Had Providence intervened to save her?
She drew a long breath, and opened out so that she put all speed into her machine. From the pace she was going she knew that the wind had sprung up, and in her favour, too. “The Hornet” was a fast machine, yet the Huns had machines quite as mobile, and she had no means of knowing the make of aeroplane against which her speed was pitted.
She flew—flew as no woman had ever flown before. Half-crushed beneath her in the pilot’s seat lay Ronnie, oblivious to everything. She had placed her arm tenderly round his neck, but on withdrawing her hand in the darkness she had felt it strangely sticky—sticky with blood!
Ronald Pryor was evidently wounded in the neck. Perhaps he was already dead. He might have been, for all the brave girl knew. But that sound of the mis-firing of her enemy gave her courage, and she kept on—on and on—until, very slowly, she drew away from that bright evil eye that was bent upon her destruction.
Again came a splutter of lead upon her. Again she knew that bullets had gone through the fabric, but no great damage had been done to the machine.
She feared more for the petrol-tank than for herself. A shot in the bottom of that tank would mean a certain dive into the sea. Of a sudden another spurt of fire showed deep below them, and a shell coming up from somewhere, friendly or hostile she could not tell, exploded, and nearly wrecked them both. It was from some ship at sea—a British ship, no doubt, which, seeing aircraft with a searchlight going in the direction of the East coast at that hour of the morning, had naturally opened fire upon it.
At last, after nearly half-an-hour, Beryl still with her eye upon the compass and sailing again upon an even keel and in an increasing wind, glanced over her shoulder and saw the light of the enemy grow dimmer, and then gradually disappear. She had entered a thick cloud, and sailing on in silence, would, she knew, be at once lost to the view of her enemy.
Five minutes later, when Beryl at last realised that she had escaped, she again placed her left arm tenderly round her lover and endeavoured to raise him, but without avail.
Was he dead? The thought struck her with horror! He had done what had been asked of him, but perhaps he, like so many others, had paid the toll of war!
Though perhaps her hand trembled a little upon the levers, yet she settled herself again as well as she could, and with her eye upon both map and compass she sped along over those dark waters, tossed by the increasing wind which had arisen behind her.