He had more than once exchanged glances with Moppa when a particularly violent vibration was felt in the vessel. They were both thinking alike, and of the magazines.
As the storm died away and the sea no longer leaped in wild waves, the pilots essayed a cautious descent, by slow degrees. The compass showed the movement due south, but there was nothing to convince as to how far south.
No land was visible to the naked eye, but Lieutenant Moppa, having resumed lookout duty, announced that with his binocle he perceived a faint blue line in direction directly ahead.
“Ease her off a point or two,” he commanded, “and hold this course without change.” With a second thought, he further ordered: “Let Mowbray and Gault take the wheels. You boys will be dead on your feet if you do not quit for a while.”
Billy and Henri rather reluctantly relinquished their guiding posts, though, if the truth be known, both were rather shaky in the legs.
The new pilots, however, had plain sailing, and the boys felt that they had done their full duty, and more, when it had really counted for something.
Sailing lower and lower, the big airship, with driving force reduced to one engine, slowly approached a strip of land in the sea, now quite plainly visible to the crew.
There were military forces assembled on this ground, and it was Henri who first distinguished their nationality, when close enough to distinguish color. Blue tunics and red trousers—that was enough, without waiting to set eyes on the top display of red kepis, surmounted by the familiar tri-color cockade and ball.
“They’re French!” he shouted. “The real thing. Vive, La France!”
The port was Mudros, on Lemnos island, in the Ægean sea, where 35,000 French and British soldiers had just landed.