Lieutenant Moppa was more than willing to accept a test of efficiency of his ship and the metal of his men.
“The only trouble is, your oversized aeroplane presents too big a target for close flying,” argued a member of the French aviation corps.
“Perhaps so,” smilingly returned the lieutenant, “but we are elusive enough at a speed of 90 miles an hour.”
“Well, it is a powerful machine, no question about that,” cheerfully conceded the French aviator. “I would like very much to make a trial trip with you.”
“You have the invitation,” promptly stated the lieutenant.
When the “Sikorsky” made a demonstration the next day over Forts Two Brothers and Bastrati, on Smyrna heights, the Frenchman was an interested passenger, and the four engines, working all at once, gave him an earful of noise that he had not expected. He was no less surprised at the youth of the pilots, but was soon convinced that they were star performers at the wheels.
“Wonderful work there,” he said to Lieutenant Moppa, after the big craft had been put through all the paces of scientific planing.
This flight, however, was not intended solely as an exhibition trip. Lieutenant Atlass was soon working overtime with his bomb-dropping specialty, and Mowbray and Gault, the aviator-gunners, swiveled the little growlers, mounted fore and aft, in most effective manner, raising many a howl from the trenches with their expert downfire.
The fighters in the fortifications were not slow themselves in showing that this was no holiday set apart for rest.
They banged away with more vigor than precision at the huge fabric above them, and occasionally put a dent in the armor of the aerial tormentor.