Then, pulling over the controls, the hornet dipped at the head, doing a neat little nose-dive of some five hundred feet, throwing the enemy's range out of gear, and compelling him to readjust his sights.
As he dived, the others, with an eye always on their leader, followed him, and the whole flight dived clean underneath a mass of curtain fire, intended to bar their progress. So cleverly was it all done that they all escaped without a scratch.
The Commander looked down at those batteries still spitting fire. With not a little contempt he regarded them. They could not touch him, for already, before they could readjust their fire, the whole flight was out of range, for the engines were now doing well, and a speed of a hundred and twenty miles an hour had been worked up.
At another time Dastral would like to have dived down to within five hundred feet of those German guns, and put them out of action, but he had other work on hand today; work which would take all his time and skill to complete satisfactorily, and to bring his men back to safety. Even if Himmelman himself should attack him now, he must refuse him battle, unless compelled to fight for mere safety. His present duty was to bomb the great arsenal at Krupps', and, as far as possible, leave the principal buildings nothing but a heap of smoking ruins. So he opened out the throttle of his engine to the full, and for the first time reached one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, not a very bad speed when you are loaded up with heavy missiles.
They had been flying for an hour now, and had climbed higher and higher until they were at nine thousand feet. It was bitterly cold, and already their feet and hands were numbed. What would they be like in another two hours?
An hour and a half passed, and shortly afterwards Jock shouted:
"The Rhine! The Rhine!"
Nor indeed was he mistaken. He had been eagerly searching for the famous stream that runs through the German Fatherland, and of which the Hun is so proud. And now, there it was, a little way ahead of them, running through the landscape like a silver thread.
Soon they were over the stately river, and Dastral, knowing that the road was as plain as a pikestaff now if the weather kept clear, no longer heeded his compass, but, wheeling smartly to his left, followed the stream on its way to the sea.
"What town is that?" shouted the pilot, as a vast assembly of houses and spires came into view.