In another minute he was gone. Brenda went with him to help about the gasoline, and in an short time, under her pilotage, he reached an open spot where he could rise. They heard the whirring of his wings; he was gone. CHAPTER XIV TWO PERILOUS NIGHT TRIPS It may be said that, once up in the air, Stanley lost no time in heading into the west-southwest. He knew the way, and though it was yet hardly midnight, he divined the safest way for him to make the familiar aerodrome was to get there as soon as possible, regardless of consequences. The night, though foggy, was sufficiently starlight to aid in his sense of direction. It was hardly likely that there would be further bombing raids that night, but one was never certain what the Boches might attempt. Witness their recent raid upon the old chateau, although they might know that planes had recently landed there. After the North Sea Wind fog, a general calm had settled down upon that death-scarred region. Over the front and about No-Man's-Land an occasional flare or star-shell would go up. One of these came unusually close to the swiftly moving Fokker. Immediately after that came bombing from Archies stationed along the enemy front. Among these some, either accidentally or by design, sent bursting shrapnel all around him. He heard the wings being struck repeatedly but, knowing his great speed, he hoped to be out of range almost at once. With the sound of big guns the whole front was lighted up here and there with flares and starshells, many being sent up from shell holes concealed from all but their own side. More than that; for Stanley, leaning far over to scan the earth below, suddenly saw men rushing some kind of a gun up a steep incline. Where was that? It could not be the Appincourte Bluff, for that was now in our hands. But he recalled another elevation near the small stream behind. "Can it be the Boches have tunneled to that former another advancing post?" Further thought was interrupted by a brilliant flash and a dull report just underneath. At the same time he felt sharp stings pierce his arms now stretched outside the fuselage as he leaned over. Something like a needle seemed to pierce his brain. In the same instant he was aware that in his eagerness to reach the base quickly, he had permitted his plane to approach the earth a great deal nearer than before. He was tilting his rudder upward, while feeling at once that he was about all in. But feverishly he gripped wheel and controls, more with feet than hands, for he was growing more helpless each passing second. The flashings below had shattered into many small scintillations as they shot upward, while something sharp and metallic was rattling among his planes. But he was mounting, he knew that. Dizzily, he managed mechanically to turn the plane towards where he knew the broad aerodrome was situated.