Next second he tapped out upon the key—flashing it to the arriving aeroplane—the direction of the light wind, afterwards opening up the light to serve as a guide. The aeroplane, humming above in the darkness, swept down lower and lower in half-mile spirals until, of a sudden, a powerful searchlight beamed out from it, directed upon the earth below; its pilot was looking for a safe landing-place.
Slowly it circled round and round until, a few minutes later, it came to earth in the opposite corner of the field to that in which Ronnie was standing. In an instant, with the cessation of the throbbing of the engine, the light was shut off, and Pryor, having long ago packed up his wireless, hastened across.
“Hullo!” he shouted into the darkness.
“Hullo, Ronnie!” answered a girl’s voice cheerily, and a few seconds later Beryl Gaselee received a warm and fond caress.
“I got your message all right, darling!” the man exclaimed, while the girl, in her workmanlike air-woman’s kit, stood before the propeller and stretched her arms above her head after her long flight away into Hampshire and back. By the light of Ronnie’s flash-lamp she was revealed in her leather flying-cap, her hair tucked away beneath it, her mackintosh confined at the waist by a wide belt, and, instead of a skirt, brown mechanic’s overalls.
“I came across Bedford and St. Albans, but just beyond I had a terrible fright. I was flying low in order to pick up a railway-line when, of a sudden, a searchlight opened up from somewhere and I was attacked by two anti-aircraft guns. One shell whistled within five yards of the left plane of ‘The Hornet.’ Indeed, it was quite a miracle that I was not winged.”
“But couldn’t the fools see the rings on the planes? Didn’t you bank in order to show them?”
“Of course I did, but I was in a cloud, and they could not see me with any accuracy. You see, I never gave word to headquarters that I was going up. I quite forgot it.”
“Oh, well, in that case it is only natural that they would fire upon any stray aircraft at night!” Ronnie replied. “But I got your message all right, which proves that our wireless works well. Where were you when you sent it?”
“I had flown about ten miles beyond Oxford. I had some trouble with the engine, so I was late in starting,” she replied. “You left your kit in the machine,” she added, and, climbing again into “The Hornet,” she threw out a leather cap and a heavy mackintosh.