“Look here, Beryl,” the keen-faced young man said, “as that machine has crossed from Belgium, it is undoubtedly going back again. If so, it will take something with it—something which no doubt the enemy wants to send out of the country by secret means.”
“With that I quite agree, dear.”
“Good. Then there’s no time to be lost,” her lover said, poring over a map. “We’ll fly over to Chandler’s Farm this afternoon, come down near Fawkham, and put the ’bus away till to-night. Then we’ll see what happens.”
“He’ll probably fly back to-night,” the girl suggested.
“That’s exactly what I expect. I’ve told Collins and Cranch to meet us there.”
An hour later the great battleplane, “The Hornet,” Ronnie at the joy-stick, with Beryl in air-woman’s clothes and goggles strapped in the observer’s seat, rose with a roar from the big meadow at Harbury and, ascending to an altitude of about ten thousand feet, struck away due south across the patchwork of brown fields and green meadows, with their tiny clusters of houses and white puffs of smoke all blowing in the same direction—the usual panorama of rural England, with its straight lines of rails and winding roads, as seen from the air.
The roar of the powerful twin engines was such that they found conversation impossible, but Beryl, practised pilot that she was, soon recognised the town over which they were flying.
Soon afterwards the Thames, half-hidden in mist and winding like a ribbon, came into view far below them. This served as guide, for Ronnie kept over the river for some time, at the end of which both recognised three church spires and knew that the most distant one was that of Fawkham, where presently they came down in a field about half-way between the station and the village, creating considerable sensation among the cottagers in the neighbourhood.
Collins, who was awaiting them near the station, soon arrived on foot to render them assistance, the ’bus being eventually put beneath a convenient shed used for the shacking of hay.
Ronnie had not used the silencer, fearing to create undue excitement among the anti-aircraft boys, many of whom had, of course, watched the machine’s flight at various points, examining it through glasses and being reassured by its painted rings.