Archie’s dry lips were talking.
“It’s Lensch,” he said.
“How d’you know?” I gasped angrily.
“Can’t mistake him. Look at the way he slipped out as he banked. That’s his patent trick.”
In that agonizing moment hope died in me. I was perfectly calm now, for the time for anxiety had gone. Farther and farther drifted the British pilots behind, while Lensch in the completeness of his triumph looped more than once as if to cry an insulting farewell. In less than three minutes he would be safe inside his own lines, and he carried the knowledge which for us was death.
Someone was bawling in my ear, and pointing upward. It was Archie and his face was wild. I looked and gasped—seized my glasses and looked again.
A second before Lensch had been alone; now there were two machines.
I heard Archie’s voice. “My God, it’s the Gladas—the little Gladas.” His fingers were digging into my arm and his face was against my shoulder. And then his excitement sobered into an awe which choked his speech, as he stammered—“It’s old—”
But I did not need him to tell me the name, for I had divined it when I first saw the new plane drop from the clouds. I had that queer sense that comes sometimes to a man that a friend is present when he cannot see him. Somewhere up in the void two heroes were fighting their last battle—and one of them had a crippled leg.