CHAPTER XX.
RUSSIA'S GREATEST AEROPLANE.
There had been a solemn council, lasting several hours, in the spaciousdrawing room of the Sergius palace in Odessa, and the majority of theparticipants wore the insignia of preeminent rank in the Russian navy.
It was evident that some momentous question was in the foreground, andhaving to do with a war move of consequence.
In the aerodrome, down on the bay front, another conference was inprogress, of no less importance to those there gathered--aviators all.The supreme assemblage on the hill had its problems, but no more intenseinterest therein than these aerial experts manifested over the displayof the greatest of all aeroplanes--the Russian "Sikorsky"--just receivedfor particular use in the Black Sea fleet, the second of its kindconstructed, and in which achievement of one of his subjects the Czarhimself had been reported as taking personal pride and keen practicalinterest.
"The first time I ever threw up my hands for anything that didn't comeout of our factory," exclaimed Billy, walking in wonder around thegigantic aircraft.
With its curtained "cabin," many-windowed "control house," searchlight,powerful engines, steering wheels, projecting bow, "corridor," and aproved carrying capacity of seventeen men, this creation may seem moreof imaginative invention than the actual production of a machine shop.
But the "Sikorsky" is a sure thing, and just as represented in the sightof our boys on the day they first marveled at its bulk.
They had no idea, though, at the moment of an experience in this hugemachine that would set a capsheaf on their war zone sky-riding.
So when Billy and Henri studied in detail the points of this wonderfulcraft it was solely by the prompting of professional enthusiasm and nointent of going into training to handle it.
They noted that the mighty flyer, of biplane type, was fitted with fourGerman Daimler engines, had double control, with two steering wheels,while each of the four engines drove a separate propeller.
"The wind would have to hustle to keep up with that force," commentedHenri, strongly inclined to the mechanical exhibit.
Lieutenant Moppa called attention to the fact that the craft had alsobeen fitted with floats, "which about provides for every emergency," heconcluded.
"Think of an aeroplane pilot working behind glass windows; he will feelas stuck up as a chauffeur in a first-class automobile."
"And as high-toned as the steersman of an ocean liner, pard," saidHenri, adding to Billy's comparison.
The council on the hill in the meantime had marked a map with a redline--the Bosphorus at the end of it.
The warships that the aviators had left shelling the cliff battery nearthe entrance of the strait were to be tremendously reinforced.
"Great news, men," announced Lieutenant Moppa, after perusing a slip ofpaper handed to him by a trim sailor who had been serving the warcouncil as messenger. "Everything that flies has been ordered intoservice for convoy duty with the squadron that sails in the morning. Thenew airship will lead the way."
"It would not surprise me a bit," volunteered one of thesoldier-aviators, "to see the new airship flying over the Bosphorusbatteries before we are very much older, and loaded with bombs, too."
"A prophet has come among us," laughed Lieutenant Atlass, "but morepower to him if he rings true, and rings me into the venture."
"Give another pull to that bell," suggested Lieutenant Moppa.
The influence of Sergius was in evidence when assignments to honorplaces in the new crafts were made, and the boys found themselves listedamong the pilots who would take turns at the steering wheels of themighty "Sikorsky."
However, the recent performance of the young aviators before FortKillis, reported in dispatches, had the effect of reducing any feelingthat favoritism had been wholly responsible for this advancement.
"Really, it is more than we had any right to expect," said Billy, indiscussing the selection of the airmen who were to serve aboard Russia'sgreatest aeroplane.
"Suppress your modesty, my boy; it may be that I have given you a shortlease on life by my recommendation, but in your work you take thechances anyhow, so I put you in the way of dying at the top of theprofession."
It was the voice of Sergius, half serious and half in the lighter vein.
He had stepped quietly into the air station, and was contemplating withinterest the lines of the new wonder of the air.
Already experts were at work within the enclosed rigging, oiling andpolishing the machinery, filling the tanks and in every way putting inperfect shape the mammoth flyer.
When, the next morning, the great bird of passage was driven aloft, andleading a flock of lesser 'planes, the wheelmen on the job were BillyBarry and Henri Trouville.
There were fourteen, all told, on board, and Lieutenant Moppa was incommand. Two guns showed, one fore and the other aft, manned bypracticed marksmen, while equally proficient in their line were severalriflemen in the crew. The two lieutenants could be depended upon to takecare of the explosive-dropping assignment.
Though the motion of the huge machine through the air was very smoothand graceful, the roaring sound made by the four powerful engines, asthe airship forged ahead, high above the sea, was nothing less thanterrifying.
The commanding officer kept his sailing orders to himself, but,nevertheless, the belief among those aboard, which would not down, wasthat the big craft was going over the Bosphorus batteries, straight toIslam's capital, to give the ancient city, for the first time inhistory, an air bombardment.
When the rumor reached Billy, he thought of Sergius' remark about "dyingat the top of the profession!"
To his brother wheelman, close enough to catch his words, he had justbeen saying:
"This is the kind of a gear we will have to put together for our tripacross the Atlantic."
Then the thought that the contract they had immediately on hand, if therumor had foundation, might take all they had to give.
A few miles from the entrance of the Bosphorus, Lieutenant Moppa,instead of issuing a stop order, in stentorian voice sounded the word:
"Attention!"
Above the roar of the engines the crew heard again a shouted command:
"Pilots, guide left!"
Then all hands knew that the airship was headed for Constantinople. Thefirst link in the chain of Bosphorus forts was below, and the sea ofMarmora only eighteen miles distant! The great airship was going a milea minute, following the water line between the two continents, yetrunning so high that gun flashes from the batteries were as theexplosion of so many firecrackers to the aviators.
The boy pilots leaned hard against the steering wheels; they werefeeling the strain of continuous effort, but made no call for relief. Itwas a red-letter chapter in their flying record.
Now the sea of Marmora, stretching away 170 miles to the straits of theDardanelles, on the other end of which the allies had concentratedtwenty great battleships, eight powerful cruisers and a land force of50,000.
Over Pera, the residence section of Constantinople, Lieutenant Atlasssent down a shower of bombs, and for miles of Moslem territory theonrushing airship left a blazing trail behind it. The "Sikorsky" haddrawn the fire of many guns in its dash between seas, and but for onestray bullet that splintered the glass front of the pilot house wouldhave escaped unscathed.
By fort fire the aviators were driven high again over the Dardanelles,but the forty-two miles in these straits were traversed in fiftyminutes.
Landing on the floats was made off Tenedos island, in the Aegean sea.
"You looked like a Zeppelin coming in," hailed a bluff Briton from theconning tower of a submarine that had bobbed up alongside of thefloating aircraft, "and your colors just saved you from being blown tosmithereens. That's the biggest thing on wings you have there."
"And it has carved a new niche for aviators to reach, this day," proudlyproclaimed the Russian airman.