William Le Queux
"The Zeppelin Destroyer"
"Being some Chapters of Secret History"
Chapter One.
Over a “Gasper.”
“To-morrow? To-morrow, my dear Claude! Why, there may not be a to-morrow for you—or for me, when it comes to that—eh?”
“Yes. You’re quite right, old son,” was my cheerful reply. “I’m quite aware that these experiments are confoundedly dangerous—and, besides, there are nasty wind-pockets about just now. I got into a deadly one yesterday afternoon, just across the line at Mill Hill.”
“I saw you,” replied my friend Teddy Ashton, a fellow-aviator and chum at Hendon. “It gave me a nasty moment. You had engine-trouble at the same time.”