At that moment the sound of shouting was heard off to their right. The lumberjack burst into view a hundred metres away, running down a road towards the airship. He yelled to the men there: “Come quick! That kid has got away. Some other kids have turned up. They let him go and pushed Hank into the woodchip pulper. Murdered him!”
Marjorie gasped: “Oh we did not!” she hissed indignantly.
“He is lying to protect himself,” Peter commented.
There were exclamations and oaths from the men at the airship. The Doctor called back: “Vere are dey now?”
“Somewhere up in the jungle behind the sawmill. Bill’s gone to watch the fence and Fred’s gone to get his dogs. Come quick!” Lumberjack shouted.
The three men scrambled down and into a utility truck parked there. A fourth man appeared at the cabin door and jumped down to join them. The vehicle started up and raced up the road, pausing to pick up the Lumberjack.
“We’d better get going,” Graham said. “They can’t be watching all of the fence yet.”
“Wait! I want to do something to that airship,” Willy said.
“You just want a closer look,” Peter suggested with a grin.
Willy nodded. “No. Yes. But I don’t want these mongrels to get away. I’m going to damage the airship so it can’t fly. Come on!” he replied. He began hobbling down the slope. The others followed. They made their way around the end of the camouflage net and down to the scaffolding supporting the rails. From there the shed appeared even more massive and cavernous and the airship towered over them in the gloom.
Willy did not hesitate. He scrambled painfully up onto the scaffolding and walked along it to a platform beside the cabin of the airship. He climbed up and looked in through the open door. The front half of the cabin was lined with windows. Inside were four seats; two in front and two behind. The back half of the cabin was closed off by a partition. It was obviously the engine compartment. Luggage was stacked just inside the door.
Willy went up the four steps and stepped inside. Peter followed. Stephen went next, then Marjorie. Graham lingered outside, looking anxiously back up the hill.
Willy had just reached the front seats and was bending down to study the instruments and switches when the connecting door to the engine compartment opened. Through it stepped the solid German. He had a spanner in one hand and an oily rag in the other. He stopped in astonishment.
“Vos is das? Who are you?” he rapped.
Realization burst on him when he saw Willy. Suddenly he lunged and knocked Stephen backwards over a suitcase. Then he pushed Marjorie in the face with the oily rag and swung the spanner at Peter. As he did he began to shout. Peter ducked the spanner, but tripped over Marjorie, who had gone sprawling backwards.
Graham sprang through the doorway and grappled with the man from behind, pinning his arms. They both fell in a struggling heap on the floor amidst the jumble of luggage. As they wrestled the man dropped the spanner. In a flash Willy pounced, picked up the spanner and struck the man hard on the head with it.
The man crumpled and fell face down onto the deck. Willy stood poised to strike again, but the man appeared to be unconscious. The others struggled to their feet.
“Well, life is full of surprises,” Peter said. “What will we do with this fellow?”
“See if he has any mates,” Graham said. He moved to the door of the engine compartment and went through.
Willy took command. “Tie the mongrel up,” he ordered. “His name is Klutz and he hit me when they were questioning me.”
“Hadn’t we better get going?” Peter suggested.
“As soon as I do something to wreck this airship,” Willy replied. He turned and moved to the pilot’s seat. Peter shrugged. He went into the engine compartment to join Graham. Satisfied there was no-one else on the airship they searched for something to tie Klutz up with and returned to the cabin with a length of rope. They bent to tie the man up.
At that moment dogs began barking up the hill. Stephen sprang to the door and looked out. “Here they come. Quick, let’s run for it!”
“Too late,” Willy replied. “I couldn’t get far anyway.”
“We can’t stay here,” Stephen cried. “We are trapped!”
“Shut the door,” Willy ordered.
“Willy, don’t be stupid. They’ve got guns,” Graham called.
From the yells outside it was clear that they had been seen. At least four men could be seen running down the slope. Two snarling dogs were bounding along ahead of them. Just in time Stephen slammed the door. The dogs began barking furiously and scratching at the door. The friends looked around and at each other with signs of panic showing on their faces.
Stephen stared out the window and swallowed, his Adam’s apple very obvious. “We are trapped!” he cried.
Willy quickly scanned the controls. “There must be something here to release this thing.”
“Here!” Peter said, pointing to a lever just beside the seat Willy had sat on. “It says ‘Mooring- Engage- Release’.”
Before any of them realized what he intended Willy reached down and slammed the lever from front to rear. Peter opened his mouth to call a warning but left it unsaid as he was nearly thrown off his feet.
The airship seemed to spring upwards. As it did the others all lost their balance. Marjorie gripped a seat and managed to stay upright. Stephen fell on the man he had been tying up. Graham fell over and only saved himself from a crack on the head by grabbing a window ledge.
Crack! Crack! Thud!
Graham stared at a hole which suddenly appeared in the plastic window right next to his face. “They are shooting at us!” he cried. Another bullet thudded into the floor under his feet. Several more shots rang out.
Suddenly they were enveloped in gloom. Grey cloud swirled outside the windows. The airship rocked and slewed around.
Peter struggled into the seat beside Willy. “Strewth Willy! What have you done? We are adrift!”
“I know,” Willy replied calmly. “Relax. This is a proper airship. I will see if I can start the motors.”
“It might be a proper airship, but it will have a proper crash if you can’t,” Stephen said, an edge of fear evident in his voice.
Graham looked very anxious. “Can you fly this bloody thing Willy? - Oh Christ!” he asked, the last wrung from him as the airship dropped like a stone in the turbulence.
“I will try,” Willy replied quietly. “Anyway, we should be Ok unless we hit a mountain; and even then that shouldn’t be too bad. It’s not like a plane.”
“It’s alright for you!” Stephen said unhappily.
Willy gave a short laugh. “No it’s not. But I’ll tell you what. It is a lot better than my last trip by airship,” he replied. Feeling much better he turned and grinned at them, then gave Marjorie a smile. She was sitting tight-lipped in the seat behind Peter, looking very pale. “There should be a seat belt there,” he told her.
Graham shook his head in disbelief then knelt to help Stephen finish tying up the man.
“Where will we put him?” Stephen asked.
“Here, where we can see him,” Graham replied. “Help me stack this luggage.”
They pushed the suitcases and luggage to one side and pushed the man into the corner. Stephen picked up a dark brown leather briefcase. Out of curiosity he forced it open and pulled out some papers.
“Oho!” he cried gleefully. “I think we’ve got their secret plans here.”
Graham and Peter joined him and they studied some of the papers.
“They certainly seem to be information about this organization. I’m sure the police will be interested to read them,” Peter said.
“If we can get them there,” Graham hissed between clenched teeth as the airship made another sickening swoop. He stood up and looked out of the windows in alarm. “Oh my God!”
The others sprang up to look. Through the swirling clouds ahead of them a jungle covered mountainside had appeared, directly in their
path.
“We are going to crash!” Graham cried.
CHAPTER 33
WILLY TAKES CONTROL
“Willy, do something!” Graham screamed.
The airship began to spin. The trees seemed to slide sideways and drop. There was a sharp click and the whole airship trembled. A vibrant hum filled the cabin.
“Got it!” Willy cried. “We have engines.”
He seized the control column and pulled back. Simultaneously he took a chance and rotated a wheel near his right knee. The airship’s nose rose suddenly and more sky than trees appeared in the front windscreen.
“We are going to crash!” Graham screamed. Peter and Stephen braced themselves. Marjorie hunched in her seat. The airship swooped and bumped. Cloud swirled. A branch went past so close it seemed that they could just reach out and touch it. A tree appeared ahead. The cabin ploughed through its upper branches. The ground dropped suddenly away, into a cloud filled valley.
Before they had time to exclaim in relief the airship plunged down in a sickening roller-coaster run.
Peter stared out the window, his face a sickly mask. “Pull up Willy, pull up!” he shouted.
“Can’t. Wind shear. We aren’t under control,” Willy replied. He eased the controls, centred the wheel and flexed his fingers, which had begun to cramp.
With a suddenness which took their breath away they began to rise. Just as abruptly they were engulfed by driving rain. It made Willy aware of just how dehydrated he was but he had no time to worry about it. The airship rocked violently. Willy operated what he took to be the throttle in an attempt to gain height.
“I want to gain altitude. There are some big mountains around here,” he shouted.
“You don’t have to tell us!” Peter shouted back. “We’ve climbed the bloody things.”
Graham looked terrified. “I want to go down, not up,” he said. “And I want to get out,” he added. Looking very pale he sat and buckled himself into a seat behind Willy.
“You aren’t airsick are you?” Peter asked him.
Graham shook his head. “No. I’m bloody scared,” Graham replied.
Stephen was airsick. He knelt and puked over the pile of luggage. Then he crawled into the corner and sat hugging his knees to his chest. Marjorie looked anxiously around and gave Willy a weak smile. He grinned back and reached across and gave her arm a squeeze.
The darkness was suddenly rent by lightning. The flash revealed nothing outside but turbulent clouds and driving rain.
“How high are we Willy?” Peter asked.
“Only about two thousand feet,” Willy replied, pointing to the altimeter. He thanked his lucky stars that he could recognize most of the instruments from the lessons at Air Cadets.
“Feet?”
“Yeah. This thing is American.”
“That’s about.. er.. um.. about 600 metres,” Peter calculated. “That’s not nearly high enough, not by a long shot. The mountains here go up to about fifteen hundred metres.”
“That is only Bartle Frere,” Willy replied. He was studying the control panel. “This isn’t too bad. I know what most of these things are. This is the compass. That is the altimeter. This thing is airspeed and that’s a rev counter. Here is an artificial horizon- a turn and bank indicator and that looks like a satellite navigation aid.” He pointed to these things, then explained: “We are running on the electric motors at the moment, but I don’t know how long the batteries will last.”
“Do the motors make much difference?” Peter asked.
“Yes. I’ve got a bit of control.”
“So we are heading east at the moment?”
“That’s the way the nose is pointing but we could be blowing backwards or sideways. I’ve got no idea of our speed over the ground or our actual direction of movement. I can’t see the ground for reference and I have no idea how strong these winds are,” Willy explained.
“So we are just adrift?”
“Not quite, but almost,” Willy agreed.
The storm seemed to get worse. The rain thundered on the balloon’s plastic envelope and on the cabin. Lightning flared in jagged bolts. The noise of the wind and thunder was deafening.
“What will happen if we get hit by lightning?” Graham asked. There was a distinct quaver in his voice.
“Nothing. Same as any aircraft. It might blow some of the electrics,” Willy replied.
“Could we explode and burn like those German zeppelins did?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t think so. This thing will be full of helium if it has come from America,” Willy replied with more confidence than he felt.
A peal of thunder silenced them for a minute. The noise of the storm was so loud they had to shout above it and they soon lapsed into silence. They lost track of time as the storm buffeted them. The rain eased, then returned in full fury, then eased again. Once a lightning flash showed the black outline of a jagged ridge ahead of them which Graham thought might have been Broken Nose on the southern slopes of Mt Bartle Frere. Willy turned the airship away from it and it was lost to sight in the swirling clouds. There were several anxious minutes before it became obvious they had avoided that peril.
The airship kept pitching up and down like a boat in a rough sea. It would drop abruptly, then rise in a gut-wrenching swoop which would press them to their seats. Sometimes it would roll, pitch and yaw all at once so that all they could do was hang on and pray. The experience began to take on the feeling of a never ending nightmare.
Suddenly the violent rolling and pitching ceased. They had come out of the storm. Stars became visible. Black clouds still towered over them, outlined by lightning flashes, but they were now in calm air. Willy at once turned the airship away from the storm. After a few minutes he turned off the motors.
“Why did you do that?” Peter asked.
“To save power. The motors were running slower all the time. It is better that we save the batteries for an emergency,” Willy explained. He stood up and slowly stretched himself. “Is everyone OK?”
Marjorie smiled and said yes. Stephen nodded. Graham just sat, staring out the window and looking unhappy. Peter relaxed and sat back. Willy then sat down and slowly eased each limb while gently massaging it.
“I could do with a drink,” Willy said. “I haven’t had anything since lunchtime yesterday.”
“If they were going to fly this thing half way across the Pacific there must be food and water on board,” Peter said.
“I’ll have a look,” Marjorie said. She unclipped her seat belt and stood up. “Can we have some lights on so I can see?” she asked. Willy studied the control panel which was still illuminated and finally clicked a switch. A dim cabin light came on. Marjorie began to explore the rear of the cabin.
“Has this thing got any other lights?” Stephen asked.
“Yes. I was just conserving power,” Willy replied.
“What about navigation lights?” Peter asked. “We don’t want to be hit by a plane.”
“There are navigation lights,” Willy replied, indicating the row of switches. “But I don’t want to turn them on. I don’t think there is much risk. There aren’t that many light planes around at night and we are too low, well below the height most of them would fly at.”
“How low?” Graham asked.
“Eighteen hundred feet,” Willy replied.
Stephen struggled to his feet and peered through the window. “Where are we?”
Willy shrugged. “Over the sea I think. There are no lights visible anywhere below so it can’t be land.”
“Are we safe?” Graham asked anxiously.
“Safer over water than over land,” Willy replied. “At least we won’t ram a mountain.”
They all stood up and began to explore the airship. Willy went to the rear of the cabin and looked at the prisoner. The man lay on his back unconscious.
“Did you kill him?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t think so. Don’t care if I did. He wanted to kill me,” Will
y replied. He pushed the man aside and opened the door in the rear wall of the cabin. Peter bent to check the man’s pulse and breathing. Willy went through into the rear compartment, followed by Marjorie and Peter.
The rear of the ‘gondola’ was a single large compartment, bigger than the crew cabin. It was about ten metres long with a few circular portholes in the walls. The first couple of metres on either side were taken up by lockers and storage bins and a tiny toilet. Next there was a powerful looking winch over a large trapdoor. On the starboard side of this was a seat and controls.
“For the winch operator,” Willy surmised.
On the other side was another shiny machine.
“Looks like a generator,” Peter said.
Behind these was an area occupied by two large engines side by side.
“Diesels,” Willy said, wiping one with his finger and sniffing it. He walked between to where gear boxes connected to two electric motors. These were against the walls and connected to the propellers outside. Other machines appeared to control the swivelling nacelles and steering. A bank of batteries lined the rear of the compartment. Along one wall were a row of gas cylinders. Pipes led up from these through pressure gauges. Willy walked over to them and touched a label.
“Helium. We are safe then.” He studied the machinery in the compartment again, then turned to the others. “I think we should be alright. If all this stuff does what I think it does we can probably fly half way across the Pacific. If we can get these diesels going we can either drive the airship direct, or re-charge our batteries. I’m not sure which yet. I wonder if these crooks have a flight manual of some sort?”
“I wonder if they’ve got any food?” Peter said.
“Or water. I’m thirsty,” Stephen added.
“Yes they have,” Marjorie called. “Here, in these lockers.”
“A drink! Yes please,” Willy cried. “I haven’t had anything to eat or drink since I took off.”
Thankfully he took a plastic bottle from Marjorie and gulped down a huge drink of water. The others also had a share. Willy and Peter then made a detailed examination of the machinery before returning to the control cabin.
Airship Over Atherton Page 37