Biggles Flies East Part 6

Wrestling with this new problem, he returned to the wadi, when it occurred to him that possibly the package that had been given to him might supply a clue, and he tore it open eagerly. He was quite right; it did. The package contained an 'iron' ration consisting of biscuits and a slab of chocolate, and a flask of water. Attached to the flask by a rubber band was a sheet of notepaper on which had been written, in block letters, three words.

The message consisted of the single word, 'Wait'. It was signed, 'A Friend'.

He held up the paper to the light, and a low whistle escaped his lips as his eyes fell on the familiar 'crown' watermark. 'So I, a German officer, have a friend in a British post, eh?'

he thought. 'How very interesting.'

He folded the paper carefully, put it in his pocket, and was in the act of munching the chocolate when he was not a little surprised to hear an aeroplane approaching. But his surprise became wonderment when he saw it was a Halberstadt, which was, more- over, gliding towards the plain at the head of the wadi with the obvious intention of landing. With growing curiosity he watched it approach. 'If this sort of thing goes on much longer I shan't know who's fighting who,' he muttered helplessly. 'I thought I knew something about this war, but I'm getting out of my depth,' he opined. 'I wonder who's flying it? Shouldn't be surprised if it's the Kaiser*.'

It was not the Kaiser but Mayer who touched his wheels on the hard, unsympathetic surface of the wilderness, and then taxied tail up towards the place where Biggles was standing watching him. He ran to a standstill and raised his arm in a beckoning gesture.

Biggles walked across. 'h.e.l.lo, Mayer,' he said. 'Where the d.i.c.kens have you come from?'

Mayer gave him a nod of greeting. 'Get in,' he said shortly, indicating the rear c.o.c.kpit.

'Where are we going?' shouted Biggles above the noise of the engine, as he climbed into the seat.

'Home: where the devil do you think?' snapped Mayer as he pulled** the throttle open and sped across the desolate waste.

* The ruler of Germany.

* The controls of German aeroplanes worked in the opposite direction to the British.

Thus, he pulled the throttle towards him instead of pus.h.i.+ng it away, as would normally have been the case.

Chapter 10.

Shot Down Biggles sat in the c.o.c.kpit and watched the wadi fall away behind as Mayer lifted the machine from the ground and began climbing for height. He had no flying cap or goggles, for he had been carrying them in his hand when he was attacked by the Arabs on the oasis, and had dropped them in the struggle; not that he really needed them, for the air was sultry.

So he stood up with his arms resting on the edge of the c.o.c.kpit, and surveyed the landscape in the hope of picking out a landmark that he knew, at the same time turning over in his mind the strange manner of his rescue. Who was the friend in the British post? He could think of no one but von Stalhein, although he would never have guessed but for the shadow on the tent. By what means had he arranged for the Arab levies to connive at his escape? It looked as if the Arabs, while openly serving with the British forces, were actually under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Germans. 'The more I see of this business the easier it is to perceive why the British plans have so often failed. It looks as if the whole area is rotten with the canker of espionage,' he mused. Even a.s.suming that von Stalhein had been responsible for his escape, how could Mayer have known where he was? That he had not turned up at such a remote spot by mere chance was quite certain.

Dimly the situation began to take form. Von Stalhein, disguised as an Arab, was operating behind the British lines. That was the most outstanding and important feature, for upon it everything else rested. He may have been responsible for the sheikhs turning against the British, in spite of the brilliant and fearless efforts of Major Sterne to prevent it, although Sterne had sometimes been able to win back their allegiance with gold, rifles, and ammunition, the only commodities for which the Arabs had any respect or consideration. The Halberstadt Squadron at Zabala, while carrying out regular routine duties, was also working with von Stalhein, flying him over the lines and picking him up at pre-arranged meeting-places not a difficult matter considering the size and nature of the country. The previous day provided a good example, when von Stalhein had been flown over to try to influence the Arabs at the oasis. Later, he must have learned that Brunow was a prisoner in British hands, and in some way had been able to arrange for him to be sent down the lines in charge of Arabs who were in his pay, in order to effect his rescue, not for personal reasons but because he would rather see Brunow behind the German lines than behind the British.

The more he thought about this hypothesis the more Biggles was convinced that he was right, and that at last he was on the track of the inside causes of the British failures in the Middle East. Thinking of the oasis reminded him that they must be pa.s.sing somewhere close to it; as near as he could judge by visualizing the map, both Abba Sud and the oasis where he had seen von Stalhein must both be somewhere between ten and twenty miles to the east or south-east. He turned, and pus.h.i.+ng his Parabellum gun* aside out of the way, looked out over the opposite side of the c.o.c.kpit.

* A mobile gun for the rear gunner, usually mounted on a U-shaped rail to allow rapid movement with a wide arc of fire.

Far away on the horizon he could just make out a dull shadow that might have been an oasis, but he was too uncertain of his actual position to know which of the two it was, if indeed it was either of them. Perhaps Mayer had a map; if so, he would borrow it. He reached forward and tapped the German on the shoulder, and then sprang back in affright as the shrill chatter of a machine-gun split the air from somewhere near at hand. A shower of lead struck the Halberstadt like a flail. There was a shrill whang of metal striking against metal, and a ghastly tearing sound of splintering woodwork. The stricken machine lurched drunkenly as the engine cut out dead and a long feather of oily black smoke swirled away aft.

Instinctively Biggles grabbed his gun, and squinted through his slightly open fingers in the direction of the sun whence the attack had come. The blinding white orb seared his eyeb.a.l.l.s, but he caught a fleeting glimpse of a grey shadow that banked round in a steep stalling turn to renew the attack. He turned to warn Mayer, and a cry of horror broke from his lips as he saw him sagging insensible in his safety belt; a trickle of blood was oozing from under the ear flaps of his leather helmet.

As in a ghastly nightmare, Biggles heard the staccato clatter of the guns again, and felt the machine shudder like a sailing s.h.i.+p taken aback, as the controls flapped uselessly. Its nose lurched downwards; the port wing drooped, and the next instant the machine was spinning wildly earthward.

Biggles, cold with fear, acted with the deliberation of long experience, moved with a calmness that would have seemed impossible on the ground. He knew that the machine was fitted with dual controls, but the rear joystick was not left in its socket for fear of the observer being hit and falling on it in a combat, thus jamming the controls. It was kept in a canvas slot in the side of the c.o.c.kpit. Swiftly he pulled it out, inserted the end in the metal junction and screwed it in. Without waiting to look out of the c.o.c.kpit, he pushed the stick forward and kicked on full top rudder. The machine began to respond instantly; would it come out of the spin in time? He dropped back into his seat, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a swift glance at the ground, now perilously near, knew that it was going to be touch and go. Slowly the nose of the machine came up as it came out of the spin.

With another five feet of height the Halberstadt would just have managed it; she did in fact struggle to even keel, but still lost height from the speed of her spin, as she was bound to for a few seconds. Biggles pulled the stick back and held his breath; he had no engine to help him, and the best he could hope for was some sort of pancake* landing.

But luck was against him, for the ground at that point was strewn with boulders, some large and some small, and it must have been one of the large ones that caught the axle of his undercarriage. The lower part of the machine seemed to stop dead while the upper part, carried on by its momentum, tried to go forward; then several things happened at once. Biggles was flung violently against the instrument board; the propeller boss bored into the ground, hurling splinters of wood and rock in all directions; the tail swung up and over in a complete semicircle as the machine somersaulted in a final tearing, rending, splintering crash. Then silence.

Biggles, half blinded by petrol which had poured over him when the tank sheered off its bearers and * Instead of the aircraft gliding down to land, it flops down from a height of a few feet, after losing flying speed.

burst asunder, fought his way out of the wreck like a madman, regardless of mere bruises and cuts. The horror of fire was on him, as it is on every airman in similar circ.u.mstances, but his first thought was for his companion. 'Mayer' he croaked, 'where are you?' There was no answer, so he tore the debris aside until he found the German, still strapped in his seat, buried under the tangled remains of the plane. Somehow-he had no clear recollection of how it was done-he got him clear of the c.o.c.kpit, and dragged him through the tangle of wires and struts to a spot some distance away, clear of fire should it break out. Then he sank down and buried his face in his hands while he fought back an hysterical desire to burst into tears. He had seen stronger men than himself do it, and knew that it was simply the sudden relaxation of nerves that had been screwed up to breaking-point.

Then he rose unsteadily to his feet, wiped a smear of blood from a cut in his lip, and turned to his partnerin-misfortune, for the cause of the trouble was already a tiny speck in the far distance. So swift and perfectly timed had been the attack that he hadn't even time to identify the type of machine that had shot them down.

He took off Mayer's helmet, and a long red weal across the side of his head told its own story. As far as he could see the bullet had not actually penetrated the skull, but had struck him a glancing blow that had knocked him unconscious, and might, or might not, prove fatal. He could find no other bullet wounds, although his clothes were badly torn about and his face bruised, so he made him as comfortable as possible in the shade of the rock and then went to see if he could get a little water from the leaking radiator. It was hot and oily, but it was better than nothing, so he soaked his handkerchief and returned to Mayer. Had it been possible, he would have tried to save some of the precious liquid that was fast disappearing into the thirsty ground, but he had no receptacle to catch it, so he went back to the unfortunate German and cleaned the wound as well as he could. His efforts were rewarded, for after a few minutes Mayer opened his eyes and stared about him wonderingly. Wonderment gave way to understanding as complete consciousness returned, and he smiled weakly.

'What happened?' he whispered through his bruised lips.

an Englander dropped on us out of the sun and hit us with his first burst,' replied Biggles. 'A bullet hit you on the side of the head and the box* spun before I could get my gun going. I managed to get her out of the spin with the spare joystick before she hit the ground, but the engine had gone, so I had to get down as well as I could-which wasn't very well, as you can see,' he added dryly. 'There are too many rocks about for nice landings; but there, we were lucky she didn't catch fire.'

Mayer tried to move, but a low groan broke from his lips.

I should lie still for a bit if I were you,' Biggles advised him. 'You'll be better presently.'

'You'd better go on,' the German told him stolidly. 'Go on? And leave you here? No, I'll wait for you.' 'Do you know where we are?' inquired Mayer, bitterly.

'Not exactly.'

'We're fifty miles from our lines, and it's fifty miles of waterless desert, so you'd better be starting.' 'No hurry, I'll wait for you.'

* German slang for an aeroplane.

It'll be no use waiting for me.'

'Why not?'

Because I shan't be coming.'

'Who says so?'

I do. My leg is broken.'

Biggles felt the blood drain from his face as he realized just what Mayer's grim statement meant. 'Good heavens,' he breathed.

The German smiled curiously. 'The fortune of war,' he observed calmly. 'Before you go I would like you to do something for me.'

'What is it?'

'Go and look in my c.o.c.kpit and see if you can find my pistol. I shall need it.'

'No, you won't,' Biggles told him tersely, for he knew well enough what was in the other'

s mind.

'You wouldn't leave me here to die of thirst-and the hyenas,' protested Mayer weakly.

'Who's talking about leaving you, anyway,' growled Biggles. 'Just you lie still while I think it over.'

If you've any sense you'll go on. There's no need for us both to die,' said Mayer, with a courage that Biggles could not help but admire.

I'm not talking about dying, either,' he declared. 'We'll find a way out; let me think a minute.' Then he laughed. The idea of an Englishman and a German each trying to save the other's life struck him as funny.

'What's the joke?' asked Mayer suspiciously.

'No joke-but it's no use bursting into tears,' returned Biggles brightly. He walked across and examined the machine. There were still a few drops of water in the radiator, but it was poisonous-looking fluid and he watched it drip away into the sand without regret. He dug about in the wreckage until he found Mayer's map, when he sat down and plotted their position as nearly as he could judge it. As Mayer had said, they were a good fifty miles from the German lines, and farther still from the British lines, but to the south and east there were two or three oases, unnamed, from which he guessed they were very small, not less than fifteen and not more than twenty miles away. Fifteen miles! Could he do it in the heat of the day? Alone, perhaps, but with a wounded companion, definitely no. Suppose he left Mayer, and tried to find the oasis where he had seen von. Stalhein; could he fly back in the Halberstadt, a.s.suming that it was as he had left it? No, he decided, for the German would certainly have died of thirst in the meantime.

The idea of leaving Mayer to perish did not occur to him. In the desperate straits in which they found themselves, he no longer regarded him as an enemy, but as a brother pilot who must be supported while a vestige of hope remained. He regarded , the crashed machine with a speculative eye, and half smiled as a possibility occurred to him. Near at hand was one of the undercarriage wheels, with the bent axle still attached; the tyre had burst, but otherwise it was undamaged. The other wheel lay some distance away in the desert where it had bounced after the crash. He retrieved it and then set to work, while Mayer watched him dispa.s.sionately.

At the end of an hour he had constructed a fairly serviceable two-wheeled trailer from the undercarriage and remains of the wing spars. He had found plenty of material to work with; in fact, more than he needed. Finally he hunted about in the wreckage for the seat cus.h.i.+ons, smiling as he caught sight of his unshaven, blood-stained face in the pilot's reflector. He found them, threw them on the crazy vehicle, and picking up some pieces of interplane struts and canvas, approached the German.

Mayer regarded him dubiously. 'You've wasted a lot of time,' he said irritably.

'Maybe,' replied Biggles imperturbably. 'Help me as much as you can while I get this leg of yours fixed up.'

'Do what?' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mayer. 'What are you going to do?'

'Tie your leg up in these splints, so that it won't hurt more than can be helped while I get you on the perambulator.'

'Don't be a fool-'

If you don't lie still, I'll fetch you a crack on the other side of your skull,' snarled Biggles. 'Do you think I want to hang about here all day? Come on-that's better.'

Not without difficulty he bound up Mayer's leg in the improvised splints, and then lifted him bodily on to the trailer. He handed him a piece of fabric to use as a sunshade, and without another word set off in the direction in which he judged the oasis to be.

Fortunately the ground was flat and fairly open, but the punctured wheel dragged heavily through the patches of loose sand that became more frequent as he went on. The sun climbed to its zenith and its white bars of heat struck down with relentless force.

Nowhere could he find rest for his eyes; in all directions stretched the wilderness, colourless and without outline, a vast undulating expanse of brown and grey that merged into the s.h.i.+mmering horizon. The land had no definite configuration, but was an eternal monotony of sand and rock, spotted here and there with the everlasting camel-thorn.

There was no wild life-or if there was he did not see it. Once he straightened his back and looked round the scene, but its overwhelming solitude made him shudder and he went on with his task doing his best to fight off the dreadful feeling of depression that was creeping over him.

The demon thirst began to torture him. Another hour pa.s.sed, and another, and still he struggled on. His lips were black and dry, with a little ring of congealed dust round them. He no longer perspired, for the sun drank up every drop of moisture as soon as it appeared. Mayer was more fortunate, for he had lapsed into unconsciousness. At first Biggles had tried to keep the fabric over his face, but he soon got tired of picking it up and struggled on without it. A feeling crept over him that he had been pulling the trailer all his life; everything else that had ever happened was a dim memory; only the rocks and the sand were real.

Presently he began to mutter to himself, and eyed the sun malevolently. 'I'd give you something, you skunk, if I had my guns,' he grated through his clenched teeth. It did not occur to him to leave his companion; the fixedness of purpose that had won him fame in France kept the helpless German ever before his mind. 'Poor old Mayer,' he crooned. '

Tough luck, getting a cracked leg. Why the d.i.c.kens isn't Algy here; I'll twist the young scallywag's ear for him for leaving the patrol like this.'

Mayer began to mutter in German, long meaningless sentences in which the word Rhine occurred frequently.

'When we wind up the watch on the Rhine,' cackled Biggles. 'Your watch is about wound up, old c.o.c.k,' and he laughed again. He stumbled on a rock, and swinging round in a blaze of fury, kicked it viciously and uselessly. He reached the top of a fold in the ground and stared ahead with eyes that seemed to be two b.a.l.l.s of fire searing his brain. A line of cool green palm trees stood up clearly on the skyline. 'Ha, ha, you can't catch me like that,' he chuckled. 'Mirage; I've heard about you. Thinks it can catch me. Ha, ha!'

A big bird flopped down heavily not far away and regarded him with cold beady eyes.

He dropped the handle of the trailer, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a stone, and hurled it with all his strength. The bird flapped a few yards further away and settled again. 'You Hun,' he croaked. 'You dirty thieving Hun. I can see you sitting there; I'll knock the bottom out of your fuselage before I've finished with you.' He picked up the handle of the trailer and struggled on.

He began to sway as he walked. Once he fell, and lay where he had fallen for a full minute before he remembered his burden, whereupon he scrambled to his feet and set off with a fresh burst of energy. He topped another rise and saw a long group of green palm fronds against the blue sky above the next dip. At first he regarded them with a sort of detached interest, but slowly it penetrated his bemused mind that they were very real, very close, and very desirable. He broke into a drunken run, still dragging the trailer, and breathing in deep wheezing gasps; the palm trees seemed to float towards him, and presently he was amongst them, patting the rough boles with his hands. The place was vaguely familiar and he seemed to know exactly where to go, so he dropped the handle of the trailer and reeled towards the centre of the oasis, croaking as he saw that he was not mistaken. In front of him was the well and the hut where, the afternoon before, he had seen von Stalhein. He had returned to his starting point. He staggered to the well, seized the hide rope in his shaking hands, dragged up the receptacle attached to it and drank as he had never drunk before. Then he refilled the makes.h.i.+ft bucket and ran back to where he had left Mayer. He rolled him off the trailer and with difficulty got some of the water between his parched lips, at the same time dabbing his face and neck with it. He continued giving him a little water for some time, occasionally drinking deep draughts himself; but when he felt that he could do no more for the sick man, he returned to the well and buried his face and arms in the cool liquid.

He still had the remains of the chocolate ration in his pocket, so he munched a little and felt better for it. Then he walked up to the hut, but it was empty, so he returned to Mayer with the idea of making him as comfortable as possible before going to the spot where he had left the Halberstadt, to make sure it was still there and undamaged. But suddenly he felt dreadfully tired and sat down near the trailer to rest. The shade, after the heat of the sun which was now sinking fast, was pleasant, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy. His head nodded once or twice, and he slipped slowly sideways on to the cool sand, sound asleep.

Chapter 11.

A Night Flight He awoke, and sitting up with a start, looked around in bewilderment, for it was night, and for a moment or two he could not recall what had happened. The moon was up; it hung low over the desert like a sickle and cast a pale blue radiance over a scene of unutterable loneliness. Then, in the hard, black lattice-like shadows of the palms, he saw Mayer, and remembered everything. The German's face was ghastly in the weird light, and he thought he was dead, but dropping on his hands and knees beside him, was relieved to hear faint but regular breathing.

Then he sprang to his feet as a strange sound reached his ears, and he knew instinctively that it was the same noise that had awakened him; it reminded him of the harsh confused murmur of waves upon a pebbly beach, afar off, rising and falling on the still night air.

For a little while he sat listening, trying to identify the sound, but he could not; it seemed to come from the other side of the oasis, so he made his way cautiously through the palms to a slight rise from which he could see the desert beyond. As he reached it and looked out he caught his breath sharply and sank down swiftly in the shadow of a stunted palm, staring with wide-open eyes.

He did not know what he had expected to see, but it was certainly not the sight that met his incredulous eyes. Mustering in serried ranks was an army of Arabs; at a rough computation he made out the number to be nearly four thousand, and fresh bands were still riding in from the desert, gathering together for what could only be one of the biggest Arab raids ever organized-for he had no delusions as to their purpose.

What was their objective? Were they being mustered by von Stalhein to hara.s.s the British flank, or by Major Sterne to launch a crippling blow at the German lines of communication? Those were questions he could not answer, but he hoped that by watching he might discover. He was glad that whoever was in charge had not decided to use the oasis itself as a meeting-place, or he would have been found, but a moment's consideration revealed the impracticability of such a course; a body of men of that size could only parade in the open.

For half an hour he lay and watched them, and at the end of that time they began to move off, not in any regular order, but winding like a long sinuous snake out into the desert; and he had no need to watch them for very long to guess their objective, for the direction they took would bring them within a few hours to the eastern outposts of the British army.

If that bunch hits the right wing of our lines of communication without warning it'll go right through them like a knife through b.u.t.ter, and our fellows in the front-line trenches will be cut off from supplies and everything else,' he muttered anxiously. 'I shall have to let our people know somehow.' As the tail-end of the column disappeared into the mysterious blue haze of the middle distance he glanced at the moon and made a swift calculation. 'It must be somewhere about eleven o'clock-not later,' he thought. 'At an average speed of six miles an hour, and they can easily manage that, seven hours will see them ready to strike at our flank at just about dawn, which is probably the time they have fixed for the attack.'

He got up and ran back swiftly to where he had left Mayer. He was still unconscious, so he hurried round the edge of the oasis to where he had left the Halbertstadt the previous day. 'If it's gone, I'm sunk,' he murmured, and then uttered a low cry of delight as his eyes fell on it, standing just as he had left it. Now! what's my best plan of action?' he thought swiftly. 'Shall I leave Mayer here and dash down to Kantara in the hope of getting in touch with Algy? If I do, I daren't land, for if I did every officer on the station would know that a German machine had landed on the aerodrome, which would mean that the Germans would know it too. That's no use. The only thing I can do is to write a message, drop it, and then signal to Algy and Major Raymond as we arranged. That's the safest way; they would be bound to find it on the aerodrome. But what about Mayer? I can't leave him here and risk a night landing in order to pick him up afterwards; I might run short of petrol anyway, and I don't want to get stuck in the desert again. I shall have to take him with me. But I had better have a look at the machine.'

He found it exactly as he had left it, and thanked the lucky chance that ordained that not only should he have landed at what seemed to be the little-used end of the oasis, but amongst the trees, where the machine could not be seen from the desert. After removing the sandbag anchors he lifted up the tailskid and dragged the Halberstadt into the open, a task that presented no difficulty as the slope was slightly downhill. He climbed into the c.o.c.kpit, turned on the petrol tap, and then returned to the front of the machine, where he turned the propeller round several times in order to suck the petrol gas into the cylinders. The machine was not fitted with a self-starter, so he switched on the ignition and then returned to the propellor in order to swing it. Before he did so, however, he took a leaf from his notebook, wrote a message on it, and addressed it to Algy. This done, he took off his tunic, ripped a length of material from his s.h.i.+rt to form a streamer, and tying the message in it with a pebble to give it weight, put it in his pocket and returned to the engine.

In the warm air it started at once, and in the stillness of the desert night the din that it made was so appalling that he started back in alarm. 'Great Scott! what a row,' he muttered as he climbed quickly into his seat and began to taxi carefully to the place where he had left the German. Mayer was still unconscious and lying in the same position, so he set to work on the formidable task of getting him into the rear c.o.c.kpit.

This he finally managed to do with no small exertion by picking him up in the 'fireman's grip' and dropping him bodily over the side; the unfortunate man fell in a heap, but there was no help for it, and as Biggles observed to himself as he got him into a sitting position, in the seat, with the safety belt round his waist, 'He's unconscious, so it isn't hurting him, anyway.'

Before climbing back into his c.o.c.kpit he looked long and critically down the track over which he would have to take off. 'If I hit a brick, there's going to be a nasty mess,' was his unspoken thought as he eased the throttle open and held the stick slightly forward.

But any fears he may have had on the matter of buckling a wheel-with calamitous results-against a rock were set at rest as the machine rose gracefully into the air, and he settled down to his task with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

It was a weird experience, flying over the moonlit desert that in the early days of history had been the scene of wars of extermination, and the pictures of many famous Biblical characters floated up in his imagination. Below him, more than twenty centuries before, Joseph had wandered in his coat of many colours, and the Prodigal Son had wasted his money in riotous living. 'There wouldn't be much for him to spend his money on to-day, I'm afraid,' thought Biggles whimsically, as he surveyed the barren land that once, before the great rivers had dried up, had flowed with milk and honey. 'Still, maybe it will regain some of its prosperity again one day when human beings come to their senses and stop fighting each other,' he mused, as he turned his nose a little more to the north, in order to avoid being heard by the raiders, and von Stalhein in particular, who he suspected was leading them, and who would certainly recognize the drone of his Mercedes engine.

A white wavering finger suddenly probed the sky some distance ahead, and he knew he was approaching the British lines. Soon afterwards a blood-red streak of flame flashed across his vision, and he knew that the anti-aircraft gunners were at work. He was not very perturbed, for he had climbed fairly high and knew that the chances of being hit were very remote; but as the archie barrage grew more intense, he throttled back and began a long glide towards the aerodrome at Kantara. Several searchlight beams were combing the sky for him, but he avoided them easily and smiled grimly as the lights of the aerodrome came into view. 'If I was carrying a load of bombs instead of a sick German, those fellows would soon be getting what they are asking for,' he growled, and shut off his engine as he dived steeply towards his objective. White lines of tracer bullets were streaking upwards, but in the darkness the shooting was chiefly guesswork and none of them came near him, although he realized that this state of affairs was likely to change when he opened his engine and by so doing disclosed his whereabouts.

With one hand on the throttle and the message lying on his lap, he raced low over the aerodrome; when he reached the middle he tossed the message overboard, and opened and closed the throttle twice in quick succession. Then he pulled it wide open and zigzagged out of the vicinity, like a startled bird, as the searchlights swung round and every gun within range redoubled its efforts to hit him. But he was soon outside their field of fire and racing nose down towards the German lines. Once he glanced back to satisfy himself that Mayer was still unconscious. 'If he'd come round just now he might well have wondered what the d.i.c.kens was going on,' he thought, 'and he might have asked some awkward questions when we got back-or caused the Count to ask some. As it is, he'll wonder how on earth he got home when he wakes up and finds himself in Zabala.'

The rest of the flight was simply a fight against the la.s.situde that overtakes all pilots after a period of flying, when they have nothing to do but fly on a straight course, for the comfortable warmth that fills the c.o.c.kpit, due to the proximity of the engine, induces sleep, and the regular drone of the wind in the wires becomes a lullaby hard to resist. He found himself nodding more than once, and each time he started up and beat his hands on the side of the c.o.c.kpit, and held his face outside the s.h.i.+eld of the windscreen to allow the cool slipstream to play on his weary eyes.

The scattered lights of Zabala came into sight at last, and he glided down without waiting for landing lights to be put out. There was no wind, so he was able to land directly towards the sheds, and finished his run within a few yards of them. He switched off the engine and sat quite still, for now that his task was finished, and the need for mental and physical energy no longer required, he let himself go, and his aching nerves collapsed like a piece of taut elastic when it is cut in the middle.