"Enough," ordered Blake. "Stand by. We're nearly there. I spot an aerodrome. It may be a British one. At any rate, we'll land."
Dimly wondering how the pilot would bring the huge battleplane to earth in that howling wind, the lads "stood by." Their confidence in Blake was unbounded.
Head to wind the machine planed earthwards. The whole expanse of the aerodrome seemed as if it were rising to greet the unique mechanical bird. Men, to whom the almost hourly arrival and return of flying machines caused little or no comment, emerged from their huts to witness the landing of the weirdest battleplane they had ever seen.
With almost an imperceptible jerk the landing wheels struck the sandy soil. Simultaneously Blake "switched off" the motors and thrust a lever hard down. The wings folding without a hitch no longer offered resistance to the wind, and the battleplane, pinned down to the earth by its own compact weight, rested firmly on the soil of France.
* * * * *
"So you have arrived," was the Wing Commander's greeting. "We were expecting you. Had a fair passage?"
"Fairly," replied Blake. "A slight mishap over the Channel well-nigh landed us into the ditch. It was blowing very hard at the time." "Seen anything of a monoplane on your way over?" enquired the flying officer. "We had information that one of our latest type of machine had left Newhaven a couple of hours ago."
"Yes," was the reply. "We passed her about half-way across. She was flying low and apparently making slow progress against the gale."
"A tough task for a new hand," commented the Wing Commander. "The youngster took his certificate only a fortnight ago, and this is his first cross-Channel flight."
"He would have done better if he had kept eight or ten thousand feet up," hazarded Blake.