when our aviator boys had been crowded into small space aboard the german seaplane, the big flyer cut through the mist at top speed. the capture of the young airmen had been but an incident; an accident, indeed. the german aviators were playing a bigger game. the boys heard the man called franz jesting with his comrades about something that was going to spit fire like a volcano upon the english. henri, in soft aside tones, let billy know what it was all about, for billy was as short in german as he was in the french language.

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the seaplane gunner (they called him joseph), when the machine soared above the mist line, kept a sharp lookout through field glasses for some expected coming over the sea.

the boys could see, now that it was clearing to the north, the familiar trend of the english coast.

“they’re up to something, that’s sure,” whispered henri to billy; “but what it is i haven’t the least idea.”

“i don’t see any bombs in this craft, so it can’t be anything like a blow-up from above,” was billy’s whispered reply.

“hold your mouths,” growled the giant pilot.

henri put a warning finger on his lips, glancing at billy.

gunner joseph had evidently sighted the something for which he had been looking, for he made a rapid motion with a hand behind him, which the pilot evidently understood, for he immediately changed the direct northerly course of the seaplane sharply to the northeast.

now visible to the naked eye was a fleet of cruisers, under full head of steam, and as they swiftly approached, the black cross in the flapping colors proclaimed the kaiser’s warships.

billy and henri were astounded at the sight. a german fleet within easy shelling distance of the yorkshire coast!

one of the cruisers turned broadside, and from[203] the armored hull belched smoke and flame. looking down upon the town of hartlepool, the boys saw buildings crumple like houses of cards before a gale. other vessels of the war fleet followed the leader in broadsides, and every iron cast seemed to find a mark and exacted toll of death and destruction. the hartlepools, whitby, and scarborough, places well known to the captive aviators, were under galling fire for an hour.

“they’re shooting a mile, but look how true they get the range,” remarked billy in henri’s nearest ear.

“look!” henri pointed to the land batteries, now spouting fiery responses.

the german fleet was speeding northward—the hovering seaplane giving signal that the british patrolling squadron was hastening to cut off the invading vessels. now favored by the gathering mist in the northerly flight, the daring raiders made their escape, but it could be seen that one of the lighter cruisers was afire. the land batteries had evidently scored a target or two.

a guttural command from the man in the sea-plane’s bow, and the machine was set in the wake of the fleet, and with full power in the motors.

“how much of the oil feed have we?”

the gunner’s question was passed back from mouth to mouth to the engine man, for in the noises[204] of the high speed nothing else could be heard beyond a foot or two.

“hundred miles or so,” was the answer of the engine man, passed forward.

“and nearly four hundred miles to kiel,” muttered the gunner. “but the fleet will put us right,” he satisfied himself.

so they were bound for kiel, and the boys did not know it until the seaplane settled among the german cruisers churning the waves in their race for home. with tanks refilled, the aircraft led the flight to helgoland bay.

while far in advance of the warships, the sea-plane drew the fire of an english submarine that suddenly rose from the depths of the sea. a figure jumped from the turret of the underwater craft, turned a lever, and the gun that was folded into the back of the submarine swung muzzle upward. once, twice, thrice, the gun cracked, but every shot a miss.

the third shot, however, was a near one, for billy and henri, interested spectators from the steel gallery, heard the ball hiss in the passing.

the lookout man of the seaplane trailed a signal to the fleet, but the submarine had disappeared before the cruisers had warily crossed the danger spot indicated by the seaplane.

“it would have been good-by if we had caught[205] that solid shot in the business section of this ship,” was billy’s essay to the stolid pilot in front of him.

if the pilot heard or understood, he did not condescend to answer.

some forty miles from the german naval stations in the neighborhood of helgoland, the sea-plane’s own gun was swiveled in the direction of a darting a?roplane scouting from some english warship, on the watch in these waters, but when the machine guns on one of the german cruisers, adapted to high-angle fire, broke loose on the british machine, it turned tail at a speed of seventy miles an hour.

franz appeared to be greatly amused at this, and started a rapid flow of german humor about the high-dodging machines made somewhere else than in germany.

henri did not tell billy what all the fun was about, for fear of bringing billy to his feet with an argument as to where the best flying machines were made. but it would not have made any difference, for franz and billy were both assured of personal peace, in that neither could understand the other, though they talked until doomsday.

the boys had no fixed idea as to what fate had in store for them on german soil.

“i do hope that it won’t be a military fortress for us,” said henri. “it would be mighty rough[206] luck to be locked up at cologne, or some other jail of a place.”

“but you remember the pilot said when we were caught that they might find a place for us in the aviation service.”

billy found comfort in that memory.

“if i couldn’t have anything else to do but carry oil around a hangar,” asserted henri, “it would sure be away ahead of looking at the stone walls of a fortress.”

it was a happy moment, then, for our aviator boys when at helgoland they were told by the giant pilot of the seaplane, whose name proved to be carl, that they were booked, not now for kiel, but hamburg, which was the center of great aircraft activity.

“no dungeon deep for us,” sang billy, as he executed a clog step on the deck of the boat that later was taking them up the great river elbe to one of the most remarkable cities of germany.

“an aircraft town for sure,” cried henri, when, with carl as kindly captor and guide, billy and himself fared forth from the docks into the streets of hamburg.

in an hour the boys saw eleven sheds, each said to contain a zeppelin, and at the air camp all manner and makes of a?roplanes were housed.

it was here that carl presented his charges to heinrich hume, aviation lieutenant, who conducted[207] the new recruits to a mammoth canvas house, where both a?roplanes and a?roplanists rest, when there is a chance to rest.

billy had another pleasurable shock when lieutenant hume, in good old english, abruptly told henri and himself to shake themselves out of their blue flannel outfits, and dive into a big camp chest filled with clothing of the lead color.

“don’t mind the blue,” advised the lieutenant, “but it doesn’t mate with the other moving pictures here.”

“we don’t have to be sworn in, or anything like that?” anxiously inquired billy.

“you’re more likely to be sworn at than in,” laughed the lieutenant. “now to the point: do you know enough about a?roplanes to roll one with the right end foremost? carl says you kids were working an armored seaplane when they plugged you, but carl is sometimes inclined to draw the long bow about adventures in which he has figured.”

billy was inclined to hump his back at this, but wisely concluded to let action stand as the proof.

when billy and henri went to work among the ’planes, the apprentices under training by lieutenant hume looked like the oft-quoted thirty cents. one or two of them even looked daggers at the newcomers.

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at the end of the first day of the boys’ service test, the lieutenant said to himself:

“carl has stumbled against the real thing, for once, at least.”