A pressure forward on the elevating lever shot the sea-plane downward, and the turn again to level keel was made a scant five hundred feet above the choppy surface of the Channel.
“We’ll take to boating again at Dunkirk,” observed the captain, but the observation was heard only by himself, for now the wind and the waves and the motors and the straining of the aircraft combined to drown even a voice like the captain’s.
There was destined to be no landing that night at Dunkirk. An offshore gale, not to be denied, suddenly swept the Channel with howling force. Rising, dipping, twisting, the sea-plane dashed on in uncertain course, and when at last it had outridden the storm, Ostend was in sight—the Atlantic City of the Belgians.
The stanch aircraft, with engines silenced, rocked now upon the heaving tide. Its tanks were empty. Not a drop of petrol in them. Retreat was impossible, and in the broad light of the new day there was no place of concealment.
While four shivering shapes shifted cramped positions and gratefully welcomed the warming sun-rays, they were under survey of powerful field-glasses in the hands of a gray-garbed sentry.
CHAPTER II.
A LOOK BACKWARD.
After following Billy and Henri in their perilous and thrilling night ride, it has occurred that they should have first been properly introduced and their mission in the great war zone duly explained. Only a few weeks preceding their first adventure, as described in the [initial chapter], they were giving flying exhibitions in Texas, U. S. A.
“That’s a pair for you!” proudly remarked Colonel McCready to a little group of soldiers and civilians intently looking skyward, marking the swift and graceful approach through the sunlit air of a wide-winged biplane, the very queen of the Flying Squadron.
With whirring motor stilled, the great bird for a moment hovered over the parade ground, then glided to the earth, ran for a short distance along the ground and stopped a few feet from the admiring circle.