“Pretty good. I guess these ’planes are raiders meant to cover long distances — fighting escorts for the big bombers — got to have juice to carry ’em the same distance, but much faster in manoeuvre. They stay behind to keep the enemy ’planes down while the big boys quit for home when they’ve dropped their eggs. We’ll be good for a thousand miles, anyhow — after that, may the Lord provide.”
“Sixteen hundred miles to the frontier,” the Duke bawled. “If the petrol lasts, do you think you can do it?”
“Be no ordinary performance if I do,” Rex grunted. “We’re flying against the world spin, remember; that makes it darn near equivalent to two thousand coming the other way. Still, it wouldn’t be a record if we made it, and I’ll say this bus is one of the finest things I’ve ever been in — I take my hat off to the Bolshie who designed it. What was the bonfire after we left?”
De Richleau explained about the petrol.
“Say,” Rex grinned, “that was a great idea. Talk about singeing the King of Spain’s beard! That fella Drake had nothing on you. Mighty dangerous, all the same — a back flash might have sent us all to heaven!”
Talking was a considerable strain, since to make themselves heard each had to yell in the ear of the other. For a long time they sat silent; the moon came up and lit the landscape of the endless forest stretching unbroken below.
After a long time, as it seemed, the moon passed behind a great bank of drifting clouds; a sprinkling of lights became visible directly in their course.
“Sverdlovsk,” called the Duke. “Bear to the left, Rex; we must avoid flying over towns. They will hear our engine, and I expect the wireless at Romanovsk has been busy.”
Rex banked steeply, leaving the lights away to the north. “How’s time?” he asked.
“A little after one,” De Richleau replied, glancing at his watch. “We have made splendid going.”