Air Service Boys Over The Rhine; Or, Fighting Above The Clouds by E. J. Craine
CHAPTER VIII
WHERE IS MR. RAYMOND?
Tom Raymond, having gone through a hard school since he began flying forFrance, soon recovered almost complete mastery of himself. The firstshock was severe, but when it was over he was able to think clearly.Indeed the faculty of thinking clearly in times of great danger is whatmakes great aviators. For in no other situation is a clear and quickbrain so urgently needed.
"Well, I'm sure of one thing, Jack," said Tom, as they walked away fromthe fateful ruins. "Of those we helped carry out none was my father. Hewasn't among the injured or dead."
"I'm sure of that, too. Still we mustn't count too much on it, Tom. Idon't want you to have false hopes. We must make sure."
"Yes, I'm going to. We'll visit the hospitals and morgues, and talk withthe military and police authorities. In these war times there is arecord of everybody and everything kept, so it ought to be easy to tracehim."
"He arrived all right, that's settled," declared Jack. "The agent'srecord proves that."
"Yes. I'd like to have a further talk with that agent before we set outto make other inquiries."
This Tom was able to bring about some time later that day. The agentinformed the lad that Mr. Raymond, contrary to his expectations, hadarrived only the day before. Where he had been delayed since arriving inEurope was not made clear.
"But was my father in the building at the time the shell struck here?"asked Tom. "That's what I want to know."
Of this the man could not be certain. He had seen Mr. Raymond, he said,an hour or so before the bombardment, and the inventor was, at thattime, in his room. Then he had gone out, but whether he had come backand was in the house when the shell struck the place, could not be saidwith certainty.
But if he had been in his apartment there was little chance that he hadbeen left alive, for the explosion occurred very near his room,destroying everything. Tom hoped, later, to find some of his father'seffects.
"There is just a chance, Jack," said the inventor's son, "that he wasn'tin his room."
"A good chance, I should say," agreed the other. "Even if he hadreturned to his room, and that's unlikely, he may have run out at thesound of the first explosion, to see what it was all about."
"I'm counting on that. If he was out he is probably alive now. But if hewas in his room--"
"There would be some trace of him," finished Jack.
"And that's what we've got to find."
The police and soldiers were only too willing to assist Tom in hissearch for his father. The ruins, they said, would be carefully goneover in an endeavor to get a piece of the German shell to ascertain itsnature and the kind of gun that fired it. During that search some tracemight be found of Mr. Raymond.
It did not take long to establish one fact--that the inventor's body wasnot among the dead carried out. Nor was he numbered with the injured inthe hospitals. Careful records had been kept, and no one at allanswering to his description had been taken out or cared for.
And yet, of course, there was the nerve-racking possibility that hemight have been so terribly mutilated that his body was beyond all humansemblance. The place where his room had been was a mass of splinteredwood and crumbled masonry. There was none of his effects discernible,and Tom did not know what to think.
"We've just got to wait," he said to Jack, late that afternoon, whentheir search of the hospitals and morgues had ended fruitlessly.
Meanwhile the French airmen had been scouring the sky for a sight of theGerman craft that might have released the death-dealing bombs on thecity. But their success had been nil. Not a Hun had been sighted, andone aviator went up nearly four miles in an endeavor to locate a hostilecraft.
Of course it was possible that a super-machine of the Huns had flownhigher, but this did not seem feasible.
"There is some other explanation of the bombardment of Paris, I'm sure,"said Tom, as he and Jack went to their lodgings. "It will be a surprise,too, I'm thinking, and we'll have to make over some of our old ideas andaccept new ones."
"I believe you're right, Tom. But say, do you remember that fellow wesaw in the train--the one I thought was a German spy?"
"To be sure I remember him and his _metzel suppe_. What about him? Doyou see him again?" and Tom looked out into the street from the windowof their lodging.
"No. I don't see him. But he may have had something to do with shellingthe city."
"You don't mean he carried a long-range gun in his pocket, do you,Jack?" and Tom smiled for the first time since the awful tragedy.
"No, of course not. Still he may have known it was going to happen, andhave come to observe the effect and report to his beastly masters."
"He'd be foolish to come to Paris and run the chance of being hit by hisown shells."
"Unless he knew just where they were going to fall," said Jack.
"You have a reason for everything, I see," remarked Tom. "Well, the nexttime we go to headquarters we'll find out what they learned of thisfellow. You know we started the secret service agents on his trail."
"Yes, I know. Well, I was just sort of wondering if he had anything todo with the bombardment of Paris. You've got to look for German spiesnow, even under your bed at night."
The boys felt they could do nothing more that day toward finding Mr.Raymond. A more detailed and careful search of the ruins might revealsomething. Until this was accomplished nothing could be done.
They ate a late supper, without much in the way of appetites, it must beconfessed, and then went out in the streets of Paris. There seemed to befew signs of war, aside from the many soldiers, and even thebombardment of a few hours earlier appeared to have been forgotten. Butof course there was grief in many hearts.
It was early the next morning, when Tom and Jack were getting ready togo back to the ruins in the Rue Lafayette, that, as they left theirlodgings, they heard in the air above them the familiar sounds ofaeroplanes in flight, and the faint popping of machine guns, to whichwas added the burst of shrapnel.
"Look!" cried Jack. "It's a battle in the air. The Huns are makinganother raid. Now we'll see how they bomb the city."
But it did not turn out to be that sort of raid. The German craft wereflying low, apparently to get a view of the havoc wrought the daybefore. Possibly photographs were being taken.
But the French aeroplanes were ready for the foe, and at once arose togive battle, while the anti-aircraft guns roared out a stern order toretreat. It was a battle above the city and, more than once, Tom andJack wished they could be in it.
"We'll have to get back to our hangars soon," mused Tom, as they watchedthe fight. "We can't be slackers, even if I can't find my father," headded bravely.
The French planes were too much for the Germans, and soon drove themback beyond the Hun lines, though perhaps not before the enemy aviatorshad made the observations desired.
"Well, they didn't see much," remarked Jack. "As far as any real damagewas done to Paris it doesn't count, from a military standpoint."
"No, you're right," agreed Tom. "Of course they have killed somenoncombatants, but that seems to be the Boche's principal form ofamusement. As for getting any nearer to the capture of Paris this way,he might as well throw beans at the pyramids. It's probably done for themoral, or immoral, effect."
And this seemed to be the view taken of it by the Paris and Londonpapers. The method of bombardment, however, remained a mystery, and abaffling one. This was a point the military authorities wished to clearup. To that end it was much to be desired that fragments of the shellshould be found. And to find them, if possible, a careful search wasmade, not only in the ruins of the Rue Lafayette, but at the other twoplaces where the explosions had occurred.
In no place, however, was a large enough fragment found to justify anyconclusive theories, and the Parisians were forced to wait for anotherbombardment--rather a grim and tense waiting it was, too.
But the careful search of the Rue Lafayette ruins proved one thing. Thebody of Tom's father was not among t
Their leave of absence had been for a week only, but under thecircumstances, and as it was exceptionally quiet on their sector, theywere allowed to remain longer. Tom wanted to make a more thorough searchfor his father, and the police and military authorities helped him. ButMr. Raymond seemed to have completely disappeared. There was no trace ofhim since the agent for the Rue Lafayette buildings had seen him leavehis room just prior to the falling of the shell.
Jack inquired about the man he suspected of being a German spy. Thesecret service men had him under observation, they reported, but, asyet, he had not given them any cause to arrest him. They were waitingand watching.
Meanwhile active preparations were under way, not only to discover thesource of the bombardment of Paris, but to counteract it. Extraanti-aircraft guns, of powerful calibre, were erected in many placesabout the city, and more airmen were summoned to the defense.
As yet there had been no resumption of the bombardment, and there werehopes that the German machine, whatever it was, had burst or been putout of commission. But on the second day of the second week of the boys'stay in Paris, once more there was the alarm and the warning-from thesoldiers and police, and again came that explosion.
The bombardment of Paris was being renewed!