“Wake me and shake me at the mouth of the Thames,” exulted Jimmy, “show me the docks at Tilbury, see that there is a light in the window for me at Dover, and then won’t I be the horse for the Paris wagon!”
“Bully boy!” applauded Josh.
“Now get snug, you youngsters,” said the captain—“two in the bow and two aft with Josh.”
“Give her power, Freeman.”
The planes were set for the upward flight, and the course for the Straits of Dover.
Reddy was the only “cat in a strange garret” when the sea-plane cut through the air. The little Frenchman had never had a like sensation, and he soon began to revel in it, even though he could look sheer down through 3,000 feet of space and see the heaving sea.
The captain lowered the flight along the French coast, for the soldiers all down the line had been warned not to fire on the sea-plane, it having been generally announced in wireless orders that it was an English airship out on a trial run. The schedule included Boulogne, and the boys had the opportunity of looking down upon the city where Napoleon had once encamped his troops.
Swinging ’round and circling backward, the sea-plane hovered over Calais. Somebody had evidently forgotten orders, for when the big machine was directly above the military governor’s headquarters a half dozen or more soldiers seized their rifles and commenced firing at the aviators. Out rushed an officer, crying:
“C’est un Anglais! C’est un Anglais! Ne tirez plus!” (It is an Englishman! It is an Englishman! Stop firing!)
The sea-plane dropped into the harbor off Calais, and all except Josh, remaining as faithful guardian of his precious motors, went ashore.