Читать книгу Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in France and Belgium. Or, Saving the Fortunes of the Trouvilles онлайн

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Lickety clip the aëroplane moved over the ground. Then up and away!

A pistol shot rang out. A cavalryman nearest to the point of flight was behind the weapon.

Barely a hundred feet in the air and Henri leaned heavily against Billy.

“I’m hit!” he gasped, “but don’t let go. Keep her going!”

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It was indeed a severe test of Billy Barry’s nerve that was put upon him in this trying moment. To let go of the controllers of the aëroplane would mean the finish; to neglect for an instant his comrade, whom he believed to be bleeding to death, was agony. Almost blindly he set the planes for a nearly vertical descent from a dizzy height of three thousand feet which the machine had attained before Billy had fully realized that he was holding across his knees the inert body of his beloved chum. Like a plummet the aircraft dropped eastward. With rare presence of mind Billy shifted for a rise when close to the ground, and managed to land without wrecking the machine. A scant ten feet, though, to the right, and the aëroplane would have crashed into a cow-shed and all would have been over.