The Air Pirate

by Guy Thorne

  Chapter 2

  There were a good many people in both the ante-room and the secretaries' room as I was led to Sir Joshua. I was immediately aware of an unusual stir and animation, and people nodded and whispered as I passed -- "That's Sir John Custance, the Police Commissioner." "I expect there's some news," were two of the whispered remarks I heard.

  Sir Joshua sat in his own magnificent apartment, with the great window looking out over Drake's Island and Mount Edgcombe to the horizon. A tray and a decanter showed that he had lunched there, and there was a good deal of cigar smoke in the air.

  Sir Joshua was a tall and corpulent man of nearly seventy, with a red face with little purple veins in the cheeks, a thatch of snow-white hair and close whiskers. He had been an early pioneer of commercial flying, and had reaped his reward in the control of the finest air fleet in the world and the Lord knows how many millions of money. He was distinctly an able and upright man, and his only faults were a slight pomposity and a mistaken idea that the Commissioner of Air Police for Great Britain was a sort of unpaid official of The White Star Line! A good many of the great air-shipping magnates had tried to take that line in the past -- and been snubbed for their pains.

  Sir Joshua was not pompous this afternoon, and his face was twitching as he shook hands.

  "Thank God you're come, Sir John," he said, "I'm almost out of my mind with worry and anxiety. You'll agree with me that this affair is as grave as it well can be?"

  To that I was diplomatically silent. What I said was, "I have seen Superintendent Pilot Lashmar. What I want now, Sir Joshua, is a brief and exact account from your own lips."

  "Sit down," he said, pushing a padded chair towards me and handing a box of cigars. "You shall have it in a nutshell." He sat down opposite to me, pulled some papers towards him with a hand that shook a little, and began to read.

  "Our liner Albatros, carrying the mails, left New York yesterday morning about seven a.m. American time. She was consequently due here at Plymouth about six-thirty this afternoon -- Greenwich. The weather conditions at the ten thousand feet mail-ship level were perfect. In addition to the mails there were about two hundred passengers, and she carried, though this was known only to a few officials, a parcel of particularly fine Brazilian diamonds, consigned from Tiffany's of New York to Aaron and Harris, the dealers in precious stones, of Hatton Garden. The jewels were in the ship's safe, in charge of the purser. Various ships -- I have the full list -- sighted the Albatros during the day and exchanged signals, while she duly reported herself by wireless as she passed each lightship once dusk fell. The lightships, as you know, are a hundred miles apart from Fastnet to Long Island, and are connected by cable with our telegraph room here. The indicating dials register, degree by geographical degree, the exact position of any of our ships when in the air. This record is printed on a tape beneath each dial, and each record is examined every hour or two by a clerk."

  Of course, I knew all this. The minutest detail of the system was familiar. I wished that Sir Joshua would get to the reason why I was here. No doubt my face showed something of what I felt, for Sir Joshua half apologized.

  "You see, Sir John," he said, "I thought it best to prepare some sort of short and coherent statement for the Press. As yet they have got hold of nothing, but we can't possibly keep it much longer. Even you couldn't, with all your powers. And what I am reading is this statement. I particularly want you to hear it, as of course it rests with you if it will be published in this form or not."

  I bowed, and Sir Joshua continued:

  "At ten o'clock last night the clerk on duty examined the tapes. When he came to the one recording the progress of the Albatros, he found that for two hours there was no record of her at all. The last record was that she had passed and signalled to Lightship A70 that all was well. A two hours' gap is so unusual, owing to the -- er -- perfection of our organization, that the clerk was alarmed, and reported the matter to a superior upstairs.

  "A general call to all our ships in the air at that moment was at once sent out, and in a few minutes responses were received from several of them to the effect that the Albatros had not been sighted. Nor was there any answer from the ship herself. A signal to Lightship A71, the next guide-boat the Albatros should have passed, elicited the information that she had never done so.

  "By eleven o'clock all these facts were known in this office. The night staff here became seriously alarmed. By a fortunate coincidence I was attending a performance at the Theatre Royal close by, with Lady Johnson and my daughters. This was known, and a messenger caught me at the close of the play, and I came round at once. I had not been in the offices for five minutes, when news of the most extraordinary and sensational character began to come in from our receiving station by the Citadel.

  "Captain Pring, one of our most reliable pilot commanders, was in charge of the Albatros. The message was from him, and this is the gist of it. At sundown the Albatros was flying on the ten-thousand-foot level. The Lightship A70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airships were in sight, when the look-out man reported a flying boat coming up at great speed from the east. The Albatros was doing her steady ninety knots, but as the two ships approached, it was seen that the stranger, a much smaller boat, was flying at an almost incredible rate. Pring reports that she was doing a sixteen to eighteen second mile, but there is doubtless a mistake in the message.

  "The flying boat showed no distinguishing lights, and failed to signal as she flashed past the liner at the distance of half a mile. There were several curious features about her which attracted attention, though what these were we do not yet know. This strange ship turned and came up with the Albatros, actually flying round her in spirals with the greatest ease. Then, without the slightest warning, she opened fire on our vessel, and the first shell, obviously by design, blew away our wireless."

  My heart simply bounded within me. This was news with a vengeance! I had to exercise all my self-control not to pour out a stream of frantic questions. It was beyond thinking! Such a thing had not happened since the League of Nations came into being. It might mean hideous war once more -- anything.

  Sir Joshua had paused to drink a glass of water. He understood the immense gravity of this news as well as I did, and his voice was unsteady as he went on in answer to my nod.

  "The Albatros was helpless. Since the international agreement that only naval, military and police ships may fly armed, she had no possible means of defence. Flight, even, was impossible, and the loss of her wireless forbade her to summon help. Then the anonymous ship turned a machine gun on her rudder and shot it out of gear. There was nothing for it but to descend to the water and rest on her floats. Pring was forced to give the order, and she planed down. The other ship followed and took the water not two hundred yards away.

  "She then signalled in Morse code, with a Klaxon horn, that she was sending men aboard the Albatros, and that if the captain or crew offered the slightest resistance she'd blow her to pieces. They launched a Berthon collapsible boat from a door in the stern fuselage. There were four men in her, all armed with large-calibre automatic pistols, and wearing pilot's hoods and masks with talc eye-pieces, so that it was impossible to identify them.

  "Pring could do nothing at all. He had the passengers to consider. These ruffians cleared out the safe and the women's jewel cases -- they left the mail alone -- and in ten minutes they were back again with the loot. The ship lifted and went off in the dark at over two hundred miles an hour, leaving the Albatros, helpless on the water.

  "It was a business of several hours to rig up a makeshift rudder, but, fortunately, her searchlights were all right, and she kept on signalling with these until she was sighted by a big cargo steamer, a Baltimore to Cadiz boat, coming up from the south, the Sant Iago. She took off the passengers and is bringing them home. She's only a fifteen-knot boat, but I have already dispatched one of our smaller liners to pick her up and take the passengers aboard. They ought to be here some time tomorrow.


  "The Sant Iago has wireless, and was able to communicate, not only with us, but also with the air-yacht May Flower, which she sighted on the four-thousand-foot level at dawn. The May Flower belongs to Mr. Van Adams, the Philadelphia millionaire, who is crossing to England with a party of friends. She came down to the water and took up Commander Pring and the second officer, and should be here by teatime this afternoon. Then we shall know more of this unprecedented, this deplorable business."

  "And the Albatros, Sir Joshua?"

  "A small crew was left on her, and an emergency tender and workmen started at dawn. She ought to be flying again tonight."

  I had all the available facts at last. Long before Sir Joshua had finished, my mind was busy as a mill. There was going to be the very biggest sort of commotion over this. England and America would be in a blaze of fury within twenty-four hours, and every flying man, from the skippers of the lordly London-Brindisi-Bombay flying boats, or the Transatlantic Line, to the sporting commercial traveller in a second-hand 50 h.p. trussed-girder blow-fly, would be wagging the admonishing finger at me.

  "Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear statement of fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your account could hardly be improved on."

  "You think, Sir John...."

  "When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not alter a word."

  Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have been a trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. "I must leave you now, Sir Joshua," I said, "as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr. Lashmar. Steps have already been taken, and later on in the day I will be able to tell you more. Meanwhile I'll see Captain Pring directly the May Flower arrives, and before anyone else. Our future action must depend a great deal on his statement."

  This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the room as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him by the arm and hurried him out of the office.

  "I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are. Now has anything been done -- by us, I mean?"

  "I had two of our patrol airships out at two-thirty this morning cruising over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No results, no strange airship seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and down the Irish coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for form's sake than anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far as we know it, to the States."

  "Good! Any reply from them?"

  "Their police ships have flown out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet."

  "Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along that huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I can see, it's up to them; not us."

  "You think so, sir?"

  "Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been organized with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have command of something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a works in England where such a flying boat could be built without our knowing about it before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's nowhere in these little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce and piano wire with a motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to be registered and licensed by me. No, this is an American stunt."

  We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the Citadel, and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone, which is the Plymouth Headquarters of the Air Police It is perched on the edge of the cliff, and within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake is said to have finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up Channel.

  We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and began to walk up and down the terrace.

  "Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest flying boats here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look as if we're doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full service ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but there's nothing to be done until we know more -- unless you can suggest anything?"

  The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and he had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom.

  Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal.

  I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht May Flower just passed St. Mary's doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly Air Police station on Tresco in the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five miles west-sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy -- she'll be here just under the hour, sir."

  "Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home. Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do -- not even Sir Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams -- my compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could buy the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort appear a compliment from the Government!"

  Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried to the electric railway which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome far below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth watching.

  Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent, the sea-drome is calm as a duck pond. Now it was like a sheet of polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings were three gigantic airliners, with electric launches and motor boats plying between them and the landing stages.

  Right in the centre was the splendid Atlantis, graceful as a swan, by which Connie was to leave for the States in a few hours. She was surrounded by a swarm of boats looking no bigger than water beetles from where I stood.

  A bell rang, there was a rumbling sound, and from a tunnel just beneath me the car, with Lashmar in it, shot down to the water like a stone running down a house roof. As the car dwindled to a punt, a match-box, and finally a postage stamp, I heard the creak and swish of the semaphore behind me on the roof of the station.

  On the far side of the sea-drome was our Patrol Ship No. 1, streamline fuselage, with the familiar red, white and blue line, snow-white wings, guns fore and aft, and twin propellers of phosphor bronze winking white-hot in the afternoon sun.

  The semaphore was sighted in five seconds. I got a pair of glasses, and saw that the engines were already ticking over as Lashmar jumped into a launch and went over the pool, with a cream-white wake behind him and two ostrich plumes of spray six feet high at the bows. He was on board in less time than it takes to write it. I heard the faint throbbing of the four high-compression engines change to the drone of a hornet.

  No. 1 Patrol slid over the water until her floats lifted -- lifted until they barely touched the surface, and she was clear. One clean spiral over Pinklecombe way, and then as she mounted she turned and was off over Rams Head like an arrow from a bow. Though I say it that shouldn't, my officers and men of the Air Police were just about as good as they're made.

  There was a good three-quarters of an hour to spare, and the Royal Hotel was not four minutes away. After the recent excitements, a cup of tea with Connie seemed just the thing. As I legged it over the Hoe, I realized that I might be very busy for some time, and, in consequence, late for dinner. I must tell my girl that something of great importance had happened, though in any case I was determined to see her off, come what might.

  Then I remembered something. As Chief Commissioner I had absolute control over the airports of England in a time of crisis. In any case, it would be as well to close the sea-drome in preparation for the May Flower's arrival. I would then be certain that no one could possibly get at Captain Pring to question him before I could. And if I chose to detain e
ven the Royal Mail for half an hour later on in the evening, under the circumstances no one would say me nay.

  There was a telephone box in the hall of the Royal Hotel. In thirty seconds my orders were given, and not a living soul would enter or leave Plymouth sea-drome without my permission. I strolled into the winter gardens, where I found Connie sitting at a little table among tubs of azaleas and listening to the strains of a ladies' orchestra.

  "I've half an hour and ten minutes exactly, darling," I said, putting my watch on the table and helping her to early strawberries. "Tell me when the time's up, and then I must rush away for an hour before we dine."

  Straightway I forgot all about the Albatros, Captain Pring, and the mysterious armed ship in mid-Atlantic.

  Knowing what I know now, I wonder how I could have taken it so lightly. But grave and serious as the affair was, amazing too in its boldness, an elaborate and unexpected masterpiece of crime, it seemed remote and very far away, like something one reads of in a foreign newspaper, never conceiving that it can have anything to do with one's own personal life.

  If only I could have peeped but a little way into the future!