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Read Ebook: The Man from the Clouds by Clouston J Storer Joseph Storer
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Ebook has 1621 lines and 61553 words, and 33 pages
PART I
CHAPTER
I In the Clouds
II The Man on the Shore
V The Doctor's House
VI A Petticoat
X The Coast Patrol
PART II
CHAPTER
I An Idea
II A Little Dinner
V Waiting
VI The Spectacled Man
X Where the Clue Led
THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS
PART I
IN THE CLOUDS
"My God," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!"
In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then vanished into the haze before I even answered him.
"Anything to be done?" I asked.
"Nothing," said he.
"If this wind holds we might conceivably make a landing somewhere--with extraordinary luck."
"On the other side?"
He nodded and I reflected.
Neither of us spoke for some time, and then a thought struck me suddenly and I asked:--
"Did you notice what o'clock it was when we broke loose?"
Rutherford nodded.
"I'm taking the time," said he, "and assuming the twenty knot breeze holds, we might risk a drop about six o'clock."
"A drop" meant jumping into space and trusting one's parachute to do its business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of that dive into the void, but I asked calmly enough:
"And assuming the breeze doesn't hold?"
"Oh, it will hold all right; it will rise if anything," said he.
We had only been shipmates for a week , but I had learned enough about Rutherford in that time to know that he was one of the most positive and self-confident men breathing. One had to make allowance for this; still, that is the kind of company one wants in an involuntary balloon expedition across the North Sea through a dense fog.
"And where are we likely to come down?" I enquired.
"We might make the German coast as far south as Borkum or one of the other islands, or we might land somewhere as far north as Holstein."
"Not Holland or Denmark?"
He shook his head positively, "No such luck."
Though this was a trifle depressing, it was comforting to feel that one was with a man who knew his way about the air so thoroughly. I looked at our map, judged the wind, and decided that he was probably right. The chances of fetching a neutral country seemed very slender. Curiously enough the chances of never reaching any country at all had passed out of my calculations for the moment. Rutherford was so perfectly assured.
"And what's the programme when we do land?" I asked.
"Well, we've got to get out of the place as quickly as possible. That's pretty evident."
"How?"
"You know the lingo, don't you?"
"Pretty well."
"Well enough not to be spotted as a foreigner?"
"I almost think so."
"First thing I ever heard to the credit of the diplomatic service!" he laughed. "Well, you'll have to pitch a yarn of some kind if we fall in with any of the natives. Of course we'll try and avoid 'em if we can, and work across country either for Denmark or Holland by compass."
"Have you got a compass?" I asked.
"Damn!" he exclaimed, and for a few moments a frown settled on his bull dog face. Then it cleared again and he said, "After all we'll have to move about by night and the stars will do just as well."
He was never much of a talker and after this he fell absolutely silent and I was left to my thoughts. Though I had fortunately put on plenty of extra clothes for the ascent, I began to feel chilly up at that altitude enshrouded in that cold white mist, and I don't mind admitting that my thoughts gradually became a little more serious than they usually are. I hardly think Rutherford, with all his virtues, had much imagination. I have a good deal--a little too much at times--and several other possible endings to our voyage besides a safe landing and triumphant escape began to present themselves. Two especially I had to steel my thoughts against continually--a descent with a parachute that declined to open, whether on to German or any other soil, or else a splash and then a brief struggle in the cold North Sea. I am no great swimmer and it would be soon over.
And so the hours slowly passed; always the same mist and generally the same silence. Occasionally we talked a little, and then for a long space our voices would cease and there would be utter and absolute quiet,--not the smallest sound of any sort or kind. We had been silent for a long, long time and I had done quite as much thinking as was good for my nerves, when Rutherford suddenly exclaimed,
"We are over land!"
He was looking over the edge of the basket, and instantly I was staring into space on my side. There was certainly nothing to see but mist.
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