McGee came out of the cloud into the clear sunlight, and began searching the sky for the Nieuport. It was not to be seen. He flew on, encountered other clouds, came out again, but the Nieuport had miraculously disappeared.
McGee flew steadily northeast until he spotted an exceptionally large group of enemy planes, working up from the direction in which he was headed.
It was time to turn around. He was quite too far into enemy territory to feel comfortable, and that swarm of planes made him unusually homesick, even though they were far below him.
But just as he banked into a left turn he noticed that they were nosing down, sharply. He flew along the misty edge of a cloud, watching closely. Down, down, they went, becoming mere specks against the blue-grey ground haze.
They were about to make a landing! There could be no doubt of it, though at this distance and altitude he could not make out their hangars. On down they dropped, until at last they seemed to be engulfed by a greyish sea that shut out all definite form.
McGee had come for information, and here it was within his grasp if he were only willing to take a chance.
178The strata of clouds against which he was flying stretched in the general direction of the place where he had lost sight of the large flight of planes.
He ducked into the clouds and drove along until he estimated that he was somewhere in the right neighborhood.
Coming out into an open sky he located a considerable forest far to his right and another one several kilometers directly ahead. Directly between these a ribbon of white marked its twisting course. That would be the Ourcq, and the forest beyond would be the Forest de Nesles. And–yes, there just beyond the river was a town–which McGee concluded must be Fere-en-Tardenois–and a little way from its outskirts a group of drab square blocks that caught and held his eyes.
Too much ground haze to make them out. Well, a chance is a chance, he reasoned, as over went the Camel’s nose in a long dive.