“Say, what’s eatin’ you, soldier?” demanded the irate American motor cycle orderly.
For answer McGee sprang into the side car and barked a few crisp, sharp orders that brooked no hesitation. The responsive little motor roared its staccato eagerness as the machine lurched forward, leaving Larkin speechless and wondering.
“What do you know about that?” he mused. “Now what can that little shrimp be up–” he hesitated, struck by the same thought, he felt sure, that had plunged McGee into such sudden action. Then he began shouting for the driver of their motor car.
“Martins! Martins! Oh, Martins!” Blast the fellow, doubtless he was already in some place of security. “Martins! Oh, Martins!”
A door flew open, letting out a beam of light as 78Martins came out, clad only in his underclothes and yawning prodigiously.
“Did you call, sir?” he asked, blinking foolishly as he studied the flashing rays of the sky-searching lights.
“Yes! Get the car! Snappy, now!”
“Yes, sir. Just as soon as I can get on some clothes.”
“Hang the clothes! Get the car–and set the road afire between here and the ’drome. Move! Don’t stand there blinking like a blooming owl.”
Martins sped around the house, a white-clad figure racing bare-footed for the car and muttering under his breath every time his flying feet struck bits of gravel and sharp stones. The sound of the airplane motors was now much nearer; the siren was still screaming its fright; anti-aircraft guns were futilely belching steel into the air, and the searchlights were getting jumpy in their haste to locate the intruders and hold them in a beam of light.