"Most remarkable case that," remarked an Army Medical Corps officer. "Not only was his sight injured, he had received a piece of shrapnel in his groin and a bullet lodged in his body in the region of his heart. All the while he was piloting that machine back he was bleeding to death internally. No wonder, with men of that stamp, that we hold the individual mastery of the air."
CHAPTER XVI
À BERLIN
Having, through Athol's instrumentality, recovered the battleplane's plans, Desmond Blake resolved to run no more risks in that direction. In spite of the most stringent precautions German spies were found to be active behind the British lines. Confidential documents disappeared almost under the noses of the authorities. So, rather than run a chance of having the plans stolen a second time, he destroyed them.
"The details of one battleplane may be kept a secret, with reasonable care," he remarked. "With a dozen in the making the odds are against it, and since the authorities have told me pretty plainly that I am of more use here than superintending the construction of other machines at home, I am content. I have an idea that they've a pretty stiff job for us to tackle before very long."
Blake's surmise was correct, for a few days later he was ordered to report himself at the Staff Office.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, taking Athol and Dick aside. "We're going to put the wind up the Bosches this time. Half a dozen of our fastest machines are detailed to make a raid—guess where?"
The lads hazarded the names of several places, but without success.
"Berlin," declared Blake. "Our people have been keen on the idea for a long time, but the authorities at home have, for some unearthly reason, deprecated the idea. Sickly sentimentality I call it. They shrink from reprisals, although they know perfectly well that that is the only way to bring the Hun to his senses. Events prove it. He was the first to use gas shells; now he squirms and whines when we give him a dose of his own poison. He gloated over the torpedoing of our merchant ships, and squeals out piffling protests to neutrals when our submarines tackle his trading vessels in the Baltic. The German papers were full of bombastic rejoicing over the Zeppelin visits to our undefended towns; the Kaiser weeps copious crocodile tears when the Allied airmen knock his beloved Karlsruhe about a bit. I'd go a jolly sight farther than the precept laid down in the old Mosaic Law. 'An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.' By Jove! Three British shells for every German one, and a ton of high explosive for every kilogramme of T.N.T."