After this Barry concentrated on the faces of the clock, the height and the speed indicators. Once or twice he tried to look overside to locate his position, but the tearing hurricane wind of the "Marah's" passage so savaged his torn face and eye that he was forced back into the cover of his windscreen. Five minutes went. Over, well over a hundred the speed indicator said the "Marah" was doing. Nearly 5,000 up the height indicator said (must have climbed a lump in that minute's haziness, concluded Barry), and, reckoning to cross the line somewhere inside the 500 up--which after all would risk machine-gun and rifle fire, but spare them the Archies--would allow him to slant the "Marah" down a trifle and get a little more speed out of her. He tilted her carefully and watched the speed indicator climb slowly and hang steady. And so another five minutes went. Two thousand up said the indicator; and "_woof, woof, woof_" grunted a string of Archie shells. "Getting near the line," said Barry, and pushed the joy-stick steadily forward. The "Marah" hurtled downward on a forty-five degree slant, her engine full out, the wind screaming and shrieking about her. Fifteen hundred, a thousand, five hundred pointed the needle of the height indicator, and slowly and carefully Barry pulled the "Marah's" head up and held her racing at her top speed on the level. Fifteen minutes gone. They must be near the lines now. He could catch, faint and far off through the booming roar of his engine, the rattle of rifle fire, and a faint surprise took him at the sound of two strange raps, and the sight of two neat little round holes in the instrument board and map in front of him. He looked out, carefully holding the joy-stick steady in one hand and covering his torn eye with the other, and saw the wriggling white lines of trenches flashing past close below. Then from the cockpit behind him broke out a steady clatter and jar of the observer's machine-gun. Barry looked round to see Spotty, chalk-faced and tight-lipped, leaning over the side with arms thrust out and pointing his gun straight to earth with a stream of flashes pouring from the muzzle. "Good man," murmured Barry, "oh, good man," and made the "Marah" wriggle in her flight as a signal. Spotty looked round, loosened his lips in a ghastly grin, and waved an arm signalling to turn at right angles. "Nothin' doin', my son," said Barry grinning back. "It's 'Home, John' for us this time. But fancy the priceless old fellow wanting to go touring their front line spraying lead on 'em. Good lad, Spotty." A minute later he felt his senses reel, and his sight blacken again, but he gripped his teeth on his lip and steered for the clump of wood that hid his own Squadron's landing ground.