The flying man spoke in quick jerky sentences. His wounds were giving him acute pain. Already he was bordering upon delirium, his injuries aggravated by his inability, as he imagined, to prevent his machine falling into the hands of he enemy.
"Yes, you are in Dutch territory," Athol reassured him. Then, seized with an inspiration he asked, "Is the plane all right?"
"Far as I know," was the reply. "Why?"
"Because I belong to the R.F.C.," announced Athol. "Came a cropper near Hasselt yesterday and managed to get clear. If you can hold out for a couple of hours we'll fetch our lines, barring accidents. I'll take her when we're properly up, but it's the take-off and the landing part that are beyond me."
"Come along, then," exclaimed the other, his injuries forgotten in the prospect of saving his machine. "She's only a single-seater, so you'll have to perch up behind me."
Athol had to assist him to his seat. Deftly the almost sightless man tested the controls, and put the self-starter into operation. Without a hitch the propeller began to revolve, the crowd giving back at the first explosions.
"Hurry, man, hurry!" exclaimed Athol. "There are Dutch troops coming along the road."
"No internment for me, if I can help it," shouted the other, in order to make himself heard above the roar of the propeller. "So here goes."
Accelerating the engine, the lieutenant set the monoplane in motion, Athol shouting directions into his ear to enable him to avoid various obstructions in the way. For nearly two hundred yards the machine rolled over the ground, wobbling under the erratic revolutions of the buckled landing-wheel, until gaining sufficient momentum it rose steadily in the air.
"Now take her," exclaimed the pilot in a strong voice that surprised his companion by the volume of sound. "Let me know when your aerodrome is in sight. You'll find it easier than you would mine, and after all it doesn't much matter so long as it is a British one."