What had he done? His heart
throbbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant he
could not move his levers because of the paralysis of his hands. He
wrenched the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two seconds
against the weight of it, felt himself righting, driving horizontally,
set the engine beating again.
He looked upward and saw two aeroplanes glide shouting far overhead,
looked back, and saw the main body of the fleet opening out and rushing
upward and outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on and strike
like a gigantic knife-blade along the wind-wheels below it.
He put down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of his
direction as he watched. He saw the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabric
strike the earth, saw its downward vanes crumple with the weight of its
descent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down,
upon the sloping wheels. Then from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of
white fire licked up towards the zenith. He was aware of a huge mass
flying through the air towards him, and turned upwards just in time to
escape the charge--if it was a charge--of a second aeroplane. It whirled
by below, sucked him down a fathom, and nearly turned him over in the
gust of its close passage.
He became aware of three others rushing towards him, aware of the urgent
necessity of beating above them. Aeroplanes were all about him, circling
wildly to avoid him, as it seemed.
Pages:
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301