“If it pleases you, sir, we would ask the services of aviators who can go the route with the greatest skill and speed.”
“There is a pair of them behind you this minute,” was the quick answer.
Strogoff simply stared at the youths, who now stepped forward to salute their chief.
“What next?” The question was in his eyes.
The arrangement was that two biplanes were to go, it being deemed essential that there be carried one observer vested with the authority of the military branch.
Captain Walki was assigned to the duty, and to the biplane which Henri was to pilot.
“I am the boy with the ballast,” joked Billy, when he learned that Strogoff was to ride behind him.
“Don’t you think for a second that he is entirely new as an air passenger,” quietly advised the aviation chief, who had heard Billy’s facetious remark; “several times to my knowledge, and for hours at a time, he has leaned over the side of a speeding aeroplane, watching city roofs for contraband wireless apparatus.”
Within twenty minutes after the order had been presented by Strogoff, such is the efficiency and expedition of all proceedings with which trained soldiers have to do, the aviation party were off in swift and unerring pursuit of the transport, now many miles away churning against the current of the river Vistula.
In the open country near Gombin, having encountered a fierce gale which whirled them out of the line of the river course, the aviators decided to alight, and wait for a lull in the storm.