ABOARD THE “FATE”

“You’re a lucky kid,” said Felton when they were at mess. There was more than a suspicion of envy in his tone. “The Balloon Service is a cinch. You only go up once a week, and then you don’t stay up more’n ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” echoed Jack incredulously.

“Sure; things go wrong by that time,” answered Felton, with a grin, “and you come floating down on top of something. It’s hard on what you land on, but you don’t mind it. All you have to do is sit tight in your little cockpit and admire the view.”

“Sounds all right,” laughed Jack, “but how about the time one of the dirigibles landed on a building and went plumb through it?”

“Well, no one was hurt――much. Say, if you hear of a chance for me, put me wise, will you? I like excitement and all that, of course, but flying around over the Mexican lines being potted at isn’t just my idea of a perfect pastime!”

“But if the Mex can’t shoot straight――――”

“That’s all right,” replied Felton pathetically, “but suppose there are two planes and the Mex aims at the other one? Pretty sure to get you then. When I get bumped off I want to have a gun in my hand and get action, Sterling!”

Boyd shook hands gravely. “Good luck, kid,” he said. “Hope I’ll see you again some time, but it ain’t likely, I guess.”

“You talk as if I was headed straight for the morgue,” objected Jack. “Folks do go up in balloons and come back safe now and then, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but that’s just trial spins, son. I hear they’re going to send some of those blimps across the border pretty quick. Still and all, you may be able to foot it back somehow. If I was you I’d get me a map of Mexico and carry it next my skin. Know any Spanish?”

“No. Is the map in Spanish?”

“Well, it would be handy to know enough to ask your way, Sterling. Maybe, though, you’ll land in the Gulf or out in the Pacific, and then Spanish wouldn’t help you much. Well, I sure wish you the best o’ luck, kid.”

“Same to you, you old mourner,” laughed Jack.

Over at Headquarters an officer wearing the Balloon Corps insignia on his sleeve scowled and rummaged his papers and at last sent Jack to Number 6 Shed. “Report to Lieutenant Commander Weeks, sir,” he said. “Where’s your stuff?”

“B Barracks.”

“Shift it over here to balloon quarters. And, say, what about instruction? Been passed?”

“Not yet. They said I’d get through to-day, though.”

“Well, you can’t berth here until you have. You’d better ask about that. Some one’s slipped a cog, it seems.” He frowned darkly at Jack. “Better talk to the lieutenant commander. Maybe he doesn’t mind. Most anything goes these days!” The officer sighed resignedly.

“Number 6 Shed is where the _F 8_ is, isn’t it?” asked Jack eagerly.

“Yes, if that’s any comfort to you,” replied the other pessimistically.

It took Jack rather less than a minute to reach the balloon shed, and another minute to convince the guard before the great doorway that he should be allowed inside. He had so frequently stood about on the outside that the guard recognized him this morning and was at first incredulous. But he finally got past and made his way exultantly into the depths of the big building. Things were more quiet around the _F 8_ to-day, although a few riggers and groundmen were still busy. Jack stopped more than once to look up at the swelling bulk of the airship well overhead. Viewed from beneath, it was tremendously impressive. About midway of the envelope hung the gondola, or, as it was generally called, “boat,” and as Jack approached it he saw that several officers were grouped near its forward end. A quick survey showed him that none wore the insignia of a lieutenant commander, and as a short, thick-set man was the first to note his presence Jack addressed him.

“I was ordered to report to Lieutenant Commander Weeks,” he explained. “Can you tell me where I can find him?”

“The Commander’s over at the quarters, I think. I say, Gandell, here’s a gentleman asking for Mr. Weeks.”

“Weeks? Not here.” A junior lieutenant whose deep voice matched his big frame turned an appraising look on Jack. “I don’t know where you’ll find him right now. Are you the new radio chap?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine! What’s the name?”

“Sterling.”

“Well, Mr. Sterling, meet Mr. Jordan and Mr. Traine. My name’s Gandell. Mr. Clode, who you’ll work with, isn’t here just now.”

Jack shook hands. Mr. Jordan, who later proved to be engineer officer, was the one Jack had first spoken to. He was short of stature, broad of shoulder and hip, had a round, leather-hued face and seemed a most good-natured and jovial sort. He held the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, as did Mr. Gandell. The third of the trio, Lieutenant Traine, was a small, nervous-mannered man of hardly more than twenty-three or four. For that matter, only Lieutenant Jordan appeared to be over that age, and Jack doubted that he had more than reached thirty. They shook hands heartily and seemed flatteringly delighted to make Jack’s acquaintance. Indeed, from Lieutenant Gandell’s manner the boy might have concluded that his assignment to the _F 8_ was the one thing completing the lieutenant’s happiness!

“Been aboard the _Fate_ yet?” asked the latter.

“The――Oh, the _F 8_. No, I’ve never been on any sort of a dirigible.”

“Trained with the planes, eh? Well, you’ll soon pick up balloon stuff.”

“I haven’t had any air experience at all,” owned Jack ruefully.

“You haven’t? Well, what do you know about that? Get it, Sam?”

“Yes,” answered Lieutenant Jordan. “What’s the diff, though? He doesn’t have to fly the thing. I hear they’re sending a lot of chaps over from Pensacola who don’t know a wing strut from a drift indicator, begging your pardon, Mr. Sterling. As long as you know radio――――”

“Sure,” interrupted Lieutenant Traine. “Every man to his trade, what? Dare say Mr. Sterling knows more about electricity than you do about engines, Sam.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t had experience,” said Jack apologetically. “I suppose flying’s sort of strange at first.”

“Don’t let it bother you, old man,” replied Lieutenant Gandell. “This old girl’s as steady as a parlor floor and you won’t know you’re up till you look over the side. Here’s Mr. Clode now. You tie up to him and get him to show you the ropes. By the way, we’re going up this afternoon for an engine test if the wind doesn’t object. Mr. Clode, here’s your new mate. Shake hands with Mr. Sterling.”

“We’ve met before, Mr. Gandell. How are you, Sterling? Glad to see you here. Will it be all right to show him around, Mr. Traine?”

“Yes, yes, surely. Says he’s never been up yet. Better give him an idea of things, what?”

“How’s the weather outside, Clode?” asked Lieutenant Jordan.

“Not a breath. Looks like we’ll make it, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, if they get that plane fixed up. Hope we can float by three. I’ll see how they’re getting on back there.”

“Come on, Sterling,” said the ensign. “Meet the jolly old _Fate_! There’s a ladder on the starboard side. Mind the new paint. The Old Man’s mighty particular about his paint. I’ll go ahead and show the way.”

A rough ladder made of joists and pieces of wood leaned against the gondola, and up this the ensign climbed and Jack followed. In shape the “boat” followed closely the lines of the big bag that loomed sixteen feet above them. It was pointed at stem and stern and with its rounded hull was not unlike a huge cigar in a gray wrapping. It was slightly under fifty feet in length and was divided into four compartments, or cockpits, connected with each other by a narrow fore-and-aft passage. Standing in the engine cockpit, amidship, and looking ahead and astern the likeness to a boat was at once apparent, although as a boat the turtle-back construction would have suggested something novel and freakish in the speed launch line. When, however, one viewed the outboard engines, on platforms hung well away from the hull on each side, the similarity to a boat was destroyed.

“Those are the new Enscott engines, vertical type,” explained Ensign Clode knowingly. “Six cylinders, one-forty horsepower. Got a contraption that takes the surplus hydrogen, mixes it with the right amount of air and puts it back in the cylinders, saving gas. We made sixty-two miles an hour the other day. Those are some engines, all right!”

“They must be,” agreed Jack. “What are they stuck out there for, though?”

“They’re air-cooled. Saves the weight of water, you see. Every pound counts on a dirigible.”

The ensign explained the various controls in the cockpit, showing a surprising familiarity with gas engines, at which Jack marveled. “I understood from one of the officers that you were a radio man,” he said laughingly, “but you talk as if you were the engineer.”

“Well, I’d like to be. I’ve always had a fondness for machinery and engines and so on. I made Jordan tell me everything he knew the other day. He’s the engineer officer, you know. I believe I could come pretty close to running this thing if I had to. Poke your way up forward now.”

The bow cockpit was a diminutive place in the very nose of the hull. Here, in what was known as the cockswain’s seat, was the post of the directional pilot, Mr. Gandell, faced by a rounded and abruptly sloping celluloid windshield and with instruments and controls disputing the tiny space with him. It was his duty to keep the dirigible on its path and to steer in a horizontal plane. The next cockpit, owing to the widening of the “boat,” was more spacious. Here were seats for commander and pilot. More instruments, an aërial sextant, compasses, a drift indicator, and several other fascinating contrivances, were arranged about them, while lockers for charts, books, flares, binoculars and various other things took advantage of every inch of space. This was the navigating station and from here, by means of the different controls, the ship’s elevation was changed. The engine cockpit came next, and abaft it were the big tanks of gasoline with a total capacity of nearly six hundred gallons.

Jack learned that the _F 8_, speeded up to sixty miles an hour, had a radius of approximately 2400 miles, and more with favoring winds; and that under ideal conditions, alternating the engines at a thirty-mile speed, she could stay aloft a hundred and ten hours.

Well toward the stern was the radio station, a roomy cockpit fitted with both telegraph and telephone installations. Jack was acquainted with each by this time, but the fact that this little space was to be his post when on duty lent a new interest to the familiar instruments. The “T” Antenna on the _F 8_ was stretched fore and aft inside the big envelope overhead. The transmitter had a range of 600 miles and the receiver of about 1100 miles. The radio telephone was, as the ensign explained, good for four miles. The capacity ground wire was stretched from the gondola to the rudder tail.

Back of the radio station a small companionway led downward into a space some four feet high occupying most of the hull beneath the cockpit floors. Here were four bunks for the use of the crew when off duty, and here were the food supplies, drinking water tanks, cylinder oil tanks and storage for extra parts, tools and so on. Two windows on each side, covered with celluloid, admitted light and could be swung open when desired. But, since they had to bend themselves almost double to get around in the “hole,” the two didn’t remain there long.

Back in the radio cockpit, the ensign answered as best he could the many questions that Jack’s mind had accumulated during the inspection. The _F 8_ was one of twelve similar airships already constructed or in course of construction. They were known as scout dirigibles, designed for sustained flight at moderate speed and with low fuel consumption. The construction was what was known as semi-rigid, the envelope being distended by a skeleton framework of aluminum alloy. Inside the envelope, distributed in pairs, were fourteen balloonets, or bags, of goldbeater’s skin, having a total capacity of 120,000 cubic feet. These held the helium gas that supplied the ship’s buoyancy.

“Great stuff, helium,” the ensign explained. “It’s non-inflammable, you know. A couple of years ago, when these things were filled with hydrogen, you had heart disease every time you ran into a thunder storm, they say. If lightning happened to hit the bag, you――well, you just got out and walked! Or you stuck around and got burned to a cinder. You took your choice. And there was always danger from sparks from the engine exhaust and from expansion from sun rays and a dozen other things. But helium pays no attention to all that. You can walk right up to a helium tank and flick a match at it and it won’t bite you. Won’t even growl! The discovery of helium, or, anyway, of the possibility of producing it in quantity, was one of the big things this country did in the late war. And it was some little contribution to the cause of Peace, believe me! It made balloons safe against gunfire, and if the war had kept up a while longer we’d have shown the Huns a few new tricks in plain and fancy Zeppelining that would have opened their eyes!”

The envelope was 236 feet in length from nose to tail, with a greatest diameter of 33 feet. The fabric, rubberized silk, was laid in three layers and painted outside with a composition designed to prevent disintegration by actinic rays. It was this paint that gave the silvery appearance to the balloon.

Various devices which had escaped Jack’s notice at first now became evident: the complete lighting system, including a good-sized searchlight which, hung outboard, could be deflected straight downward when desired, with running lights as aboard ship; red and green on the sides and a red light at the tail; the ingenious contrivance for cooking by means of the engine exhaust heat, as well as by an electric stove; the sand-bags hanging along the side of the navigating station; the provision at the bow for mounting a rapid-fire rifle; the bomb-dropping device; the elaborate system of speaking tubes connecting all parts of the boat; the controls from hull to envelope that governed the valves of the gas bags; the long cables stretching back to rudder and planes; the big two-blade propeller. His wonder and admiration grew constantly, and the young ensign, already in love with the _Fate_, and as proud of her as though he had built every inch of her himself, noted it approvingly.

“Isn’t she some ship?” he asked.

“She’s a wonder!” declared Jack. “She’s so――so complete, too! Why, I had no idea a dirigible was like this. I thought it was just a big gas bag and a――a sort of place to stand in; I mean before I came down here. But you can sleep and eat and cook and everything in this thing! Wouldn’t I like to command one!”

“So would I,” agreed Clode. “Maybe some day――――” He broke off to stare thoughtfully at the sunlit picture framed by the open end of the big hangar. After a long moment he added, almost apologetically: “Ever since I first climbed aboard the old girl I’ve had a sort of hunch that――oh, well, that’s just piffle, I guess.” He laughed lightly. “Had enough for now? Let’s get out, then.”

Later, the ensign’s words seemed to them to have been strangely prophetic.