"Don"t scare the young fellow," cried Andrew jovially. "There, d.i.c.k, we"ll take you. Just go along and tell your men, and then turn in.
You"ve had enough adventure and excitement for the evening."
When, ten minutes later, d.i.c.k laid his head upon a soft pillow and pulled the clothes about him he could not believe that he was really aboard a flying vessel, could not credit the fact that he and his men were resting three thousand feet above the ocean.
CHAPTER V
A Tour of Inspection
"Hallo there! Turn out! It"s a grand morning and there are things worth seeing."
It was the cheery Alec who aroused d.i.c.k Hamshaw on the day after his rescue outside the Needles and his introduction to the airship. d.i.c.k wakened with a start, rolled over comfortably, and blinked at his new friend.
"Eh! My watch. Not it," he grumbled sleepily. "I was off late last night and have had the d.i.c.kens of a nightmare since. Fancied I was aloft in a big airship. Leave a fellow alone to sleep, do."
Alec shook him, laughing loudly. "So you call our airship a nightmare!"
he cried. "That"s a nice thing to do when the Admiralty have offered you and your men as part of our crew and Mr. Provost has accepted you. I"ll tell the Commander. You"d better be getting back to your ship, for there are dozens of fellows who"d be only too glad to come aboard here."
That brought the great d.i.c.ky to his senses. He sat up on an elbow, still blinking at Alec with half-open eyes. Then those sharp orbs of his opened widely, the light of full understanding returned to them, and in an instant he was out of bed.
"My word, but I"ve been dreaming the whole affair over again, and couldn"t think it could be true. And it"s real? Eh? Actually a fact that I"m on board an airship high in the air. How high did you say?"
Alec made no answer. He stepped across the carpeted floor of this roomy cabin, with its milk-white walls and furniture, and its pictures secured to those same walls by tiny cleats of transparent material, and turning back some hangings exposed a window three times the size of an ordinary porthole, and provided with a pane of what one would have imagined was gla.s.s. But it bent with the force of the wind. Half open, the frame projected into the room at an angle to d.i.c.k, and glancing at it he caught a reflection of the sun, now bright, and a second later blurred as the pane bent and the surface was altered. The simple fact brought him bounding after Alec. He ran his fingers over both sides of the pane, bent the material backward and forward, and then tapped it with his knuckles. That done he suddenly gazed upward, only to find himself disappointed.
"You don"t expect to have transparent roofs to your cabins too, do you?"
laughed Alec. "A fellow couldn"t undress without half the crew seeing him. No, the ceilings of the dressing-rooms, cabins, and so forth are made opaque. But this window gives you a good idea of the stuff of which the ship"s made. Now, take a squint below."
d.i.c.k did as he was bidden, and instantly clutched tight to the frame of the window. For down below, down a terrible distance, was a smooth, oily surface which he guessed was the ocean. And on it were a number of minute dots at irregular intervals, while away to the right was a blurred patch of white, which might be land or anything else. The sight made him absolutely giddy. A glance away to his right showed him the under-surface of this enormous ship, transparent, it is true, but of a bluish-grey colour owing to the shadows cast upon it. It was immense. It stretched away from him in an easily-curving line till it was lost in the distance. And beneath it there was nothing, nothing but thin elusive air, and far, far below that muddy ocean.
"Jingo!" he gasped.
Alec grinned. "Makes a chap feel queer at first," he said. "But, as I"ve told you before, it"s as safe as houses. Here, tumble into a tub. It"ll buck you up, and when you"ve been on top with me and had a general look round you"ll feel as right as a trivet. Shave?"
"Eh?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Do you shave?"
"Er, no--that is to say, not always."
"Lucky beggar! I have to. A beast of a job, and takes half the morning.
You pop into the tub. We"ve a bath between us, and I dare say by the time you"ve finished I shall have managed to get rid of this growth.
Awful bore I find it."
d.i.c.ky couldn"t help but grin. He stepped across to Alec, forgetful now of the strange sight he had witnessed outside, placed himself directly in front of him, and closely scrutinized his features, maintaining a gravity there was no fathoming.
"Poor beggar!" he said at last. "Awful hard lines, ain"t it? You"ll find it difficult to get down to breakfast."
To be perfectly truthful, there was not so much as a single hair on Alec"s chin or lip, any more than there was on Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw"s.
And the gravity of his guest, his candour, and those twinkling eyes quite made up to Alec for any soreness he may have felt at this somewhat personal declaration. He flushed a rosy red, and then burst into loud laughter.
"Oh well, perhaps I imagined it a bit," he said. "If I stick to the razor things"ll come along in time. There, into the tub. I"ll be along in a jiffy."
Ten minutes later, in fact, they were dressed and ready to leave the cabin, d.i.c.k having found his own clothes dried, brushed, and neatly folded beside his bed.
"I say," he began, "how do you come to be aboard? Tell me."
"Cousin of Joe"s: going to be an engineer one of these days. Accepted his invitation in a jiffy. Come on. Breakfast"ll be ready in half an hour, so we"ve time to make a round of the ship. Now, up we go to the top deck of all; it"ll give you a good impression of the vessel."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ARRIVED WITH A b.u.mP FACING COMMANDER JACKSON
_Page 85_]
They stepped into that strange lift again and were whisked on high. A minute later they were in the open, with a brisk breeze blowing about them and the genial rays of the sun pouring down upon them. Gazing in every direction d.i.c.k found himself stepping upon a flat deck of transparent material, immediately beneath which he could easily see the beams that supported it. Down lower still, beneath a deep s.p.a.ce, which common sense told him must be filled with gas, were more beams, curving neatly to complete the shape of this ship, and beneath them again, stretching on either side of a central gallery a number of cabins, some with transparent roofs, others with opaque material let into the ceilings. And yet deeper, forming the lowest portion of the ship, was one long compartment, through the roof of which he could see engines, with a couple of men attending to them.
"Let"s get along aft, then we"ll make forward," said Alec, showing the various parts of the ship with pride. "I"ll tell you something about her. She"s longer than the latest Zeppelin, and equally deep from top to bottom. You can see that her shape is flattened from above downward, which makes her very much wider than a Zeppelin. Care to come out to one of the side keels?"
d.i.c.k hesitated. Then catching sight of a rail pa.s.sing from this main deck down the easily-sloping side of the vessel he nodded. After all, he wasn"t going to be beaten by Alec.
"Right," he said. "Get ahead."
They clambered over the main rail to find themselves on a narrow way provided with very shallow steps. This brought them after a minute right out to the farthest lateral edge of the ship, to that lateral keel, in fact, which Joe Gresson had made such a point of. And there the rail ended abruptly. Alec leaned over it and invited d.i.c.k to join him.
"Ripping, eh?" he asked. "Getting your balance at last, I expect. Don"t seem so dreadful now, does it?"
It did not by a great deal. The midshipman was bound to confess that he was becoming accustomed to his surroundings. More than that, the huge bulk of this floating monster, the fact that she never even trembled, while the weight of himself and his comrade now brought right out to the farthest edge caused no sign of heeling, impressed him vastly with the stability of the vessel. He was beginning to catch some of Alec"s enthusiasm. He was longing to peep into every corner, to get to understand every detail. And we must remember that Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw was not unacquainted with things mechanical. What naval officer can be in these days, indeed, when the old wooden walls have long since departed, and when your modern ship is composed of steel, while almost every movement aboard her, however trivial, is, where possible, carried out by some cleverly-contrived mechanical means? No, d.i.c.k had a fondness for mechanics. And here, aboard the airship, he guessed that his fondness was to be gratified to the utmost.
"Let"s get back to the deck again," he said at last, when they had gazed below at the muddy ocean. "I"m dying to see more. Now, what are these rails for? It beats me your having a deck on top of the ship. But I suppose it"s necessary. Why rails on the deck? That"s what I can"t fathom."
But he saw the reason a little later, for Alec took him to a sunken deck house, which, seeing that its roof was dead level with the deck, might be expected to offer no resistance whatever to the air. Opening a trap, he ushered his new friend in, though the contents were plainly to be seen without that manoeuvre. And there, anch.o.r.ed to the floor, was a pair of spreading planes, as transparent as gla.s.s, strong and flexible, attached at their centre to a boat constructed of the same material.
"An aeroplane!" he gasped. "Here, on an airship? Why?"
"For scouting. To act as a messenger. To take pa.s.sengers to and fro when it"s necessary."
Alec spoke loftily, watching d.i.c.k"s amazement with secret delight.
"That"s why there are rails on the deck outside," he explained. "She starts from "em."
"But--but how does she return?" asked d.i.c.k, somewhat bewildered, for whoever heard of an aeroplane flying towards an airship and settling upon it? But Alec dismissed the question with a shrug of his shoulders, and a wave of his hands.
"Ain"t there enough deck to please you?" he asked. "Do you want to provide a drill ground? You just operate a motor; this sunken hangar rises with the aeroplane, and there you are, ain"t you?"
d.i.c.k felt the truth of the words. The huge monster on which he had found refuge presented a deck wide enough and long enough to provide safe landing for any aviator. As for this plane upon which he looked, it was obviously meant to float in the water, in fact, it was a waterplane, though the long, centrally-placed boat, to which the planes were immediately attached, was provided with wheels also, to enable it to roll upon the rails, and also to land either on this deck or on terra firma. It was, without shadow of doubt, the last word in the science and manufacture of a heavier-than-air machine.
"Ripping!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "You"ve been in her?" he asked admiringly, with just a suspicion of jealousy in his voice.
"Once: I"m going again. You"ll come too."