"He's done himself in this time," exclaimed Alec.
The biplane was falling jerkily and giddily. She had got into a spinning nose-dive. Her tail-piece had been hit by a fragment of metal, and wisps of dark-brown canvas were streaming in the wind.
Although falling with great velocity, the biplane appeared to be dropping slowly. It seemed as if the pilot was bound to crash upon some houses, a short distance from the lock-gates of the Bruges Canal. To make matters worse, her petrol-tank caught fire, her downward course being marked by a trail of bright yellow fumes.
Then, falling headlong behind a tall building, the sea-plane was lost to sight.
"Hard luck!" murmured Seton sympathetically. "The fellow took no chances of missing; but, by Jove, it was certain death!"
Accustomed though he was to see men slain in the heat of battle, the catastrophe to the daring airman had a depressing effect upon the Sub. He rejoiced in the knowledge that the pilot's effort had not been in vain. He felt proud of the man who had given his life for his country; but, at the same time, the spectacle was a gruesome one.
Almost mechanically Seton stood at the open window. There was no doubt about the moral and material effect of the enormous damage. Swarms of German troops were being hurried up to clear away the debris and to repair the damage by the dock-side, for a large section of the wall was in danger of sliding bodily into the basin. Seamen were strenuously engaged in shifting damaged vessels from the locality, while Red Cross men, armed as usual in the German way with short swords and revolvers, were carrying away the maimed victims of the raid.
As Alec watched, he became aware of a babel of angry voices. A dispatch-boat had just tied up close to the head of the Mole, and the object of the hostile demonstration was in the act of landing.
Although not of an excitable nature, Seton could hardly refrain from giving a hearty British cheer. Actually he gave a whoop of encouragement, for, marched off in charge of a file of marines, was the airman who had played havoc with the submarine mine-layers.
Limping badly, and with a rent in his flying-helmet, the captured pilot marched with head erect and set lips, unmindful of the angry demeanour of the German spectators. Alec could imagine him muttering grimy: