it was a muggy night in dover—not an unusual thing in dover—but nevertheless the wind had an extra whip in it and was lashing the outside channel into a state of wild waves. an acetylene flare revealed several muffled figures flitting here and there on the harbor brink. there was a glint from polished surface, a flash-like, downward rush of a long, tapering hull, and a splash in the dark waters below. a sea-plane had been deftly launched. motors hummed, a wide wake streamed away to the rear of the wonder craft, which, suddenly, as if by magic drawn upward from the tide, joined the winds that sported aloft.
captain leonidas johnson, noted as an airman in the four quarters of the globe, sat tight behind the rudder wheel, and back in the band-box engine room was josiah freeman, one time of boston, u. s. a.
two aboard were not of the regular crew. behind[4] the wind-screen were billy barry and henri trouville, our aviator boys, bound for the coast of france, and bound to get there.
ever higher and higher, the intrepid navigators sailed into a clearing atmosphere, where the clouds were being gathered into a moonlight bath. the 120’s were forcing a speed of something like a mile to the minute, and doing it at 2000 feet above the sea level.
through dover straits the swift trend of the great mechanical bird was toward the north sea, the blurring high lights of dover fading in the distance rearward and calais showing a glimmer on the distant right.
captain johnson switched on the ghost light to get his bearings from the facing dials, and speaking to the shadowy figures in the observation seat indulged in a bit of humor by asking:
“you young daredevils, how does this strike you?”
an answering high note from billy:
“you’re doing bully, captain, but mind your eye and don’t knock a hole in dunkirk by flying too low.”
“well, of all the nerve,” chuckled the veteran wheelman, “‘flying too low,’ and the sky almost close enough to touch.”
a pressure forward on the elevating lever shot the sea-plane downward, and the turn again to level[5] keel was made a scant five hundred feet above the choppy surface of the channel.
“we’ll take to boating again at dunkirk,” observed the captain, but the observation was heard only by himself, for now the wind and the waves and the motors and the straining of the aircraft combined to drown even a voice like the captain’s.
there was destined to be no landing that night at dunkirk. an offshore gale, not to be denied, suddenly swept the channel with howling force. rising, dipping, twisting, the sea-plane dashed on in uncertain course, and when at last it had outridden the storm, ostend was in sight—the atlantic city of the belgians.
the stanch aircraft, with engines silenced, rocked now upon the heaving tide. its tanks were empty. not a drop of petrol in them. retreat was impossible, and in the broad light of the new day there was no place of concealment.
while four shivering shapes shifted cramped positions and gratefully welcomed the warming sun-rays, they were under survey of powerful field-glasses in the hands of a gray-garbed sentry.
