As the plane dived steeply another flash appeared away to their left a third a fourth. Each was accompanied by a sharp report like the crack of a whip. A German anti aircraft battery had the plane taped through its sound range finder and was putting up a barrage all round it; some of the shells exploded like Roman Candles, sending out strings of `Flaming Onions'. At the sound of the first bang Gregory stuffed his shoe in the pocket of his greatcoat and flung himself backwards, pushing out his feet to support himself as they hurtled downwards.
The bursting shells were now far above them but as the plane rushed towards the earth the pilot and his passenger could see that they were over another large break in the cloud bank. Pinpoints of light showed far away in the darkness below while a little in front the blackness was stabbed repeatedly by bright flashes from the guns of the anti aircraft battery. They seemed to make its position an almost continuous pool of light, like a baleful furnace flickering unevenly in the surrounding gloom.
Charlton suddenly checked the plane and zoomed up again. The strain was terrific. Gregory was almost shot out of his seat. His heart seemed to leap up into his throat. Now the Germans had got their searchlights going and bright pencils of coloured light cut the sky here and there, sweeping swiftly from side to side in search of the plane.
The machine was on an even keel again, heading southward, and the groups of shell bursts were well away to their left. For a moment it seemed as though they had got away but, without warning, one of the searchlights, coming up from behind, caught the plane, lighting the roof of the cabin as it passed with the brightness of full day. In a second they had flashed out of it. Charlton banked steeply to the west but two seconds later it was back on to them again. The other beams swung together as though operated by a single hand; the plane was trapped in their blinding glare. The guns of the battery altered their range and sent up another broadside of shells which burst immediately below the aircraft, rocking it from side to side with the violence of a cockle shell in a tempest.
Getting it into control once more Charlton dived and twisted in a frantic endeavour to get free. Gregory was flung first to one side and then to another; but the searchlights clung to them and, in the fractional intervals between the reports of the bursting shells, there was thud after thud as steel fragments and shrapnel tore the fuselage.
Suddenly the engine stuttered and gave out. "They've got us " Gregory cried.
"A piece has penetrated the magneto box or else the petrol leads have been torn away " Charlton yelled above the din.
The plane began to plunge. Charlton managed to right it and for a moment the "Archies" continued to scatter shells all round them. One piece of metal smashed a window but the searchlights still held them and the gunners, seeing that they were now coming down, ceased fire. `
In a strange silence which seemed unnatural after the roar of the guns and shells the machine rapidly lost height. The pinpoints of light below and the dark land, which they sensed rather than saw, seemed to be rushing up to meet them. The further lights disappeared and Charlton flattened out. For a
minute both men held their breath in frightful suspense, knowing that they might be dead before they could count a hundred. There was a terrific bump; the sound of tearing metal. The cabin floor lifted beneath their feet and the whole plane turned right over.
Gregory's head hit the roof of the cabin with a frightful crack and he was temporarily half dazed by the blow. Scrambling to his knees he crouched in the dip of the upturned roof, swaying his aching head from side to side, until he heard Charlton yelling at him.
The airman had kicked out the fragments of the shattered window and scrambled through it. He turned now and was grabbing at Gregory's shoulders. With an effort Gregory stumbled up, pulled on his shoe, and, aided by Charlton, wriggled out of the wrecked plane. In the struggle they fell together in a heap and rolled a few yards down the slope upon which the plane had come to grief.
When they had checked themselves and blundered, panting, to their feet Charlton was swearing profusely; but Gregory way laughing - laughing like hell positively rocking with Satanic glee.
"So you had to land me after all, damn you " he gasped. "And by refusing to turn round when I asked you, you've ditched yourself into the bargain."
"You fool! " snarled Charlton. "You suicidal maniac! We'll be caught inside ten minutes."
"No, we shan't," said Gregory firmly. "It's black as pitch and we'll find plenty of places in which to hide. This time to morrow night we'll be back in Berlin."
"What a hope l " Freddie Charlton was almost stuttering with rage. "I couldn't move a mile in this accursed country without arousing suspicion. I can't speak a word of German."
"Don't worry; I'll talk for us both."
"You’ll be talking to the Gestapo before you're an hour older." Charlton jerked his arm out savagely, pointing towards a cluster of moving lights that had suddenly flashed out less than a hundred yards away. "Those are the German gunners coming to take us prisoner."
"The Devil! " exclaimed Gregory. "I thought they were a couple of miles away. Come on Run.
Chapter II
Hunted
INSTINCTIVELY, as he began to run, Charlton turned away from the advancing Germans but Gregory grabbed his arm and pulled him sharply to the right.
"This way! " he grunted. "Our best chance is to try to put he crest of the hill between us and them. We'll get a few minute’s start while they're examining the wrecked plane."
For a hundred yards they ran on in silence, then Charlton muttered: "How's that wound of yours?"
"Not too good." Gregory panted. "I wrenched it when we crashed and it's started to bleed again, but I reckon I can do about a couple of miles. I wish to God that instead of listening to Erika you'd had the sense to bind it up for me."
"Your girl friend wouldn't let me," Charlton snapped impatiently. "I told you; her one thought was to have you out of his, and I don't wonder. If you were as dangerous to her as you've been to me she'd have been better off running round with a packet of dynamite in the seat of her drawers."
"Let's save our breath till we're clear of the Troopers," Gregory snapped back. "We'll have plenty of time for mutual recrimination later on."
Charlton accepted the suggestion and they plodded on side by side up the grassy slope. Suddenly a few distant lights came into view, which told them that they had reached its crest. At that moment there was a loud explosion in their rear.
For a second the whole landscape was lit up as brightly as though someone had fired a gargantuan piece of magnesium tape. Both of them automatically halted and looked back. They were just in time to catch the after glow of the central flash and see a tall column of lurid flame shoot up towards the sky.
"That's the plane," said Charlton bitterly. "Those blasted gunners must have just about reached it. I hope to hell the explosion put paid to some of them."
As he spoke a shot rang out; another; and another. Outlined against the sky they had been sighted in the flash of the explosion. The bullets whistled round them and with a sharp whack one tore through the skirt of Charlton's leather jacket.
Gregory flung himself flat. "You hit?" he called anxiously, as Charlton flopped down beside him.
"No. It was a near thing, though. What filthy luck that we happened to be right on the sky line just as the plane went up! If we'd crossed the crest a moment earlier or a moment later we might have got away unseen."
"Anyway, we're spotted now and the hunt is up," Gregory muttered, and they began to wriggle quickly forward on their stomachs.
Bullets hummed and whistled through the grass but the flames from the burning plane lit only the slope up which they had come and the far side of the crest was in almost total darkness. The Boches were now firing blind, so there was little chance of their scoring a hit, and when the two fugitives had progressed about twenty yards down the further side of the slope they were sufficiently under cover to be safe again for the moment.