Crouching behind the rocks they watched the seaplane as it made a circling movement, diving all the time, until it swept round and headed straight for the entrance to the cove. From a height of about two hundred feet it swooped down towards the sea, 'blipped' again, then descended lightly upon the surface, ran a few yards, and at last came to rest a little distance from the beach. Several bare-legged German sailors had already emerged from one of the nearer sheds. They waded into the water. Two of them carried the occupants of the seaplane on their backs to the shore, then returned to help their comrades to pull the machine in. It glided smoothly up the beach until it rested just below the sheds.

'Gliders all complete,' said Hoole.

'What do you mean?'

'They 've laid down boards on the beach; you can't see them from here. They are well greased, too, to judge by the speed the floats slid up them. Those Germans are pretty thorough, Trentham.'

'Where did you pick up all these details?' asked Trentham curiously.

'Oh, I 've seen that sort of thing once or twice before. But hadn't we better get back? There 's nothing more to be seen from this quarter, and I presume Flanso and his men are on that ledge yonder, or near about.'

'That farthest shed is the officers' quarters, by the look of it. The two airmen have just gone inside. We 've learnt the lie of the land and not much else, I 'm afraid. Can't we go a little farther along the shore, behind the rocks, and climb the cliff nearer the sheds?'

'We can try, but 'ware the sentry.'

They had not gone far, however, before the incoming tide forced them to leave the rocks and clamber up through the bushes. The ascent was even more difficult than the descent had been, and a miscalculation of the direction of the path on which this sentry-box stood almost led to their undoing. They had supposed that it ran fairly straight to the sheds from the point at which they had left it; but the nature of the ground had necessitated its being carried a good many yards farther along the cliff, and then it bent round and formed a loop, approaching the sheds in the same direction as Hoole and Trentham were now going. Unaware of this, they were slowly climbing when Trentham slipped, displacing a mass of loose earth which went rattling down the cliff. They were not greatly alarmed, thinking that the sentry was too far away to have heard the sound through the noise of the coal-tipping across the cove. But footsteps not far above them caused them to snuggle behind a thick bush. The rustle of movement above drew nearer. Through the bush they saw the sentry stepping cautiously down, and prodding the vegetation with his bayonet. Hoole fingered his revolver, but Trentham signed to him that if any weapon had to be used it must be the spear. The sentry, however, stopped ten or a dozen yards above them, then, apparently satisfied that the landslide was accidental, laboriously climbed up the cliff.

Much relieved, for violent measures would have been fatal to the success of their reconnaissance, the two men waited for a quarter of an hour or so, then struck up the cliff some distance to the left of the spot where the sentry had appeared, and wormed their way to the path, far beyond his box, by a wide circuit. It was almost dark by the time they rejoined the natives. They marched a few miles until night descended upon them; then they rested for a while, discussing the results of their expedition.