Boy Scouts -- Juvenile fiction; Courage -- Juvenile fiction; Spy stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- England -- Juvenile fiction
For a long time Harry puzzled over the message. He transcribed the Morse
symbols first into English letters and found they made a hopeless and
confused jumble, as he had expected. The key of the letter E was
useless, as he had also expected. But finally, by making himself think
in German, he began to see a light ahead. And after an hour’s hard work
he gave a cry of exultation.
"I believe I’ve got it!" he cried. "Listen and see if this doesn’t
sound reasonable!"
"Go ahead!" said Jack and Dick, eagerly.
"Here it is," said Harry. "’Petrol just arranged. Supply on way. Reach
Bray Friday. Von Wedel may come. Red light markers arranged. Ealing
Houndsditch Buckingham Admiralty War Office. Closing.’"
They stared at him, mystified.
"I suppose it does make sense," said Dick. "But what on earth does it
mean, Harry?"
"Oh, can’t you see?" cried Harry. "Von Wedel is a commander of some
sort–that’s plain, isn’t it? And he’s to carry out a raid, destroying or
attacking the places that are mentioned! How can he do that? He can’t
be a naval commander. He can’t be going to lead troops, because we know
they can’t land. Then how can he get here? And why should he need
petrol?"
They stared at him blankly. Then, suddenly, Dick understood.
"He’ll come through the air!" he cried.
"Yes, in one of their big Zeppelins!" said Harry. "I suppose she has
been cruising off the coast. She’s served as a wireless relay station,
too. The plant here at Bray Park could reach her, and she could relay
the messages on across the North Sea, to Heligoland or Wilhelmshaven.
She’s waited until everything was ready."
"That’s what they mean by the red light markers, then?"
"Yes. They could be on the roofs of houses, and masked, so that they
wouldn’t be seen except from overhead. They’d be in certain fixed
positions, and the men on the Zeppelins would be able to calculate their
aim, and drop their bombs so many degrees to the left or the right of
the red marking lights."
"But we’ve got aeroplanes flying about, haven’t we?" said Jack.
"Wouldn’t they see those lights and wonder about them?"
"Yes, if they were showing all the time. But you can depend on it that
these Germans have provided for all that. They will have arranged for
the Zeppelin to be above the positions, as near as they can guess them,
at certain times–and the lights will only be shown at those times, and
then only for a few seconds. Even if someone else sees them, you see,
there won’t be time to do anything."
"You must be right, Harry!" said Jack, nervously. "There’s no other way
to explain that message. How are we going to stop them?"
"I don’t know yet, but we’ll have to work out some way of doing it. It
would be terrible for us to know what had been planned and still not be
able to stop them! I wish I knew where Graves was. I’d like–"
He stopped, thinking hard.
"What good would that do?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account