"By wireless?"
"Perhaps by telepathy!"
"Unless," said the chief of the aerostatic division, grinning, "Bouchard lends them the use of our own wires through the capital and around by the neutral countries across the Brown frontier!"
"But the correct plans and location of their forts and the numbers of their heavy guns and of their planes and dirigibles—your failure to have this information is not the result of any leak from our staff since the war began," said Turcas in his dry, penetrating voice, clearing the air of the smoke of scattered explosions.
All were staring at Bouchard again. What answer had he to this? He was in the box, the evidence stated by the prosecutor. Let him speak!
He was fairly beside himself in a paroxysm of rage and struck at the air with his clenched fist.
"—— —— Lanstron!" he cried.
"There's no purpose in that. He can't hear you!" said Turcas, dryly as ever.
"He might, through the leak," said the chief aerostatic officer, who considered that many of his gallant subordinates had lost their lives through Bouchard's inefficiency. "Perhaps Clarissa Eileen has already telepathically wigwagged it to him."
To lose your temper at a staff council is most unbecoming. Turcas would have kept his if hit in the back by a fool automobilist. Westerling had now recovered his. He was again the superman in command.