"The sooner the better," said the now aroused Andy, at the same time crawling forward to put the first strip of ammunition into the machine gun. "Yes, sir, the sooner the better; and when the time arrives, I want to work this little spitfire here," indicating the gun.
They were now racing ahead at the highest speed the two motors would develop. There was scarcely a perceptible adverse wind, and their course was due east.
CHAPTER XIII The Battle in the Clouds
For three hours they had raced along thus, and then the first trouble developed with one of the motors. It blew out a spark plug.
Now, while this is not a difficult repair for an expert motor mechanic, nevertheless it necessitated another costly delay, and when they again got under way with full power it was with the determination that nothing short of a catastrophe should again interfere with their passage.
"As it stands now," said Jack, "if we go on without interruption we're likely to hit the Irish coast in the dead of night. Even at that, though, I'll be solemn glad to set foot on land again."
"So say we all of us; so say we all of us," Andy chimed, in the words and tune of a well-known song.
Fifteen minutes later they sighted the first ship they had seen since leaving Halifax. Up to the present this hadn't seemed strange to them; as a matter of fact they hadn't been thinking of surface vessels; but now that they gave it consideration they realized it was because they had been carried off their course by the storm, or couldn't see the lights of one because their own attention was given entirely to trying to save their own craft.