“Oh! by making a stunning proposition I’ve been considering while I sat here, that’s all.”
“Gee! it takes you to think up things, Frank. Now, as for me, I’ve been badgering my poor brains about how we would astonish the people of Dunkirk when we came sailing into the harbor and made for our hangar. There’d be as much excitement as if a dozen of those little Taube aëroplanes of the Germans had hove in sight, just as they did on that day of the last air raid. Now tell me what the game is, please, Frank.”
“Suppose, then, we weren’t in such a big hurry to go back to our moorings?” said the other. “Suppose, that having broken away, we took that trial spin we’ve always been promising ourselves when things were ready!”
Billy became so excited that he actually forgot to eat.
“Wow! that’s a brilliant scheme, Frank, let me tell you!” he exclaimed. “Say, for a wonder, all the conditions favor aëroplane work. The wind that has kept up during the last three days seems to have blown itself out, and we’re likely to have a quiet spell. They’ll be on the watch for another raid of those Taubes from up Antwerp way on such a calm day as this. Frank, shall we try it?”
“Wait for another half hour,” replied the other. “By then it will be broad daylight, and we can see what the signs promise. If things look good we’ll start up and take a run to the northeast.”
“Over the trenches, do you mean, and perhaps far into Belgium?” cried Billy, to whom the prospect of seeing something of the terrible fighting that was daily taking place in the lowlands along the canal appealed with irresistible force; for the old reporter spirit had never been killed when he gave up newspaper work for aëroplane building.
“We’ll see how the land lies,” was all Frank would say. Billy knew very well the other was bound to be just as keenly interested in the warlike scenes below them as he could be, hence he was willing to check his impatience, leaving everything to Frank.
Both of them munched away on the ship-biscuit and cheese. It was pretty dry fare, but then there was a bottle of water at hand if they felt choking at any time.
The half hour passed and they could see from the growing light in the eastern sky that the sun would soon be making its appearance. Around them there was nothing but an endless succession of rollers, upon which the buoyant seaplane rose and fell with a continual gurgling sound.