The bomb had missed!
The enemy was still rising, and from him came the quick rattle of a machine-gun, followed by a shower of bullets from below.
Ronnie Pryor set his teeth hard, and as he again touched the button, exclaimed:
“Take that, then!”
Next second a bright flash lit up the rural landscape, followed by a terrific explosion, the concussion of which caused “The Hornet” to stagger, reel, and side-slip, while the enemy aeroplane was seen falling to earth a huge mass of blood-red flame.
On the following day the evening papers reported the finding of a mysterious wrecked and burnt-out aeroplane “somewhere in Kent.”
The pilot had been burnt out of all recognition, but among the wreckage there had been discovered, it was said, some metal fittings believed to be the principal parts of some unknown machine-gun.
Only Ronald Pryor and Beryl Gaselee knew the actual truth, namely, that the enemy’s secret agents, at Marx’s incentive, had stolen, the essential parts of a newly-invented machine-gun, and that these were being conveyed by air to within the German lines, when the clever plot was fortunately frustrated by “The Hornet.”