Читать книгу Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in France and Belgium. Or, Saving the Fortunes of the Trouvilles онлайн

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“Henri,” he loudly whispered, prodding his sleeping chum with a ready foot. “Look alive, boy! They’re coming after us from the top side!”

Henri, alive in a jiffy, passed a friendly kick to Captain Johnson, and he in turn bestowed a rib jab upon Freeman. Then all eyes were glued on the hovering Zeppelin.

A mile seaward, from the armored side of a gunboat, burst a red flash wreathed by smoke; then a dull boom. The Zeppelin majestically swerved to southwest course, all the time signaling to masked batteries along the shore.

“There is bigger game around here than us,” said Captain Johnson. “If only those tanks were chockfull of petrol again we’d show them all a clean pair of heels.”

“If we don’t move somehow and soon,” gloomily put in Freeman, “we’ll be dead wood between two fires.”

The Zeppelin was now pushing skyward, buzzing like a million bees. Just then a Taube aëroplane, armored, swooped toward the gunboat, evidently British, which had endeavored to pot the Zeppelin. The scout-ship below turned its anti-aircraft cannon and rifles against the latest invader, cutting its wings so close that the Taube hunted a higher and safer level. The Zeppelin had again lowered its huge hulk for the evident purpose of dropping on the gunboat some of the bombs stored in its special armored compartment.