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Don't try to come back until we get elevation again and I give you the word." He realized what this meant and looked down as he once more wrapped his arms around the fuselage, with his shoulders against the rudder bracket. What he saw was the restless sea less than two hundred feet below!
The four men found themselves in a brightly lighted corridor that led directly across the fuselage to a similar door on the other side. This corridor was of some metal, painted a glossy white. Doors opened out of it, on either hand. Its length was just a few inches over forty-two feet. Half-way along it, a wider corridor crossed it at right angles the main passage of the ship.
It might be they were opposed by some celebrated German ace with a long list of victories to his credit, which would render their chances smaller. Tom, however, seemed to be keeping up his end wonderfully well. The hissing missiles cut through the canvas of their wings, beat upon the side of the fuselage, and even nipped the Air Service Boys more than once as they stormed past.
Once bits of shell tore through one of the planes, and once a few stray bits rattled against the light armor of the fuselage. Richardson and the major, in the other triplane, had climbed to a greater height. Richardson's instructions were to get into a certain position as soon as possible and drop several hundred pounds of high explosive on a big munition dump.
A good deal of vibration and of shuddering whipped the wing-tip, too; all was different, here, from the calm warmth, comfort, and security of the fuselage. The men seemed standing on the very pinion-feathers of some fabled roc, sweeping through space. Above, below, complete and overwhelming vacancy clutched for them.
It so turned out that the Boche did exactly what Bangs thought he would do: tried to avoid the descending avalanche. His machine swung to the right, yet not enough to clear the other. Full tilt the Nieuport struck the nearly motionless Taube near the center of the fuselage.
It has all the modern improvements enclosed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blind principle. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled with buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old mechanic, when I directed him to put them in.
"We will have lunch at a café downtown today," Herr Domber said without the flicker of an eye. "I have a special café in mind where the sea food is excellent and the wine very choice." "That will be fine," Stan said and grinned as he hoisted himself up into the ship. He lay inside the fuselage and looked at the supercharger. There was one valve which he had not fitted.
The ships of his Circus were painted in whatever gaudy colors proved appealing to the pilots thereof, but the fuselage of each bore the famous insignia of the Circus the defiant German eagle with its blood red feet and talons supported on a scroll bearing the legend, Gott Mit Uns. And indeed it did seem that this Circus was providentially watched over.
Experiments have been made, especially in Germany, on the multi-engined machine with all the engines in the fuselage, but its advantages have so far been counterbalanced by loss of efficiency due to transmission gearing and shaft drives to the propellers and the vibration and weight of the gearing.
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