"Von Mahl," he said with well-assumed incredulity; "why, I thought—oh, by the way, is to-day the sixteenth?"
"To-morrow is the sixteenth," snarled von Mahl. "What happens to-morrow, Herr Englishman?"
"I beg your pardon," said Craig politely; "I'm afraid I can not tell you—it would not be fair to Tam."
And von Mahl went out in a sweat of fear.
From somewhere overhead came a sound like a snarl of a buzz-saw as it bites into hard wood. Tam, who was walking along a deserted by-road, his hands in his breeches pockets, his forage cap at the back of his head, looked up and shaded his eyes. Something as big as a house-fly, and black as that, was moving with painful slowness across the skies.
Now, there is only one machine that makes a noise like a buzz-saw going about its lawful business, and that is a British battle-plane, and that this was such a machine, Tam knew.
Why it should be flying at that height and in a direction opposite to that in which the battle-line lay, was a mystery.
Usually a machine begins to drop as it reaches our lines, even though its destination may be far beyond the aerodromes immediately behind the line—even, as in this case, when it was heading straight for the sea and the English coast. Nor was it customary for an aeroplane bound for "Blighty" to begin its voyage from some point behind the German lines. Tam stood for fully five minutes watching the leisurely speck winging westward; then he retraced his steps to the aerodrome.
He found at the entrance a little group of officers who were equally interested.