The secret battleplane had dropped her last bomb and was preparing to resume her north-eastward flight when a shell burst almost immediately above her. A hail of bullets rattled against her proofed sides. One ripped a hole through Blake's airman's helmet, fortunately without doing further injury. The wings were perforated in fifty places, although the damage had little effect upon the speed of the machine. The battleplane literally reeled with the concussion, recovered herself, and then began to wobble alarmingly in spite of the efforts on the part of the pilot to keep her on a straight course.
One of the actuating rods of the left wing, bent by the violent impact of the base of the shell, was thrown out of action. Sooner or later the machine would be obliged to descend upon hostile soil, almost in the very centre of the German Empire.
CHAPTER XVII
DISABLED
It was indeed well that the battleplane was already flying "down the wind." Locking the wings, and trimming them at the furthermost limit of the bent actuating rod, Blake made the comforting discovery that the planes were in the best possible position for a prolonged glide. Aided by the following gale, the velocity of which was not far short of seventy miles an hour, the battleplane ought to cover a distance of from fifty to sixty miles before alighting. In that case he hoped to effect a landing in the bleak and sparsely-populated district drained by the sluggish River Warthe.
Nursing the volplaning craft with the utmost care, Desmond Blake was getting every possible foot of space out of the involuntary glide. Perfectly calm and collected he bade Athol find a particular section of the map of Prussia and Posen and fix it in the celluloid holder in front of him.
Dick, having shut down the motors, since they were no longer of service, clambered into his seat, and made good use of his binoculars; while Sergeant O'Rafferty deliberately fixed a time fuse under the row of crank-cases so that in the likely event of the presence of German troops, the battleplane would never fall into their hands except as a twisted and tangled mass of metal.
Fortunately the clouds of smoke issuing from the burning buildings had prevented the Huns from observing the result of their chance shot; and now the battleplane was at frequent intervals hidden in the masses of scudding clouds.
Apart from that there was little in her favour, for it was now two hours before midday. The twilight that had afforded protection on the occasion of the raid upon the Zeppelin sheds at Olhelt was denied her.