“If this low-hanging fog would only lift,” remarked Billy, as he put away the hardtack bags, “we could tell just where we were. As it is, there’s no such thing as seeing land, which must be over there to the east.”
“The sea fog is rising and will disappear as soon as the breeze comes,” Frank observed sagaciously. “By then we want to be several thousand feet up, and taking a look through the glasses at the picture we’ll have spread out below us.”
“Let’s start now,” suggested Billy. “I’m wild to see what the country up across the border of Belgium looks like. To think of us being able to glimpse all the German defenses as we go sailing over so smoothly.”
Frank laughed.
“You are counting your chickens again before they’re hatched, Billy, an old failing of yours. It may not be the smooth sailing you think. Remember that the Germans are always ready-primed with their wonderful anti-aëroplane guns for hostile raiders. We may have a dozen Taubes, too, buzzing after us, or find ourselves chased into the clouds by a big Zeppelin.”
If Frank thought to alarm Billy by saying this, he immediately saw that he had failed to shake the other’s nerve.
“Gee! that would make it interesting, for a fact!” the other exclaimed, his face beaming with eagerness. “Frank, you can take my word for it, no Taube, or Zeppelin either, for that matter, can catch up with our good old Sea Eagle, once you crack on all of her two thousand revolutions a minute with both motors. They haven’t got a thing over on this side of the big pond that is in the same class with Doctor Perkins’s invention.”
“I think you’re pretty near right there, Billy,” said the pilot, as he proceeded to press the button that would start things humming.
Immediately they were beginning to move along on the surface, the peculiar spoon-shaped bow preventing the water from coming aboard. Faster went the huge seaplane as Frank gave increased power, until when he tilted the ascending rudder they left the water just as a frightened duck does after attaining sufficient momentum.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed the delighted Billy, as soon as he realized, from the change in motion, that they no longer rested on the water, but were cleaving the air.