The purchase of petrol proved to be a lengthy transaction, for Schwab was impelled to tell the story to the store-keeper, he repeated it to his clerks, they ran out to tell the neighbours, and the place was soon thronged with Germans--merchants, clerks, sailors, stokers--all eager to see the airman who was flying round the world. The store was filled with smoke and gutturals. The purchase being at last concluded, the cans were rolled to a motor lorry which lumbered along in the direction of Mulinuu like a triumphal car at the head of a procession.
First came Smith with Schw.a.n.kmacher on his right and Schwab on his left; then a crowd of the German population, in which wealthy merchants found themselves neighbours to grimy stokers, and youthful clerks to the inevitable uniforms; the tail was formed of swarthy Samoans, men and women, skipping boys and laughing girls with flowers in their hair.
Rodier had cleaned the engine, and was eating his dinner among the cabbages. He favoured the crowd with a pleasant smile, although some were Germans, and because others were pretty.
The petrol was placed on board and the tank filled, Smith, with long-suffering patience, replying to the questions of the English-speaking spectators. All was at last ready for the start; Schwab, who alone of the company had knowledge of the conditions, made himself useful in clearing the course; and Schw.a.n.kmacher positively declined to accept payment for the plants which had been crushed under the aeroplane, and those which were trampled by the spectators" feet.
When the airmen were in their places, Schwab limped up.
"Permit me to shake hands viz ze first circ.u.mnavigator of ze sky," he said with effusion, "and to remind you zat my firma Schlagintwert vill be most happy to supply you viz anyzink vatefer zat you need, and in vatefer region of ze globe you may be, on receipt of postcard, telegram, cable, or Marconigram. Hoch!"
His cheer was taken up by the crowd. The machine moved forward. Herr Schw.a.n.kmacher, stepping back, fell into the arms of a grinning stoker, and a little native boy, shrieking with fright, ran head-first into the corpulent frame of a merchant who was more stable in his copra business than in his legs. The aeroplane flew up; the crowd watched its ascension like adoring worshippers of some sky deity; and in three minutes it was a mere speck in the cloudless blue.
CHAPTER XVI
A STOP-PRESS MESSAGE
Mr. John McMurtrie, editor of the _Toronto Sphere_, a capable journalist and a man of many friends, strolled into his office about three o"clock one Wednesday afternoon. His first extra edition was due at four, and it may seem that he had allowed himself a very short time for dealing with fresh items of news that had come to hand since noon; but he had an excellent a.s.sistant, who took a real interest in his work, so that there was no need for the editor to hurry his luncheon or the ensuing cigar.
"Well, Daniels," he said genially, as he entered his a.s.sistant"s room.
He sat across a corner of the table, exhibiting a well-developed calf neatly covered with golfing hose. "Is there anything fresh and frothy on the tape?"
"Not much. A wire from "Frisco about those flying men."
"You don"t say so?"
"Here it is."
He handed the slip to his chief, who ran his eye over the message. The words employed were few, but a journalist of McMurtrie"s experience instinctively covered the bare bones with a respectable integument, and clothed this with a quite picturesque raiment by force of the more ornamental parts of speech.
The substance of what he read was as follows: A cable message had reached San Francisco from Honolulu in the afternoon of the previous day, announcing that an aeroplane had alighted there about three o"clock that morning, the owner, a Lieutenant Thistleton (so it was corrupted) Smith declaring that he had come from Samoa in sixteen hours, and was proceeding to San Francisco. He had left three hours later, having waited only to take in a stock of petrol. On receipt of this message the editor of every newspaper in the city had arranged for a relay of reporters to be up all night and watch for the arrival of this extraordinary machine. Shortly after midnight the hum of the propellers was heard over Golden Gate, and a light in the sky indicating the course of the aeroplane, a dozen journalists, in motor-cars, rushed after it, but were hopelessly out-distanced. They discovered it on the outskirts of the city. The airmen had already landed. The reporter who was first in the race seized upon Lieutenant Smith, and learning that he had only alighted to obtain more petrol, rushed him back to the city in his car. His comrades and compet.i.tors, on arriving, sought to interview the second man, whose name they had not been able to ascertain; but he was very uncommunicative, being occupied in cleaning the engine. Lieutenant Smith was back with petrol in twenty minutes; in half-an-hour he was again on his way. This extreme haste caused great disappointment to the airmen and civic dignitaries of the city, they having risen from their beds on hearing of his arrival to honour Lieutenant Smith with a reception. When they reached the spot where he had descended, he had been gone some ten minutes. In the race to meet him, one of the motor-cars collided with an electric-light standard and was overturned, its occupant, Mr.
Aeneas T. Muckleridge, being carried to hospital in a critical condition. Several San Francisco newspapers had published interviews with Lieutenant Smith, one of them ten columns long.
Mr. McMurtrie chuckled as he read this dispatch in the shorthand of the news agency.
"Bedad, "tis worth a special editorial, Daniels. But why didn"t we get it before, man? It ought to have been in time for the morning papers."
"You remember, sir, there"s been something wrong with the line to-day through the storm."
"So there has, indeed. Well, take out that stuff about the new British tariff, and send Davis in to me."
He went into his room, sat back in his chair, pushed up his golfing cap, and smiled as he meditated the periods of his editorial. In a few moments a thin, ragged-headed youth entered with an air of haste and terror. He carried a paper-block, which he set on his knee, looking anxiously at the editor. Mr. McMurtrie began to dictate, the stenographer"s pencil flying over the paper as he sought to overtake the rapid utterance of his chief. The article, as it appeared on the second page of the _Sphere_ an hour later, ran as follows:
HOCUS POCUS
A hoax, or as our merry ancestors would have called it, a flam, is usually the most ephemeral and evanescent of human devices. Like a boy"s soap bubble, it glitters for a brief moment in iridescent rotundity, then ceases to be even a film of air. It is unsubstantial as the tail of Halley"s comet. On rare occasions, it is true, its existence is prolonged; many worthy people are beguiled; and some enthusiasts are so effectually hoodwinked as to persist in their delusion, and even to form societies for its propagation. But mankind at large is sufficiently sane to avoid a fall into this abyss of the absurd, and, having paid its tribute of laughter, goes its way without being a cent the worse.
San Francisco appears to be the latest victim of The Great Aviation Hoax, and we shall watch the progressive stages of its disillusionment with sympathetic interest, or the development of its newest cult with sincere commiseration.
Like many other phenomena, good and bad, this gigantic flam, it will be remembered, took its rise in the east. Its genesis was reported in Constantinople nearly a week ago: then at intervals we learnt that these mysterious airmen, one of whom with artful artlessness had adopted the plain, respectable, and specious name of Smith, had manifested themselves at Karachi, Penang, and Port Darwin successively. The curtain then dropped, and the world waited with suspense for the opening of the next act, though there were some who suspected that the performers had slipped away with the cash-box during the interval, and would never be heard of again. However, the curtain has at last rung up at the golden city of the west, and it is certainly a mark of the ingenuity of the concocters of the hoax that they allowed at least twenty-four hours for the pa.s.sage of the Pacific. In another column we give an account of a visit to San Francisco, in the small hours of this morning, from which it will be seen that the city fathers narrowly escaped making themselves ridiculous, the flying men having wisely disappeared before the munic.i.p.al deputation, hastily summoned from their beds, had time to make the indispensable changes in their attire. It need scarcely be hinted that there are many accomplished aviators in San Francisco who would take a jovial pleasure in lending themselves to this amusing hoax, if only for the chance of seeing their most reverend seniors in pyjamas.
A glance at the itinerary of the alleged world tourists, coupled with a comparison of dates, will show how impossible it is for them to have covered the stages of their tour in the time claimed. Indeed, it is almost an insult to our readers" intelligence even to suggest this comparison. The record put up by Blakeney in his New York-Chicago flight was 102 miles per hour for six consecutive hours. If the flying men who are now a.s.serted to have touched at San Francisco are the same as were reported by the Constantinople correspondent of the London _Times_ on Friday last, a simple calculation will show that they must have flown for many days at a time at twice Blakeney"s speed, with the briefest intervals for food and rest. It is not yet claimed that the alleged Smith and his anonymous companion have discovered a means of dispensing with sleep, or that they are content, like the fabulous chameleon, to live on air. Our children may live to witness such developments in the science of aviation as may render possible an aerial journey of this length and celerity; but so sudden an augmentation of the speed and endurance of the aeroplane, to say nothing of the more delicate mechanism of the human frame, demands a more authentic confirmation of the midnight impressions of the San Francisco journalists than has yet come to hand. In short, we do not believe a word of it, and our speculation at the moment is, what brand of soap or tinned meat, what new machine oil, or panacea for human ills, these ingeniously arranged manifestations are intended to boom.
"What do you think of that, Davis?" asked Mr. McMurtrie at the end of six minutes" rapid dictation. It was his pardonable weakness to claim the admiration of his subordinates.
"Bully, sir," replied the shorthand-writer timidly. As a matter of fact, he thought nothing at all, his whole attention having been so completely absorbed by his task of making dots and curves and dashes as to leave no portion of his brain available for receiving mental impressions. But the editor was satisfied. Telling the youth to transcribe his notes and send the flimsies page by page as completed to the printer, he took up his golf sticks, pa.s.sed through the outer office, instructing his a.s.sistant to read the proof, and departed to his recreation.
There is an excellent golf course on the Scarborough Bluffs, the rugged, seamed, and fissured cliffs that form the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, near Toronto. Boarding a trolley-car, Mr. McMurtrie soon reached the club-house, where he found his friend Harry Cleave already awaiting him.
"Hullo, Mac. Day"s work done?" was Mr. Cleave"s salutation.
"Indeed it is. The best day"s work I have done for a good while."
"Then you are pitching into somebody or something, that"s certain.
What is it this time?"
"Bubbles, my boy. Those flying-men are after spinning again. Some of the "Frisco men will have a pain within side of "em when they read how I have touched "em up. Now then, Cleave, we"ve got the course to ourselves. I"m sure I can give you half a stroke and a beating. "Tis your honour."
The consciousness of having touched up the "Frisco men seemed to have a salutary influence on Mr. McMurtrie"s play. He was in the top of form, won the first two holes, and was in the act of lifting his club to drive off from the tee of number three, when a faint buzzing sound from the direction of the lake caused him to suspend the stroke and glance over the placid blue water. Far away in the sky he saw a dark speck about the size of a swallow, which, however, grew with extraordinary rapidity, and in a few moments declared itself to be an aeroplane containing two men.
"Be jabers!" quoth Mr. McMurtrie, resting his club on the ground and watching the flying machine with eyes in which might have been discerned a shade of misgiving.
It was, perhaps, thirty seconds from the time when he first caught sight of it that the aeroplane came perpendicularly above his head, the whirring ceased, and the machine descended with graceful swoop upon the well-cropt turf within fifty yards of the spot where the two golfers stood. As soon as it alighted, Mr. McMurtrie handed his sticks to the caddie, and, as one released from a spell, hurried to meet the man who had just stepped out of the car.
"That"s Toronto over yonder?" said Smith without ceremony.
"Indeed it is," replied McMurtrie, taking stock of the dirty dishevelled figure. "Your name"s not Smith?"
"Indeed it is!"
"Holy Moses!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed McMurtrie, and, to Smith"s amazement, he turned his back and sprinted at the speed of a race-horse towards the club-house a few hundred yards away. He rushed to the telephone box, rang up his office, and, catching at his breath, waited with feverish eagerness for the answer to his call.
"You there, Daniels? I"m McMurtrie. For any sake stop press, cancel that leader, put back the tariff, votes for women, anything, only stop it.... What!... Edition off the machine!... Don"t let a copy leave the office.... What!... First deliveries made!... Recall "em, or the paper"s ruined. Smith"s here!... No, This-something Smith ...
no, you a.s.s, the naval lieutenant, he flying man: don"t you understand!... understand!... are you there?... Get out a special edition at once.... Where"s Davis? Bring him to the "phone to take a note.... That you, Davis? Take this down.... "As we go to press we have the best of evidence for the statement that the marvellous world-flight of that intrepid young airman, Lieutenant Thistledown Smith, of the British Navy, is a sober fact, and not, as our sceptical wiseacres have a.s.serted, an ingeniously concocted hoax. Lieutenant Smith descended at 3:50 this afternoon on the Scarborough Bluffs, having accomplished the enormous distance from San Francisco without a stop, in the marvellous time of twelve hours, twenty-one minutes, and fourteen seconds. In our final edition, which will be accelerated, we shall publish an interview with Lieutenant Smith, with exclusive particulars of his remarkable voyage and his romantic career."
"I"m not so sure of that," said Smith dryly. He had entered with Mr.
Cleave, and heard the frenzied editor"s concluding sentences. "To begin with, I stopped at St. Paul, and was lucky enough to escape without attracting any attention. I shouldn"t have been here but for the storm."
"For goodness" sake, Lieutenant, don"t tell anybody that. A little stop at St. Paul isn"t worth making a fuss about. You"ll come along into the city with me, and we will get a few of the boys together and give you a topping dinner."
"I"d rather be hanged," said Smith. "The fact is, I only came down to get enough petrol on board to take me across the Atlantic. You can tell me where to get what I want?"
"Indeed I can. I tell you what. I"ll "phone for the petrol--how much do you want?--and get it out here in no time. You won"t mind me ringing up a few particular friends, and inviting them out to see you?"
"Please don"t do anything of the kind. I"m very tired; I"m not presentable; and I"ve no time to spare."