Private Tom Smith elected to go with them, although not until he had spent many an anxious hour deliberating the matter in his mind. He was already a keen airman; he realised his debt of gratitude to Dick and the battleplane's crew for getting him out of a most unpleasant situation. On the other hand he was deeply attached to his old master, Colonel Hawke. With him he had shared the horrors of the Meseritz Prison Camp, and the private's sense of loyalty to his chief, coupled with his desire to share in the colonel's resolution to "get his own back" upon his former captors, decided him to throw in his lot with his master.
At five o'clock in the morning of the seventeenth day of their visit to Russia the battleplane's officers were aroused by Sergeant O'Rafferty announcing that the wind had veered and was blowing steadily from the north-east and seemed likely to remain so.
Wireless reports from Russian warships far out in the Baltic confirmed the statement. There was every indication of the favourable air-drift continuing for some days.
Already the battleplane was in readiness for flight. Her tanks had been replenished with petrol, her motors overhauled. There was still an ample reserve of machine-gun ammunition, while the Russian authorities had supplied a dozen bombs filled with a super-powerful Japanese high-explosive. The rents in her wings and in the body of the fuselage had been made good, numerous neat patches bearing a silent testimony to the ordeal through which she had successfully passed.
In accordance with the perfect array that existed between all the Allies Blake had given the Russian aeronautical engineer every facility to study the constructive details of his invention; and it was more than likely that before the war had come to a victorious conclusion, battleplanes after the model of the mechanical bird would be seen operating under the control of Russian airmen.
Having taken farewell of their hospitable hosts the crew of the battleplane prepared to set out on the return journey. This time they flew alone, for the remaining British biplanes that had taken part in the raid had already left. Acting under previous orders they had flown southward, and after a rest at Odessa, had passed over Constantinople, arriving safe and sound at the Allied Camp at Salonika.
Amidst salvoes of cheering from the swarm of grey-coated Russians the battleplane—"secret" no longer—rose steadily and faultlessly, and shaped a course towards the Baltic.
"I've decided upon an alteration of plans," announced Blake. "The deciding factor is the petrol question. If we fly direct and over German territory, we may run short of fuel and have to descend. You see, the spirit we are now using is different from the prepared petrol that brought us here. Whether we can cover the whole distance or not without replenishing remains to be seen. So I propose keeping over the Baltic and thence over the Cattegat and Skager Rack. By the time we are in the vicinity of the Skaw I shall be able to determine whether there will be enough petrol to carry us the rest of the way."
"And if not?" enquired Athol.
"Details already arranged," said the inventor, with a grim chuckle. "The Admiralty have instructed a tank-vessel, escorted by cruisers and destroyers, to lie off the Norwegian coast, well outside the three mile limit. That's a pretty tangible proof that we hold the sea."