Chapter 7 THROUGH THE STORM

Dinner that night was a rather somber occasion. The ship pitched badly, and there was a good deal of difficulty in keeping the dishes on the table. When the waiters opened the door going into the galley, the chef could be heard calling down curses on the day he had left home. Mr. Hamilton was silent but stoical, while his secretary was near collapse. Wally's verbosity was turned off like a spigot. He was green with fear. The reporters were suspiciously jovial. One of them was constructing a little model parachute with a few bits of wood, cloth and string.

Questioned, he said smilingly that he was going to send down a bottle with a message in it.

Doctor Sims remarked gloatingly, "Last message, I take it, if we are in extremis. Very interesting indeed."

"Don't be morbid, Sims," said Doctor Trigg calmly. "Look out for your coffee, and try some of that souffle. What mortal could possibly anticipate disaster when the cook can concoct such a delectable morsel?"

"Gr-r-r-r!" from Doctor Sims, lunging for the saltcellar as it skated away. "Your mental attitude, Martin, always inclines to the flippant and dicacious. Personally, I find the present exuberant actions of the ship most distasteful."

"There goes your water," Doctor Trigg retorted rather unnecessarily, as he held his own glass in one hand and speared souffle with the other.

"Grr-r-r-r-ruh," said Doctor Sims, rising unsteadily. He went to his cabin to get dry clothes, clinging desperately to wall and chairs.

"Isn't he sweet?" said Dulcie.

Doctor Trigg studied her. "My dear, you have given me a new thought," he said seriously. "A perfectly new thought. Sims-sweet-well, well!"

The waiters hurriedly cleared the tables. With growing apprehension, the passengers clustered at the windows to watch the void beyond. Intervals of calm, as they passed the space between two storms, raised false hopes, for they were soon plunged into a roaring madness of elements.

Then, all at once, they were in a maelstrom of elemental fury. Above, below, around them, a gale whined and shrieked. Solid sheets of water buffeted the ship, while flashes of lightning were continuous and so vivid that the control room was bathed in an intense, livid glare. Here, there, and everywhere storms gathered, moved upon the ship, and beat her mercilessly. As the gusts beset her from all sides, she pitched madly.

They were now flying about a mile above the surface of the sea. Mr. Hammond came staggering into the control room and stood near David, but neither spoke.

Ahead of them, mountainous clouds, looking as solid as a wall, rose up as though to block their path. Rain continued to fall in torrents, with hail and snow. The thunder roared, bellowed, and reverberated.

In the salon, the passengers huddled in groups with the stoic acceptance of any situation that is characteristic of the American people. Doctor Sims calmly watched the unbelievable panorama, jotting down an occasional note by the intense glare of the lightning. Dulcie clung close to Doctor Trigg, who, also calm, strove to quiet the girl's natural apprehension with little jokes and whimsical stories.

The majority of the crew were in the hull. The engineers of course were at their posts. Red, sure-footed as a cat, seemed to be everywhere at once. The ship quivered under the lashing of the storm like a live thing. At times she was lifted more than three hundred feet above her course, then plunged in a delirious drop of nearly a thousand feet toward the sea, before she could be steadied. She seemed wrapped in solid sheets of lightning. The duralumin framework was fully charged with electricity, and tongues of electricity were being sprayed away from all edges, points and corners. The cables were glowing with violet light.

David watched anxiously for an opening or "hole" through the sheets of lightning, through which he might contrive to drop down to the possible safety of a lower level. He was determined to make the attempt. Each time that they had been tossed upward, he had found that a worse condition, if possible, existed in the upper altitudes. They were still about a mile above the sea. The din was so great that speech had become impossible. Mr. Hammond, at his elbow, continually indicated a rise; but David had reached the place where, as long as he held the wheel, he would have to follow his own judgment. So he crept on, watching with strained eyes for a hole in the floor.

Wally, on hands and knees, had managed to reach his cabin, where he cowered, utterly undone. He buckled on a parachute and decided to jump as soon as the ship turned nose down. Suddenly he felt a forward inclination; the ship was certainly tipping. Wally slid and scrambled into the salon.

"Jump! Jump! She's gone!" he croaked hoarsely and, reaching the window, struggled to open it. Like a cat Doctor Sims was upon him, circling him with thin wiry arms and legs. Together they rolled on the floor, and Doctor Sims slapped him smartly on the face. It brought the nearly crazed man back to his senses. They sat up, Wally making no move to escape.

"Why, you amorphous protoplasm!" screamed Doctor Sims. "You congenital moronic microbe! You-you unspeakable NUT!"

It was too much. As Wally slumped, Dulcie hid her face in Doctor Trigg's coat. In the din, a wild burst of laughter became nothing but a series of open mouths and contorted faces. But the tension of terror had snapped.

They had run the gamut of emotions, from the first cold prick of fear to the abandon of terror, and then to the ridiculous explosion.

It was then that David saw a black spot which might be a "hole." Cautiously he turned the trembling ship, and managed to approach it. He found that it was the haven which might save them, and carefully maneuvered her down into the whirling pit. The storm-tossed craft steadied, and with a great sigh of relief David lowered the Moonbeam down and down, into an area of miraculous calm.

Below, the sea had been beaten into a flat surface by the driving rain. Above, the terrible floor of storm-tossed clouds had become a roof, from which hung wisps and threads of mist. A cold, clean, steady wind drove them toward the east. Once more David could hear the beloved, everyday noises of the ship.

They were safe.

Doctor Trigg patted Dulcie, and looked at his watch. "Only four o'clock," he said cheerily.

"Four days!" groaned a reporter.

"That indicates the inadequacy of time as we divide it," said Doctor Trigg, "Eh, Sims?"

"Get up!" growled Doctor Sims, glaring at Wally. "And go to your room!"

Wally, scrambling up, obeyed.

"Twenty lines of Latin is indicated, too, Sims," said Doctor Trigg, chuckling, "but don't be too hard on the poor boy. His reaction is entirely a matter of temperament."

Doctor Sims rose. "Gr-r-r-r-r!" he retorted, and dusted his knees.

In the control room, David could scarcely realize that the danger was really past. He felt weak and shaken.

"Give me the wheel," said Van Arden's voice, at his side.

"Can you make it?" David asked.

"Surest thing you know!" Van Arden smiled. "I really am all right again, but you must be all in, Ellison. Go along. I'll carry on."

Mr. Hammond took David's arm. "Black coffee is what you need," he said, and led him into the salon.

David rubbed his hands. The fingers were stiffly crooked. He could hardly flex them, they had gripped the wheel so long. Dulcie, calm and collected, appeared from the galley, and sat down opposite him. She took the cup of coffee from the pallid chef, and served it.

"An egg, and some marmalade and toast, I think, Cookie," she said, smiling up into the plump, worried face. "Now, hero, don't talk. Just relax, and get something to eat. Then you are to go to sleep for a week or so. Dad says so."

"Why, I'm all right, Dulcie," declared David. "A little stiff, but that will disappear as soon as I move around."

"Anyway, you are to go to bed. Gee, wasn't that storm a whiz-bang? I was never so thrilled in my life."

"Where were you?" asked David.

"Right close to Doctor Trigg," replied Dulcie. "He was calm as calm!"

"You are a nervy kid," said David, admiringly. "I'm proud of you."

"Well, we are all proud of you," she replied. "Dad says even Captain Fraine could not have done better. To tell you the truth, David, dad feels pretty glum about the way he butted in and ordered you to make altitude. He says that he had put you in charge, and that it was up to him to go by your judgment. And he says that it was lucky for us you dropped to a lower altitude when you did. It probably saved the ship.

"And he says, as long as you did bring us through, he doesn't regret meeting the storm one bit. It only proved the stability and strength of the dirigible. My! By the time those reporters get through writing it up, dirigibles are going to be the whole thing."

"Well, I'm glad the commander isn't sore at me for using my own judgment," said David, a relieved look on his face. "I just had to do it, Dulcie."

"He isn't; and of course you had to, and he's going to tell you so," said Dulcie. "Oh, there comes the sun! Wonderful, isn't it?"

David turned to the window. Above, the leaden clouds were breaking up and turning to fleece-innocent, pretty masses that looked as though they had been assembled for purely decorative purposes. The first rays of the sun turned them faintly pink, and changed the leaden sea to silver.

Just below them, a big liner, looking like a toy, nosed westward, and as Van Arden gently dropped the ship to a still lower level, the steamer sent three puffs of smoke from her funnels in greeting. No other craft was in sight. As the sun rose, the sparkle and brilliance increased. Already a dull smudge on the horizon revealed itself plainly as the eastern continent. They sped along at an altitude of one thousand feet.

Someone opened a window, and the sweet clean air rushed through the salon. Dulcie buttoned her sweater, and sniffed the air appreciatively as she gazed.

"Doesn't it look happy?" she said.

David, firmly but kindly escorted to his room by Mr. Hammond, slept for two blissful hours. Then he was awakened by his newly-acquired sense of responsibility, a sense ingrained in the minds of masters of all crafts, either of sea or air. He leaped up, perfectly refreshed, and ready for anything.

Mr. Hammond was sitting by the window.

"I wanted to see you as soon as you waked up, Ellison, so I came back here to get a little rest and quiet, myself. You can't hear yourself think out there in the salon. All the passengers are telling their various experiences during the storm!

"I have arranged to leave Captain Fraine and Lieutenant Florsheim at Friedrichshafen for hospital treatment. They are pretty sick men, Dr. Forsythe says. I had planned to take on someone there to fill Captain Fraine's place but, David, I am convinced that you can do it. After your performance last night, I am positive that you are capable of handling any situation." He rose, his kindly face beaming. "I congratulate you, Captain Ellison. It is a big job, but you will swing it!" He shook hands, and was gone.

David stood staring into limitless space.

"Dad!" he whispered; "are you glad?"

The radio was again in working order, and the operators had sent messages back to Ayre, and long radiograms were sent to the news syndicates of New York, Berlin, Petrograd, and Tokio by the reporters, each eager to turn in the best story of the storm.

David did not see London. They had passed the ancient city at about six o'clock, while he slept.

"I'm sorry I missed seeing London," David remarked to Dulcie, who wandered into the control room about nine.

"I was asleep, too," said she. "I wanted awfully to see it. I've been reading a book about the Zeppelin during the war. The English used to make London pitch black every night on account of German air raids. They were able to make the city practically invisible, but they could not hide the river Thames. That always gave them away, because the bombers had plans of every important place in the city-churches, public buildings, stations, tanks, magazines, and freight depots-and they could locate them by the river. Then down would come a few tons of bombs."

"Pretty ghastly," said David. He thought of the price he had paid for the war, a price paid by millions, and set his mouth hard. Dulcie studied his face.

"David, did you lose anyone?" she asked. Her voice was so sympathetic, so tender, that he opened his heart. He could almost feel himself flying with his young and gallant father, as he told her about him, his work, and his death. It was not a long story as David told it. When he finished Dulcie's eyes were misty.

"Oh, David!" she sighed, and impulsively patted his arm. "Your poor, poor mother! But how proud you must be!"

She hadn't pitied him. She had understood.

"I am proud; too proud to broadcast that I'm his son until I can do something worth while, myself."

"As if you hadn't done so, already, you nice modest David! But I won't tell. Not even daddy!"

"Heavens, no!" cried David, giving the wheel a twist. "Oh Lord! Dulcie-"

"Oh, shush, silly, as if I would tell! No one is to know. Just you and me-and Red Ryan. Why Ryan, Davie?"

"He guessed it, the darned fox. Nothing I said. He just picked it out of the air. His Irish shrewdness, I suppose. Anyway, he asked me point-blank."

"You like him, don't you, David?"

"I'll say I do!" said David warmly. "He may be rough on the outside, but he's nobody's fool, and smart as a whip, and as loyal as they make 'em. By the way, where is Cram all this time?"

Dulcie chuckled. "Poor Wally! He's in his stateroom, a very sick man."

"Honestly?" demanded David.

"No, just all in." She leaned close and whispered, "Scared to death, Dr. Forsythe told daddy. I heard him, and daddy shooed me away. So don't breathe it. And see what he says when he comes out."

"You never turned a hair, did you?" admiringly.

Dulcie shrugged. "Why should I? I have no mother, and daddy was here, so what was the difference?"

"What about your other friends?" asked David, with a wide blank gaze.

"What other friends?" she inquired innocently.

"Me," said David, ungrammatically but concisely.

Dulcie blushed; then she chuckled, and pinched David's finger. "Well, Funnyface, you were here too, weren't you?"

"That's more like it," said David, and they both laughed. But somehow a new and closer friendship commenced then.

Mr. Hammond, appearing in the doorway, assumed a scowl.

"Go away, Dulcie," he said, "and let the captain sail the ship. I'd put you in chains where stowaways belong, if only I could find any."

They had passed France; they were over Germany. Radiograms were flying between the ship and Friedrichshafen. All was in readiness there for the welcome of the Moonbeam, and at eleven thirty-five that morning Friedrichshafen lay below them.

Slowly the ship settled over the field. The ground crew of five hundred men seized the ropes and, spreading fanwise, brought the ship down. Mr. Hammond had expected to be moored to the mast, but he saw that preparations had been made to house the ship in the hangar.

As the ground crew, resplendent in their natty blues, drew the Moonbeam down to earth, the watchers saw a large group of magnificently uniformed officers waiting to receive them. Great crowds, held back in orderly masses by soldiers, roared the deep German salute, "Hoch, Hoch," and mingling with it they could hear a goodly volume of American hurrahs, while all over the vast field waved a scattering of small American flags.

Mr. Hammond was enthusiastically received by the burgomaster and a group of the city fathers, as well as by representative officers from the German army and navy, air service, and government. He found himself shaking hands with his old friend, the American ambassador to Germany. Smiles wreathed every face.

The joyous uproar continued as all the passengers came down the steps from the gondola, but later a sympathetic silence fell as the waiting ambulance backed up and its white-clad attendants disappeared into the ship. Expert hands bore out two stretchers with their swathed forms. Florsheim, sensing the sympathy, got his arm from under the blanket and waved it with a pale grin, while a cheer burst out again, this time not for the ship but for the two injured men being given over to the care of the skilful surgeons for whom Germany is justly noted. When the ambulance had gone, the crowd surged toward the ship.

The best of German mechanics waited to assist the crew of the Moonbeam in grooming her. David, standing at Mr. Hammond's side, felt the good fellowship and sportsmanship which permeated the welcome. The Moonbeam was trying to surpass the record of their own Graf Zeppelin, but there was no resentment.

One ferocious-looking and red-faced general in the Air Corps stared hard at David as he walked away, then exploded, "And where iss your captain?"

"There is our captain and pilot, general," said Mr. Hammond, bowing.

"Gott in Himmel, he iss a poy, chust a poy! Do you Americans set children, then, to sail your ships?"

"Not quite, general," answered Mr. Hammond, smiling, "but Captain Ellison is one in a million; a genius in his chosen field. We lost the services of our captain and first pilot on the way over. The captain went-well, he became very ill from the effects of an old wound, and the pilot sustained an injury. We are leaving them both here in the hospital.

"A terrific storm was approaching at the time, and I was obliged to put young Ellison in charge. He handled the ship like a veteran. I am convinced that his cleverness and good judgment saved it, in fact, and I have made him captain for the entire flight. I have absolute confidence in him."

"Fine, fine!" exploded the general heartily. "I congratulate you. Good bilots are born, and nod mate. You are luggy."