hrough an airplane's thick windows of shatter-proof glass, so tough and resilient that a machine-gun bullet would only make a temporary dent, the midday sun flashed brightly as the big ship rolled. Along each side of the small room, high up under the curve of the cabin roof, windows were ranged. Others like them were in the floor. And, above, the same glass made a transparent dome from which an observer could see on all sides.
Outside was the thunderous roar of ten giant motors, but inside the cabin—the fire-control room of a dreadnought of the air—that blast of sound became more a reverberation and a trembling than actual noise.
Certainly the sound of motors and of slashing propellers, as the battle plane roared up into the sky, did not prevent free conversation among the three men in the room. Yet there was neither laughter nor idle talk.
At a built-in desk, before a battery of instruments, sat Farrell, the captain of the ship. Farther aft, in solidly anchored chairs, Colonel Culver and Smithy were seated. Occasionally the captain spoke into a transmitter, cutting in by phone on different stations about the ship.
"Check up on that right-wing gun, Sergeant—number two of the top wing-battery. Recoil mechanism is reported stiff.... Tell Chicago, Lieutenant, we will want one thousand gallons in the air—gas only—no oil needed.... Gun room? Have the gun crews get some sleep. They'll have to stand by later on...."
Colonel Culver spoke musingly. "Guerilla warfare, the hardest kind to meet."
mithy nodded absently. He rose and stared from one of the side windows that was just level with his eyes. He could see nothing but the broad expanse of wing, a sheet of smooth gray metal. Along its leading edge was a row of shimmering disks where great propellers whirled. From the top of the wing a two-inch Rickert recoilless thrust forth its snout; it rose in air till the whole weapon was visible, then settled again and buried itself inside the wing.
They were testing a gun. Smithy knew that inside that wing section were other guns, and men, and smoothly running motors. The whole ship was only a giant flying wing of which their own central section was merely a thickening.