"Bearing 90 degrees," came the level, even tones of the range-finding officer; then in a louder voice that seemed to indicate that a slow job had at last been completed: "Elevation 30 degrees."
Within the space of five seconds, every searchlight of the fleet was flashed obliquely into the darkness. The air was one blaze of dazzling beams, spread fanwise lest any daring and cunning airman should attempt to approach from an independent direction.
Eight miles off could be discerned the almost mathematical formation of the hostile air squadrons. They wavered when the beams fell athwart their path, which was probably owing to the pilots being temporarily blinded by the sudden glare. Then they recovered formation and came on.
A red rocket soared skywards from the flagship. It was the signal to let loose the rays.
To the onlookers it seemed as if a flight of plover had been raked by the heavy charge from a punt-gun. The massed flight broke its ranks. A few of the flying-boats held on, the majority simply nose-dived. A few were crashed into by those following. Others recovered sufficiently to plane down, remorselessly followed by the beam of a searchlight until they dropped helplessly upon the surface of the river.
One by one, those who at first had evaded the blighting rays were "picked up" by the searchlights and compelled to volplane. In less than thirty seconds silence brooded over the now crippled aircraft where a short while before the roar of two hundred powerful engines had rent the air. And within the space of another three minutes fifty flying-boats were either resting upon the water or were lying ten fathoms beneath it, all within a radius of a mile and a half.
Another signal issued from the Royal Oak. A flotilla of fifteen destroyers in double column line ahead swung round under the lee of the battleships and darted towards the paralysed flying-boats.
Not a shot was fired. The Rioguayan airmen refrained because they feared the consequences—the British gunners, because their foes offered no resistance.
With typical imperturbability, the skippers of the various destroyers manoeuvred alongside their prey. The Rioguayans were peremptorily ordered on board and sent below. Then a few blows with a hatchet were sufficient to start the steel plating of the all-metal aircraft and send them to the bed of the river. Out of the fifty flying-boats, five were reserved as prizes. The rest were scuttled, since the British admiral had no means of sending the whole of the captured air fleet into harbour.
It was a glorious triumph for Brian Strong's inventive genius.