"Mon Dieu! I do nothing for a week but clean the engine."
"Yes, poor chap, but you shall have a rest after this. Go to bed when you've got things shipshape; I shall go alone; only about four hundred miles this time."
"You really mean it, then?" said Barracombe.
"Decidedly. If you knew Captain Bolitho you would see that there's no help for it."
"Well, then, the sooner you eat your supper and get between the sheets the better. I'll tuck you up."
"Tuck in and tuck up. Very well."
"Your bath shall be ready at six, sir," said Simmons.
A few minutes after six o'clock, Smith made his ascent, his departure being witnessed by his sister and Barracombe and the whole domestic staff. He flew rapidly over Hampshire, Dorset, Devon; crossed the Bristol Channel, and made a bee-line for Bear Haven at the entrance to Bantry Bay. Soon after eight he descried a number of dull grey specks strung like beads on the western horizon. They must be one or other of the opposing fleets, either the Reds or the Blues; but which? He must go and see. Altering his course a point or two, in a few minutes he was running down the line of warships, which were steaming line ahead, apparently in the direction of Bear Haven. At a glance he recognized the Thunderbolt, notoriously the lame duck of the Reds, lagging three or four miles behind the rest. Smith slowed down to quarter speed as he passed the leading ships, and a few blank shots were fired at him for form's sake, for the guns were incapable of an inclination that would be dangerous to him at his height of 3,000 feet, even if they were throwing live shell.
He drew clear of the squadron, and was about to put his engine at full speed again when an aeroplane shot up from the deck of the flagship and started in pursuit, followed at a short interval by a second aeroplane from a vessel some distance down the line. Smith smiled to himself. From what he knew of the service aeroplanes, the Puck, as he had now named his vessel, was in no danger of being overtaken; but if the airmen of the Red fleet wanted a run, he was not the man to baulk them. In a few minutes the pursuers began to close in; he increased the speed to eighty miles; still they gained on him. Another notch in the regulator increased his speed to a hundred miles an hour, at which he felt that he should be able to hold his own. He found, however, that one of the aeroplanes was still gaining, and it was not until he had increased his speed another twenty miles that the Puck began to draw away.
"Now to business," Smith said to himself.