He returned to the house, remounted, and rode back rapidly to the aerodrome. There he explained the circumstances at greater length to his flight commander, set the mechanics to work, and within ten minutes was ready to start.
"We're in for a storm, I fancy," said his commander as he got into his place; "but perhaps you'll be back before it breaks."
The weather had gradually changed. The sky had become thick, the air was sultry and oppressive. As Burton climbed in a wide spiral it was like going from a Turkish bath into the cooling room, fresh and exhilarating. He circled over the aerodrome until he had attained an altitude of six or seven thousand feet, then steered towards the German lines, still rising steadily. The spot for which he was making was four or five miles away. Soon the bewildering network of the British trenches glided away beneath him. Then the German trenches came into view. On the roads behind he noticed tiny black specks moving this way and that--supply wagons, no doubt, or motor-cars bringing up fresh men.
The whirr of his engine was broken into by something like the sound of a pop-gun. He looked around; a woolly ball of smoke hung in the air on his right. Immediately afterwards there were more pops, and the ball became the centre of a cluster. Burton swerved to the left, then dodged a long roll of greenish-yellow smoke with a red tongue of flame in the centre. The German "Archies" were at work. He flew on, swinging from side to side, until he calculated that he was about three miles behind the front line of trenches. Then he turned at right angles and commenced a methodical search of the ground stretched like a patchwork quilt below him. Here was a brown patch of plough-land, then a blob of vivid green denoting grass, or one of green speckled with white--an orchard in the blossom of spring. In the distance the silvery streak of a river pursued its winding way. A train was rolling across it, like a toy train on a toy bridge.
A dark mass below him broke apart, resolving itself into individual dots. "Afraid of bombs," he thought. At the spot where the centre of the crowd had been, the ground appeared to be blackened. "Shouldn't wonder if that's the missing aeroplane," he thought. "It caught fire, or they've burnt it. But where's that new battery? Things are getting hot." Shells were bursting all about him. Now and then the machine lurched, and he looked round anxiously to see the extent of the damage. A few wires, perhaps, were hanging loose; a few rents gaped in the fabric; nothing serious as yet. But it was getting very uncomfortable.
Up and down he flew, feeling the strain of doing double work. With his map pinned down in front of him he scanned the ground for some new feature. Ah! What is that? Peering through his glasses he descries a group of men in suspicious activity about a clump of bushes. They scatter as he passes over. A shell sets the machine rocking. He swings round and soars over the spot again, even venturing to descend a few hundred feet. The clump is not marked on the map. What is that in the middle of it? The flight has carried him beyond it before he can answer the question; but he turns again, and circles over the place. There is something unnatural in the appearance of the bushes. The shells are bursting thicker than ever. Something cracks just behind his seat. But he thrills as he realises that his reconnaissance has succeeded. "The battery is hidden in that clump, or I'm a Dutchman."
He marked the spot on his map, moved the elevator, soared aloft, and steered for home, making a circuit northward to avoid an anti-aircraft gun that lay directly between him and the aerodrome. And now for the first time he was aware that the threatening storm was about to burst. The westerly wind had increased in force; the sky was blacker; huge waves of cloud were rolling eastward. He flew into the wind and tried to rise above the clouds. Suddenly Heaven's artillery thundered around him; there was a blinding flash; he was conscious of pain as though he had received a heavy blow; then for a while he was lost to all about him.
When he partly recovered his senses and tried to regain control of the machine he was in a state of bewilderment. The aeroplane was nearly upside down. He scarcely knew which was top and which bottom. He struggled to right the machine: when he succeeded, with great creaking of the controls, he was alarmed to see that he was within a few hundred feet of the ground, above a wood. Exercising all his self-command he managed to swerve clear of the tree-tops, and in another moment or two the machine came to the ground with a bump that seemed to shake out of place every bone in his body.
Half dazed, he unstrapped himself with trembling fingers and scrambled from his seat. Rain was pouring in a deluge. The sky was black as night. His feet had just touched the sodden soil when he became aware of a number of figures rushing towards him from the undergrowth. Fumbling for his revolver, he was felled by a shrewd blow.
