Dave Dashaway and His Giant Airship: or, A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic

CHAPTER XXIII
THE FORLORN HOPE

Hiram and Brackett joined the young aviator in a rush for the passageway leading to the pilot room. It was from that direction that the cry had echoed.

A sharp, double danger signal rang out from the engine room. There were sounds of distant shouts. The yell was repeated. Some keen intuition drove Dave to the stateroom which had served as invalid ward for the man rescued from the raft.

“Hiram,” cried the young aviator, “Davidson is gone!”

“Why, it can’t be! Say – whew! suppose he’s gone wild, and is rambling all over the ship among that machinery!”

Snap – crack! Following upon the echoes of that second terrific cry, a disturbing thing had happened – every electric light in the Albatross went out!

To add to the confusion and terror of the moment, in the direction of the engine room there rang out a thumping, crashing sound, as if some disjointed part of the machinery was beating things to pieces like a steel flail.

“Stand still,” ordered Dave, sharply, “don’t try to grope about in the dark. It’s no use.”

The young aviator felt his way out into a corridor leading to the supply room. It was a fortunate thing that he had familiarized himself with everything about the place. Dave located a certain cabinet, and opening one of its drawers, took out what he was after – an armful of electric hand lights carrying their own batteries.

“Here, Hiram, Brackett,” he called, flashing one of the tubes. “Take some of these. Follow me. I don’t know that the people in the engine rooms have any way of getting a light. Let us hurry to them.”

“Hold on!” shouted a new voice, and Grimshaw bolted upon the scene. “What’s the trouble?”

“We don’t know, but something pretty serious, I imagine,” replied Dave, quickly. “Take these.”

He furnished Grimshaw with two of the electric tubes. Then Dave led the way to the pilot room. He found Mr. King lighting matches to get some kind of illumination, and as ignorant themselves as to the condition of affairs. The aviator at once led a rush in the direction of the engine room. They arrived at the ante-chamber leading to it to come upon a stirring scene.

A small hand lamp only illuminated the apartment. It contained four men, the professor, two of his assistants, and these latter were holding to the floor and battling with and binding hand and foot a wild, struggling maniac – Roger Davidson.

“He got loose!” cried the aviator, at once reading the situation.

“And in his frenzy has done terrible damage to the Albatross,” exclaimed Professor Leblance, pale, disturbed and anxious-faced. “It is very serious, I fear. Get him away to the cabin as speedily as you can, and watch him every minute. You, Mr. King, resume your post at the pilot table. Dashaway, hurry all the spare light tubes here.”

There was a shivery, uncertain wobble to the giant airship now. The prodigious construction resembled some monster machine that had received a vital wound. Dave hastened on his mission. As he returned to the engine room he passed Hiram, Brackett and one of the assistants, carrying Davidson back to the stateroom.

Mr. King was at his post at the pilot table, and looked worried and helpless. The electric apparatus of the airship having been destroyed, he could only sit and use the speaking tubes.

Dave found the engine room in hideous disorder. The engine was not in operation, and parts of it were all out of order. The professor and his men were getting a reserve engine in shape. For over an hour, silently, and deeply engrossed in all that was going on, the young aviator placed the light tubes as directed, and brought this and that tool and machine-fitting to the workmen as Professor Leblance ordered.

Dave saw the new engine started up. The professor held a long, whispered conversation with one of his men. Then he beckoned to Dave and led the way to the pilot room.

The Frenchman sank into a chair there, his face gray and careworn. They were three anxious ones. Leblance passed his hand over his eyes wearily, as if he had gone through a terrible ordeal.

“Well?” said the aviator simply.

“That maniac threw an iron bar into the machinery. He has ruined everything,” announced Leblance.

“But the new engine?”

“Can only operate the rudder control. The entire mechanism is practically destroyed, my friends. I must not conceal from you that the situation is desperate, dangerous, almost hopeless!”

“But we are still running, Professor?” submitted the aviator.

“With one forlorn hope in view.”

“Of reaching the end of our voyage?”

“That we can never hope for,” declared the Frenchman, in a gloomy tone.

“Then – what?” bluntly demanded the aviator.

Leblance arose to his feet, running one hand over his eyes with a swift movement as if to restore impaired vision or brush away tears. He proceeded to a map attached to the wall just above the pilot table. His fingers traced the course already traversed by the Albatross.

“We are here,” he said, halting the faltering index. “Ahead, observe, is an island. It is two hundred miles southwest of the coast of France. We may possibly reach it by exhausting every utility we possess. If we do not, within the next forty-eight hours – ”

The professor shrugged his shoulders slowly, sadly this time. An expression of ineffable solemnity crossed his noble face.

He pointed down as if indicating unknown depths waiting to swallow them up. Then he again ran his finger across the map, pausing at that little dark speck that marked the island.

“A change of wind,” he said, “a single break in the apparatus, a trifling leak, and we are at the mercy of the mishap of our lives! That island – it is our last forlorn hope!”

CHAPTER XXIV
GOAL!

“It’s too bad,” said Hiram, and the young aviator’s assistant was very nearly at the point of tears.

“We can only make the best of it,” returned Dave, trying to be philosophical. “At any rate, we made a grand run.”

“Yes, it’s something to beat the world’s record, even half the way,” agreed Hiram. “But think of it – only for that awful break of Davidson we’d have won the day!”

The two young airmen sat outside of a wretched little hotel, a part of a remote fishing town on the island that had been “the forlorn hope” of the Albatross. The giant airship had succeeded in reaching it.

As Dave sat rather gloomily reviewing experience and prospects, he could not help but think of the past two nights and a day with a thrill. That had been a desperate, hair-breadth dash of the crippled airship. Without knowing all the technical details of their situation, Dave had read from the tireless, feverish actions of Professor Leblance, that he was rushing the Albatross under a fearful strain of risk and suspense, momentarily dreading a new and final disaster.

Before daylight, with a flabby gas bag and with the reserve engine barely able to work the propellers, the Albatross had settled down on a desolate stretch of beach, practically a wreck.

“The mechanism has played out completely,” Leblance had asserted. “According to the regulations of the international society, the flight must end on the French or English mainland. We are two hundred miles short. We might as well be two thousand.”

“Is there no possible chance of getting new machinery, of making temporary repairs that will tide us over?” suggested Mr. King.

“Impossible, under days, even weeks,” replied the Frenchman. “On the rule schedule a stay at any point over twelve hours cancels the right of entry.”

It was, indeed, too bad – so near to success, so very close to goal! A profound gloom had spread over every member of the airship crowd. The islanders had viewed the strange craft with excited curiosity at first, and had then gone back to their fishing. Davidson had been removed to a room at the little hotel, young Brackett in charge as his nurse, and all the others had taken up their quarters as well.

The young aviator and his comrade had been discussing the situation seated on an overturned boat. Hiram at length arose with a dreary kind of sigh and strolled aimlessly back towards the hotel. Dave sat thinking deeply. He started up, however, as he saw Brackett coming towards him.

“Dashaway,” he said quite excitedly, “I’ve got to get back to my charge, don’t dare to leave him alone, you know but I wanted you to read something,” and the speaker extended some folded sheets of paper.

“Why, what is this?” inquired the young aviator.

“You know I understand shorthand – humph! it’s about all I am good for, I reckon,” added Elmer, in his usual deprecating way. “Well, for the past hour or two my patient has been saying some strange things.”

“What about?” asked Dave – “the Dictator and Jerry Dawson, I suppose?”

“You’ve guessed it. I’ve written out his ramblings in long hand. I fancy your quick mind will weave a pretty startling story out of it all.”

“There’s the professor,” said Dave abruptly, “I’ll read your notes later, Brackett,” and he thrust the sheets into his pocket, and started towards the beach as he saw Professor Leblance leave the hotel, bound in the same direction.

The failure of the ambitious Frenchman had almost crushed him. Dave felt sorry for him as he noted the drooping head and dejected manner of the scientist. He did not approach him closely, but followed him at a distance. As they rounded some rocks the Albatross came into full view.

Professor Leblance, walking slowly, gazed with sadness upon the inert monster of the air. Then he looked up at a hail. A fisherman was running towards him. Dave noticed the professor brace up magically at the first words of the native. The latter pointed to the air and the sea. His pantomime was expressive and energetic.

There came a sudden blast of wind, and then Dave understood. He noticed the professor start on a keen run for the Albatross. He was up the trailing rope ladder sprightly as a lad, shouting some orders to the fisherman, who ran towards the guy cable attached to a great tree trunk.

“It can’t be possible,” almost gasped the startled young airman, “that Professor Leblance is thinking of trusting to the wind alone to finish the flight. It’s true! I won’t be left behind!”

Dave caught at the ladder just as the propeller began to whir. By the time he was in the cabin the earth was fading away. He threaded the corridors in the direction of the engine room.

“Dashaway!” shouted the professor in amazement, as the young airman burst in upon him.

“Yes, Professor, I am here,” said Dave. “You are going to make a try to reach the mainland? I am with you.”

There was no time for compliments, explanations or delay. In two minutes’ time the professor had made his assistant aware of what was required of him. Practically only as a balloon could the Albatross now act, and only provided the strong wind maintained in precisely the direction it was now set.

“See, my friend,” spoke Leblance, eagerly, “we have no control whatever over the planes. The steering apparatus, too, is useless. The engine will barely take care of the propellers. If you know how to operate them, take my seat here. Keep the rudder locked firm. That is all we can do. For the rest – it is a risk, a perilous risk.”

“Anything to get there!” cried Dave; and then the professor left him alone.

The Albatross had risen to a good altitude at her first spurt. She drove with the wind at a wonderful rate of speed. At the end of an hour, however, the young aviator noticed a gradual drop. The buoyancy of the gas bag was lessening.

After that Dave heard the professor working with tools below the cabin. He was quite startled as there was a jerk. Then he saw first one and then the other of the aeroplane attachments go hurtling down to the water, engulfed by the ocean.

Relieved of such an incubus the airship regained a higher level. Two hours went by, then three. The professor appeared in a great state of excitement and hopefulness.

“She’s dropping again, but don’t let up for an instant,” he ordered. “I see the land ahead – two hours more, and we’ve made it.”

“Will the gas last?” inquired the young aviator, seriously.

“I am about to free our final reserve – one tank. That will do for a spell. Then – if I have to explode the balloonets into the main gas chamber, we must keep aloft till we are over land.”

Up – down – up – down – that was the progress for the next two hours. Once it was nearly a volplane drift, and the dauntless young pilot of the Albatross fancied they were headed for a dive straight into the ocean’s depths.

A final rise, and Dave’s heart cheered as he saw land not two miles distant. Professor Leblance rushed into the engine room.

“Drift!” he ordered – “let her drop as she likes now – we have arrived!”

The brave old scientist tottered from excitement and exhaustion as he spoke. A great, thrilling cheer seemed to lift from the lips of the young aviator, and ten minutes later the Albatross, a wobbling, flabby, weather-worn wreck, landed on a great dock in the sight of waiting thousands.

“Boy,” spoke Professor Leblance, in a ringing tone and with sparkling eyes, “we have reached goal! The giant airship has crossed the Atlantic!”

CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUSION

“This is Professor Leblance, I believe? We have been expecting you, sir.”

“And this is my friend and co-worker, David Dashaway,” spoke the French scientist, proudly.

It was thirty-six hours after the giant airship had landed on French soil. Within that space of time rapid and interesting events had been crowded into the experience of the young American aviator.

At once after the landing, the professor had sought out the nearest resident representative of the French Aero Association. This individual had officially verified the arrival of the Albatross. Armed with the necessary credentials, Leblance and his young assistant had started at once for London.

Their destination, now reached, was the International Aero Institute, with whom trans-Atlantic negotiations had been made before the Albatross started on its trip. The French official had wired about the coming of the distinguished visitors.

Now Dave Dashaway, like the professor, arrayed in a handsome new suit of clothes, stood in the office of one of the most noted organizations in the aero world.

The first flush of the recent triumph still dwelt with Dave. Then there flashed over his mind the marvelous contrast between the present moment and less than six months previous. Then he had been the obscure down-trodden ward of a cruel guardian. Now through a mist of grateful tears the young aviator thought tenderly of the right royal friends who had assisted in crossing the Atlantic in the giant airship and who had loyally helped him to become the honored guest of men famous the world over for science and intelligent adventure.

The secretary of the club who had greeted them stood aside with a courteous bow to usher them into the reception room of the club. As he did so he said:

“We are proud to greet you, Professor. Your exploit will live in history, notwithstanding that you are second in the remarkable feat of crossing the Atlantic in an airship.”

The sensitive Frenchman recoiled as though dealt a blow.

“How?” he cried sharply. “Second? what does this mean?”

“You had not heard? Ah, yes, the Dictator, pilot J. E. Dawson, landed near Plymouth day before yesterday. After a terrible trip, clinging to the mere rag of a gas bag, Dawson was found nearly drowned on the seashore.”

Professor Leblance sank to a chair stupefied. He stared like a man stunned into vacancy. He was completely overcome.

A strange expression crossed the face of the young aviator. Impulsively his hand went to a certain document that Elmer Brackett had given him two days before. His eye grew more steady, his lips more firm.

“Will you kindly give me a few details of the Dictator flight,” he requested, “while Professor Leblance recovers from his surprise?”

It was a brief story. The red, white and blue gas bag had landed near Plymouth. The daring pilot was discovered clinging to it, drenched to the skin. He had been feted, honored, brought to London. He was even now in the next room, relating his wonderful adventures to the president and directors of the club.

“Come, Professor Leblance,” said Dave, in a clear, steady tone, “I have something to say to this wonderful J. E. Dawson.”

“Professor Leblance and Mr. Dashaway, of the Albatross,” introduced the secretary, a minute later.

Lolling in a luxurious armchair in the midst of some braggadocio recital, with a startled jerk Jerry Dawson came upright as though electrified.

The eye of the young aviator rested upon him with a fixedness that made him squirm.

“Happy to meet you, Professor Leblance,” greeted the club official. “You share a most glorious exploit with our guest.”

“One word first,” interrupted Dave, amazed at his own firmness of voice and nerve. “So there may be no later misunderstanding, does that young man, whom I recognize as a Mr. Dawson, claim to have arrived first in the race across the Atlantic?”

“Most assuredly,” responded the club president.

“His claim is unfounded,” declared the young aviator in a calm, even tone, but with great positiveness. “He is an adventurer, a fraud. He crossed the Atlantic on the steamer Alsatia. The balloon found on the Plymouth coast is a duplicate of the Dictator which he brought along with him, and the original Dictator, after a brief land run, was purposely burned up fifty miles from New York city.”

“Who says so?” shouted Jerry Dawson, getting excitedly to his feet.

“Roger Davidson,” replied the young aviator, simply.

Jerry Dawson grew white to the lips. He foresaw the losing game, but still he blurted out:

“The proofs?”

“Gentlemen,” said Dave, “a cablegram will serve to order an investigation of the ashes of the Dictator. A living witness as to the shipboard experience of this young romancer can be brought to London as soon as our friends are reached.”

“Why, if this is true, the club will be the laughing stock of the world,” observed the president, bending a dark look on Jerry.

“I – I think I’ll go and consult a lawyer about this insulting charge,” ventured Jerry. “Let me out.”

“No, we will kick you out, if this is all true!” shouted an angry director.

“You will remain here,” said the president, firmly. “Your story, sir, the truthful one; or we shall hold you criminally for false representation.”

Jerry was scared. Dave’s resolute face daunted him most of all. He trembled and shivered. By degrees he confessed. He was taken to the office of the club to furnish a signed statement. Then he was turned loose on the streets of London – exit ingloriously Jerry Dawson!

The invalid wanderings of Davidson had supplied his nurse, Elmer Brackett, with a pretty clear history of the plot to impose a duplicate Dictator on the public. While under the influence of a drug, Davidson had fallen from the steamer, and Jerry had thrown a grating after him. Perhaps the hope of securing all the international prize money for himself, had led Jerry to say nothing further about the accident.

There was a great celebration at a noted London hotel the week following. The most humble member of the crew of the Albatross was present.

Money and fame had come to them all. Dave Dashaway was the central figure with the public. Professor Leblance seemed to take most pride in the construction of the Albatross. Young, enterprising, popular, Dave, as the last man at the helm of the ill-fated Albatross, was the real hero of the event.

“Well, lads,” said the happy Professor Leblance across the table to Dave, Hiram and Elmer, “you have now reached so high a notch in aeronautic science that you can go no further.”

“Mistake,” piped up the irrepressible Hiram.

“Oh, yes, a grave mistake, Professor,” insisted young Brackett.

Dave Dashaway only smiled.

“Come, what’s up with you young people?” challenged the good-natured Mr. King.

“Why,” spoke the young aviator, “when we go back home, and you have put that promised quietus on that rascal Vernon, we are going to Elmer’s father and have him build for us a magnificent aeroplane that will beat anything ever before constructed.”

“And the purpose?” inquired old Grimshaw, with a hopeful twinkle in his eye.

“Why,” replied Dave, “our idea is to get up a great international race around the globe.”

“That’s it,” jubilated the veteran airman. “I knew it would be something grand and original.”

“Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Russia – finishing where we began,” explained Dave Dashaway.

“Can it be done?”

“I think so.”

“But the danger – ”

“There was danger in crossing the mighty Atlantic.”

“I know that. But to go around the world. You will meet all sort of strange people and get in many a tight situation, and – ”

“But Dave Dashaway can do it, trust him,” said Mr. Dale, proudly. “He is the son of his father – you can trust him.”

“Oh, you can’t beat Dave,” cried Hiram. “His enemies have tried it, and failed, every time.”

So we leave our young airmen, full of ardor and hope, with their wonderful plans. How the same were carried out in a most remarkable aviation exploit, will be told in a succeeding volume, to be entitled, “Dave Dashaway Around the World; Or, A Young Yankee Aviator Among Many Nations.”

“Only one Dave Dashaway in this world,” said Hiram, to young Brackett.

“The best friend I ever had!” murmured the other. “One boy in a million!”

“Right you are!”

THE END