Though he had never before managed a monoplane of the type of that which he had appropriated, he had often watched the German airmen, and after a little uncertainty in his manipulation of the controls, he "felt" the machine, and recognised that it would give him no trouble. Then he had leisure to determine his course.
His first idea had been to make all speed to the Belgian coast, and take ship for England. But recollection of the conversation overheard between Hellwig and his visitor suggested that he might possibly do some preliminary service to the Belgians. A bridge was to be blown up. There could be no doubt that this operation was part of the German plan of campaign, and if it could be frustrated, this would represent so much gain to the defending force. The river spanned by the bridge had not been named, but there was a clue in the fact that the bridge was near a mill. His intention now, therefore, was to alight somewhere in Belgium and communicate his discovery to the military authorities.
In the hurry of departure he was quite oblivious of the direction of his flight. Now that he had time to consider it, he saw by the compass that he was flying towards the north-east. Bringing the monoplane round, he set his course for the south-west, hoping to pick up in half an hour or so the lights of Aix-la-Chapelle. He failed to locate the railway line from Cologne to Aix, and the few scattered points of light in the black expanse below gave him no landmarks.
After a while it occurred to him to switch on the electric light that illuminated the dial of a small clock. It was a quarter to eleven. He must have been flying for nearly half an hour, but neither to right or left nor straight ahead was there any sign of the expected lights of Aix. The country over which he was passing seemed to be hilly; it was possible that the lights of the city were hidden by the shoulder of a hill.
Presently his companion shouted that he heard the sound of big guns away to the left. Kenneth listened, but could hear nothing through the droning whirr of the propeller.
Every now and then he glanced at the clock, the only indication of the distance he had covered. When midnight was past, he felt sure that unless he had completely miscalculated his direction he must by this time have crossed the German frontier. He was thinking of landing and trying to discover where he was, when he caught sight in the starlight of a broad river flowing immediately beneath him from south-west to north-east. This, he had no doubt, was the Meuse, but he knew nothing of the course of the river, and could not determine whether he was in Belgium or Holland. At any rate he was out of Germany.