"Down, you fellows!" cried Carstairs, who now took the lead. "Have your rifles ready to fire back, and enjoy what is going to be the greatest ride of your lives!"
Some wild spirit seemed to have taken hold of the Englishman. An expert driver, it may have been the touch of the wheel under his hand at such an exciting moment, and then it may have been the shots from the German cars that, in an instant, rattled upon the steel sides protecting the car.
"Hold fast, you fellows!" cried Carstairs, who bent low over the wheel, his flashing eyes now seeking to trace the road before them. "We are going to eat up the ground!"
The car gave its last dizzy lurch as it completed its circuit and shot ahead. John and Wharton had been thrown together, but they held on to their rifles and righted themselves. Then John noticed beside him the body and barrels of a machine gun, mounted and ready for use. He was the sharpshooter of the three and that gun appealed to him, as the car had appealed to Carstairs.
"Move over a little!" he shouted to Wharton.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to fight that pursuing German army."
In an instant the machine gun began to crackle like a box of exploding crackers, sending back a hail of bullets which rattled upon the pursuing cars or found victims in them. But they, crouching down, were completely protected by the armor, and their careering machine made but a single target while they could fire into the pursuing mass.
Carstairs bent lower and lower. He had gone completely wild for the moment. Millions of sparks flew before his eyes. All the big and little pulses in his head and body were beating heavily. They had just scored two great triumphs. They had defeated the efforts of the masters of the air, and they had taken from their foe one of his most formidable weapons in which they might escape. His soul flamed with triumph, and that old familiar touch of the wheel filled him with the strength not of one giant, but of ten. He saw the road clearly now. There it lay ahead of them, long, white and sinuous, and he never doubted for a moment his ability to guide the armored car along in it at a mile a minute.
John in his turn was filled with the rage of battle. It was not often that one in his situation had a deadly machine gun at hand, ready to turn upon his enemies. While Wharton fed it from the great supply of ammunition in the car he turned a perfect stream of balls upon the pursuing motor, spraying it from side to side like a hose. Wharton looked up at his white strained face, in which his eyes burned like two coals of fire, and then he looked at the bent back and shoulders of Carstairs.