand trailing along the stones of which it was composed. Perhaps hewent a hundred paces, more than that even, before the wall endedabruptly, the termination being jagged and broken. A few feet beyond waswhat appeared in the dim light to be a ruined house, while a few pacesmore brought him to a cobbled street, into which a shell fell as heentered. Stepping back into the shelter of a doorway, against which hehappened to have arrived, Dick waited for the following explosion. Thenhe crossed the street, stepped on the narrow footway beyond and bumpedheavily into an individual at that moment emerging from an opening inthe house opposite. At once an angry shout burst from this stranger,while Dick distinctly heard the clatter of the end of a sword againstthe rough cobbles of the pathway. A moment later there was a glimmer oflight, a hand shot out of the darkness and seized him by the collar,while the dark lantern, with its slide now drawn fully open, was turnedupon him.

  "Ah! Who goes racing about the streets thus at night when every soldiershould be in the trenches, and every dog of a civilian in his house?"

  The light was flashed full into his face. From the darkness behind thelamp a pair of fierce Turkish eyes glared at Dick Hamshaw, and in aninstant the individual who had spoken shouted loudly.

  "What! A European!" he cried. "In uniform too! How now? A spy!"

  It may be imagined that poor Dick was dumbfounded. Not that he wasignorant of what had been said or shouted by this stranger, for Dick wasquite a travelled individual and something of a linguist. But then hewas the son of a sailor, and his father had for some considerable whilebeen attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople. It happened,then, that Dick spent some five years in that cosmopolitan city, wherehe was surrounded by Ottomans, and forced to speak the language to someextent at least, simply because his father's servants were Turkish.There need be no surprise, therefore, that he at once took in the gistof what was shouted, while he blinked at the lantern held so close tohis face. Then the hand gripping his collar seemed to stir him toaction, that and the fact that it suddenly left his clothing, whilethere came a curious rasping sound telling him that this man had drawnhis sword.

  Things were looking decidedly unpleasant he decided. But what was he todo? Bolt! No, certainly not, for as the man swung to draw his weapon thelamp was turned partly upon his own person, and in a flash Dick saw thata revolver hung in his open holster. More than that, he saw that thiswas an officer. The very next second, before the sabre had quite leftits scabbard, he had lunged forward desperately with one fist, intowhich he put all the force of which he was capable.

  "Spy!" The officer was in the midst of the shout when the blow struckhim on the forehead, for in the darkness Dick missed his aim and went atrifle high. But a lusty fist, wielded though it was by a youth not yetfully grown, and coming against the Turk's forehead so unexpectedly, hada startling effect upon that individual. His sword left his hand andwent to the ground with a clatter, the man himself following swiftly andlanded upon the cobbles with a thump. As for Dick, he turned to bolt forhis life, guessing that other undesirable and inquisitive persons mightbe near at hand and have heard that shout. But he need have had littlefear. If anyone had heard and were inclined to venture near, theirinclination was subdued at once by the landing of a shell some thirtyyards down this narrow street. Dick heard it crash against the cobblesand instantly threw himself flat, being only just in time to escape thesucceeding explosion. A hot blast of flame and gas swept over hisrecumbent figure. For one brief second the street and the mean houses oneither side were brilliantly illuminated, and then there was darknessand silence again, save for dimly-heard shrieks of terror from thedistance and the moaning of a man nearer at hand. Dick scrambled to hisfeet, turned to go, and then swung his head round to look at the spot hehad so recently vacated. There was a glimmer on the cobbles, and thefaint outline of a lamp turned on its side.

  "Why not?" he asked himself. "A lamp would be useful later on perhaps.That officer fellow is moaning. Wonder whether that's due to my blow orto the shell which just now exploded?"

  As a matter of fact, his sudden blow had considerably startled the Turk,and had made him lose his balance with a vengeance. Then he had sat upgiddily, only to be struck by a stone hurled in that direction by theexplosion. Dick went hastily across to him, picked up the lamp, andclosely inspected his late enemy.

  "Captain of an infantry battalion," he told himself. "No, not a captain;merely a subaltern. Not so very old either. No hair on his face at anyrate. Let's see how he's dressed. Greatcoat, belts and sabre, andrevolver pouch. Nothing on his head at the moment but--ah, there's thefez! Why, it just fits me. Now I wonder if----"

  It was hardly the place to stop and wonder, for without doubt a generalbombardment had begun, and stray messages from the allies were fallingabout him. Dick took the lamp and went to the opening from which thisofficer had come. He pushed the door before him and found it openedeasily. He knocked loudly, then entered without hesitation, and threwhis light into the downstairs rooms. They were empty, as was also theupper part of the house.

  "Just the sort of little crib we want," he told himself. "Sorry, ofcourse, for the officer, but he shouldn't have been so inquisitive.Anyway, I'll have to borrow some of his belongings. But first I'll fetchAlec and the Commander."

  Perhaps ten minutes later Commander Jackson was resting on a settee ordivan in the house which Dick had selected, while Dick and Alec rapidlyremoved the Turk's greatcoat and fez as well as his weapons. Then theypicked him up, and staggered away with his unconscious figure till theyhad gained a street some distance from the spot where he had accostedour hero.

  "That'll do. He'll be picked up by his friends some time, and won't soonfind his way back to the house. Jingo, ain't things humming!"

  It was strange, as the morning light slowly stole upon the besieged cityof Adrianople and penetrated the windows of that house borrowed by Dickand Alec, to see those two young hopefuls resting contentedly on thedivan running the length of an upstairs room, eagerly discussing thefood they had brought with them, as well as this curious situation. Asto the Commander, he was no longer snoring so stertorously. He wasconscious, and was gazing fixedly at his comrades.

  "What next?" he was asking quite jovially in spite of his headache.

  "That's it, sir," grinned Dick. "What next? That wants a heap ofguessing."