"I'm havin' the devil's own time, and that's a fact, stavin' off Mam'selle Roberta's inquiries," Captain Dexter declared. "I write such poor French and she such poor English that it gives me a chance to dodge a lot of her questions. But, by Hannah! she isn't goin' to be fended off for long, boy. You can bet your last dollar on that."
Sanderson went back to piloting his repaired Nieuport within a day or two after the successful bombarding of the railroad, and almost his first assignment was to transport a man for reconnaissance to a certain point behind the enemy's lines. He had done such work before, and with success, recovering his man at the place and time appointed.
He was returning from dropping the spy, without rising very high, for he was above the wedge in the battlefront, and the danger point was several miles ahead—or so he thought.
His intention was to pass over the locality of the hospital station where Belinda had served before the retreat of the French.
Not that he could hope to see her or learn anything about her while crossing this territory. That was too great a miracle to expect. He knew the Germans held all this land now. Indeed, he could glance down and see the supply trains and marching columns on their way to the front. He was so much interested in what went on below, in fact, that he forgot to keep a sharp outlook for what might be in the air.
It was an unpardonable error. He had swooped to a level little more than five hundred feet above the earth. He knew the country thoroughly and saw that the grove of open timber ahead was the small wood which stood to the northeast of the hospital station.
He meant to ride over it, swoop low over the abandoned station to see what was going on there, and then rise a couple of thousand feet before risking the passing of the battleline.
On his mission to leave the spy he had been relieved of his mitrailleuse, for the Nieuport was not supposed to carry more than two hundred and twenty pounds, and his passenger, Renaud, was a heavy man. Therefore his only weapon at the moment was the automatic pistol strapped at his side.
Suddenly the pop of a machine gun warned him of danger. It was not an anti-aircraft gun shooting from the earth, but a weapon being used above him! The bullets hailed all around his airplane.
Sanderson speeded up his motor before even looking to see whence the bullets came. He hated to run away as much as would any man; but he was not armed for a pitched battle with a German aviator.