The roar returned; throttled down; the airscrew thrashed; black-crossed wings darted through the beams of a searchlight; the pilot got his wheels on the ground and his machine was bounding. Gerry was on his feet and running after it. O’Malley followed. The airplane rolled slowly through the second pencil of light and, as the pilot stepped from his seat, Gerry charged him from behind. Gerry tackled him and knocked him down; Gerry jerked out the German’s automatic pistol.
“O’Malley?” Gerry challenged the figure which struggled up.
“Bye!”
“There was only one on board. I have him. Take his pistol ammunition, his helmet, and goggles.”
“I have them, bye.”
“Get aboard—in the forward seat pit!”
Gerry backed to the machine himself, holding the German covered. The prisoner dodged back and moved to wreck his machine. Gerry fired and the German fell.
Gerry jumped into the pilot’s pit; the engine and the airscrew the German had left just turning over; Gerry opened wide, and felt his wheels rolling; an exultation of relief and triumph, rather than definite sense, told him that he was flying. Little lights set over dials before him informed of the accustomed details by strange scales and meters—his speed, his height, his direction of flight, and the revolutions his engine was making.
He gazed below at the ground lights from which he had risen; he turned about. The machine which he had captured, like most training machines, was big and heavy; its body could be arranged for two seats or for one. O’Malley had found the other pit; and though the machine had been balanced for pilot only, the trick of flying with weight forward was easy for Gerry.
He switched on the light above the mapboard and found spread before him a large detail map of the immediate vicinity. Below was a chart of smaller scale for use in case the pilot “flew out” of the first map and was lost. But Gerry was satisfied with the one already in position. It gave him Mannheim and—he bent closer to see clearly upon the vibrating surface—the grounds and wood von Fallenbosch and also the speck of the schloss.