William Le Queux

“ The farmhouse itself was a big, pleasant place situated on a hill, surrounded by a large, well-kept flower-garden, and commanding a wide view across Kent towards the Thames Estuary and the coast.
And as Ronnie crept along the belt of trees, his shrewd gaze taking in everything, there passed from the house across the farmyard a tall man in mechanic’s blue overalls. He walked a trifle lame, and by his gait Pryor felt certain that he was one of the men who had been present at that mysterious house called “Number Three” a few nights before. ”

“ With a glance at his luminous compass, the cheery young airman quickly turned the machine’s nose due south, and a quarter of an hour later altered his course south-west, heading towards London.
“Nothing doing to-night, it seems!” he remarked to his companion, as, in the darkness, they sped along at about fifty miles an hour, the wind whistling weirdly through the stays, the propeller humming musically, but the sound seeming no more than that of a bumblebee on a summer’s day. ”

“ It is just a series of grey, green, and brown patchwork with white, snaky lines, denoting roads, and long, grey lines, sometimes disappearing and then reappearing, marking railways and their tunnels; while here and there comes a glint of sunshine upon a river or canal. In the ears there is only the deafening roar of petrol-driven machinery.
Once or twice, through the grey haze which always rises from the earth on a hot morning, Beryl saw the blue line of the sea—that sea so zealously guarded by Britain’s Navy. Then she flew steadily north to the flat fens. ”

“ Ronnie at the joy-stick, with Beryl in air-woman’s clothes and goggles strapped in the observer’s seat, rose with a roar from the big meadow at Harbury and, ascending to an altitude of about ten thousand feet, struck away due south across the patchwork of brown fields and [39] green meadows, with their tiny clusters of houses and white puffs of smoke all blowing in the same direction—the usual panorama of rural England, with its straight lines of rails and winding roads, as seen from the air. ”

“ Ronald hold his breath. Yes, there was the distinct hum of a machine coming up from the east, following the railway from the main line over towards Hawes.
“Oh! do let’s go up. That may be Aylesworth’s friend,” suggested Beryl.
“I expect it is,” replied Ronnie grimly. “But with this engine there is danger—very grave danger—Beryl, dear. Are you quite prepared to risk it?”
“I’ll risk anything with you,” was the girl’s prompt reply. “We’ve risked our lives in the air before, and we’ll do so again to-night. We must not fail now that we’re within an ace of success.” ”

“ In a moment there was a terrific roar. The wind whistled about their ears, and next second they were “zumming,” up climbing at an angle of quite thirty degrees, instead of “taxi-running” the machine before leaving the ground.
Not a star showed, neither did a light. At that hour the good people of Essex were mostly in bed.
On their right, as they rose, Beryl noticed one or two red and green lights of railway signals, but these faded away as they still climbed ever up and up, travelling in the direction of the coast. ”

“ Soft-featured, with pretty, fair and rather fluffy hair, and quite devoid of that curious hardness of feature which usually distinguishes the female athlete, her age was twenty-three, her figure slightly petite and quite slim. Indeed, many airmen who knew her were amazed that such a frail-looking little person could manage such a big, powerful machine as Ronnie Pryor’s “Hornet”—the ’bus which was the last word in battleplanes both for rapid rising and for speed. ”

“ 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 [118] 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. ”

“ The air-pilot naturally inquired as to the biplane’s constructor, but all Beryl would say was:
“It is not mine. It belongs to a friend of mine.”
“A gentleman friend, of course?” he remarked, with a mischievous laugh.
“Of course! He himself invented it.”
“A splendid defence against Zeppelins,” he said. “I see she can carry ten bombs, a searchlight, and a Lewis gun. All are wanted against the Kaiser’s infernal baby-killers,” he added, laughing. ”

“ Ronnie smiled, and selecting a cigarette from his case, tapped it down and slowly lit it, his eyes upon the machine now hovering like a great hawk above them.
“I can run her so that at a thousand feet up nobody below can hear a sound,” he remarked. “That’s where we’ve got the pull for night bombing. A touch on the lever and the exhaust is silent, so that the enemy can’t hear us come up.” ”

“ But at all hazards we must keep the secret of the silencer to ourselves,” said Pryor. “The silencer enables us to make night-flights in secret without the enemy being any the wiser,” he added.
Collins grinned. He knew, only too well, how “The Hornet” had, more than once, been over to Belgium and returned in safety without its presence being spotted by the enemy. He knew, too, that the bomb-rack had been full when Ronnie and Beryl Gaselee had ascended, and that it had been empty when they had returned. ”

“ The pilot descended again to have a final look round, after which he once more climbed up to his seat, while Aylesworth, acting as mechanic—for, if the truth be told, he had been an aviator’s mechanic at Hendon for three years before the outbreak of war—gave the propeller a swing over.
There was a loud roar, the machine leapt forward over the withered heather, bumping along the uneven surface, until, gaining speed, the tail slowly lifted, and after a run of a couple of hundred yards, the Fokker skimmed easily away off the ground. ”

“ In such a circumstance the wisest course was to fly in a wide circle, descending and ascending, a course which Ronnie, expert airman that he was, adopted.
Those were highly exciting moments! Beryl held her breath. Her hand was upon the Lewis gun, but her lover had given no order. In her [112] observer’s seat she sat alert, eager, with every nerve strained to its fullest tension. They were in the danger-zone, surrounded by what seemed a swarm of aeroplanes, which had ascended in order to prevent their returning to sea. ”

“ Ronnie said. “If we are to be successful we must do everything in secret and spring a real surprise. Only,” he added, “we must make quite certain that they are guilty.”
“Of course,” Beryl agreed. “But how?”
“Ah, that’s the point!” said Ronnie, taking out his own torch, and again examining the tracks of the lorry in the soft ground. With the aid of a folding foot-rule he drew forth from his pocket, he took measurements at several points in the road, then said:
“It is not always the same lorry that comes here. One is heavier than the other. ”

“ Once more the light opened out and commenced to signal the Morse flashes and flares “N. F.,” “N. F.,” “N. F.,” followed by a long beam of light skyward, slowly sweeping in a circle.
Pryor glanced at his watch. It was then exactly midnight. Aylesworth had, no doubt, a rendezvous with someone. His signal could be seen from that point over a radius of fully thirty [71] miles, or even more, for Ronnie, who understood signalling, was well aware that the portable apparatus being used was one of the most intense and reliable type—one that was, indeed, being used by the German army in Flanders. ”

“ And then the man who called himself Knowles and who, by working as a humble mechanic at a flying school at Hendon, was able to pick up so many facts concerning our air service, explained how “The Hornet” was kept in secret somewhere out in Essex—at some spot which they had not yet discovered.
“But surely you’ll get to know,” was the other’s remark, as he leant idly against the table whereon lay the complicated apparatus of prisms, and reflectors which constituted the lighthouse to guide the enemy aircraft. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ere long half-a-dozen beams of intense light were searching the skies for the incoming machine, which the watchers below were eager to examine, and it was not long before one of the beams caught and held “The Hornet” in its blinding rays, lighting up the white, inanimate face beside her, and showing the dark stain of wounds. ”

“ Why, he’s coming down!” cried Ronnie astounded. “There was petrol placed at each corner yonder, and it’s simultaneously been ignited by means of the electric wire to show him his landing-place! It’s an enemy machine got up to look like one of ours! This is a discovery!”
“So it is!” gasped Beryl, standing at her lover’s side, listening to the aeroplane, unseen in the darkness, as it hovered around the farm and slowly descended.
The man at the farm had brought out a blue lamp and was showing it upward. ”

“ Beryl and Ronnie watched there until dawn, when they saw the two men wheel the monoplane, disguised as British with rings upon it, into the long shed at the bottom of the meadow, the door of which the lame man afterwards securely locked.
An hour later Pryor was speaking on the telephone with Cranch in London, telling him what they had discovered. Soon after midday Beryl and Ronnie were back at Harbury, where in the library window they stood in consultation.
“Look here, Beryl,” the keen-faced young man said, “as that machine has crossed from Belgium, it is undoubtedly going back again. ”

“ THE SHABBY STRANGER.
“Ronald has wired that he can’t get back here till to-night, so I shall fly ‘The Hornet’ over to Sleaford to see Rose,” remarked Beryl to her sister Iris, as they sat together at breakfast at Harbury one warm August morning.
“Perhaps Ronald might object,” remarked Mrs. Remington, who was always averse from her sister making ascents alone upon “The Hornet.”
“Oh, Ronnie won’t object! Besides, he always [44] says that I can fly just as well as any man.” ”

“ Then, after luncheon, they spent the afternoon studying maps and marking directions by which to steer, by the lines of railway mostly. Night flying, with the lights of towns extinguished, is always a difficult matter, and, as Beryl knew by experience, it is extremely easy to lose one’s way by a single mistake. ”

“ All three ran back to the shed, whereupon they saw that the little office had been entirely swept away, and that part of the roof of the hangar was off. Amid the wreckage lay the body of a man with his face shattered, stone-dead. “He thought the box contained the silencer, and when he lifted the lid he received a nasty shock, sir—eh?” Collins remarked.
“But who is it, Ronald?” gasped Beryl, horrified.
“The man who made the attempt on our lives a month ago, dearest,” was her lover’s reply. “Come away. He has paid the penalty which all spies should pay.” ”

“ For a full three minutes the lights followed them, when the watchers below, having examined the tri-coloured rings on “The Hornet’s” planes and being satisfied, shut off.
Beryl saw that her lover was anxiously watching his altimeter, as well as his compass and clock. [106] It seemed as though he were apprehensive of something.
Suddenly he began to descend, and pulled across the lever controlling the silencer, thus cutting off the noise of the exhaust.
“We’re over the sea, now,” he remarked; “can’t you feel the difference in the atmosphere? Look on the left.” ”

“ All was now ready for a continuance of the journey.
“Well, Beryl!” exclaimed Ronnie, returning to where the pretty young air-woman was standing before the fire. “All ready—eh?”
“Quite, dear,” was her reply. “You haven’t [64] forgotten the revolvers, have you?” she asked in a low voice.
“No. There’s one for each of us—and one for you if you’d like it,” he laughed.
“Yes. I think I’d better have it, dear—one never knows.”
“Not much good against a machine-gun, you know!” he laughed. “But a weapon always gives one confidence.” ”

“ Just before two o’clock the silence was broken by the distant hum of an aeroplane. Both detected it at the same instant.
“Hullo! One of our boys doing a night stunt?” remarked Ronnie, straining his eyes into the darkness, but failing to see the oncoming [37] machine. Away across the hills a long, white beam began to search the sky and, having found the machine and revealed the rings upon it, at once shut off again.
Meanwhile, as it approached, the door of Chandler’s Farm was opened by the tall, lame man, who stood outside until the machine, by its noise, was almost over them. ”

“ Suddenly Bellingham’s quick airman’s eye caught sight of a biplane at a great height coming from the north-west.
“Why, isn’t that Beryl up in your ’bus?” he exclaimed, pointing out the machine. “I didn’t know she was out to-day.”
“Yes,” was Ronnie’s reply. “She flew over to Huntingdon this morning to see her sister.”
“Was she up with you last night?”
“Yes. She generally goes up daily.”
“She has wonderful nerve for a woman,” declared George. “A pupil who has done great credit to her tutor—yourself, Ronnie. How many times has she flown the Channel?” ”