“If they get far enough away from the forts what’s the matter with bumping them?”
This suggestion from Henri did not seem to appeal to Lieutenant Moppa, who lifted a hand in protest.
“It would be taking big chances for mighty small game,” he asserted. “Let Mowbray and Gault give them the tumble at long range.”
The first named gunner at the moment blazed away, and with successful result, to which he testified with a whoop of satisfaction.
“One down,” he yelled; “only crippled, maybe, but out of the game.”
“Yes, and you have spoiled the day for the other two; they are not coming to see the air circus at all.”
It was Lieutenant Atlass who announced the retirement of the bold navigators. What with Mowbray’s center shot, the roaring of the four engines and the appalling size of the great airship, it had been all sufficient to send the Turkish craft to cover.
“I see how it is,” chuckled the French aviator; “they thought we had rigged one of the warships with wings, and the idea scared them stiff.”
The “Sikorsky” after a week’s service over the Turkish entrenchments, on the heights of Smyrna, started on return voyage to Tenedos, where Lieutenant Moppa proposed now to hold the big craft in readiness for that long-expected summons to meet the Russian fleet when it should win through the Bosphorus. That this was a near coming event, the officer implicitly believed.
Billy and Henri were not so much concerned in the whys and wherefores that prompted the backtracking as they were in the prospect of rejoining Captain Johnson and Josh.