"But after that I just looked at my watch and stamped as I stood waiting for those blighted drums. I'd given Smithers five minutes. Lord, if he couldn't do it. I----It seemed a thundering important thing to me, you see: the most important I'd ever had to do. You do know why, don't you? You do understand?" Golden's great eyes upon his face were as full of understanding as the tone of her simple "yes." Her young husband gave a short, contented nod, then he went on: "Well! So then I saw Smithers, coming running back. 'Got 'em?' I shouted. 'Right, sir!' he shouted back. Up he came with those two drums he'd got (God knows _how_). I fixed one on the gun myself, and put the other handy. "'Start her up,' I said. I climbed in, and the boys swung the propeller. I gave 'em 'Contact,' and then I was up and off.... Hadn't been off the earth for a week. And, by the way, I hadn't gone up to fight since the time I crashed. "Yes, of course, it was a perfectly idiotic thing to do. I hadn't got the night's Orders any more than I'd orders to go and stand by with Ross, where you thought I was. I didn't know if we were fighting with guns or planes or both, nor where nor when nor anything about it. However!----. "What did London look like from up there? Oh, just all dark, you know: like a great turned-up field below you, with the river winding through it. What you do see very plainly is that silver ribbon of the Thames, reflecting the light of the sky. "You think the sky's big, don't you? Well, it isn't so big when you can bumble into your own barrage at any moment, or when a Hun you can neither see nor hear lets fly suddenly. But I could see shrapnel breaking away to the south-west, so I just beetled off after that.... "Then I'm dashed if those three blighters in their big plane didn't nearly run me down. Yes, I s'pose she'd be the plane you and Mrs. Cartwright heard over the house. Was she missing it all?" "Missing?" repeated the fascinated Golden. "Why, how could I know?" "Well, anyway, she was somewhere over that part of town. They'd jumped the barrage and got in. I circled round, climbing all I knew, and then I guess they dropped those two bombs to lighten themselves. "The searchlight fellows down below were dazzling away to beat the band. You could see nothing but jumping flashes all over the show, putting 'em off their aim. Me too. Perfectly poisonous. I cursed, but I knew I'd no business there.... "Well, that Scout of mine could climb as quick as any Gotha built yet, so I gave them twenty rounds or so right into 'em. They didn't like that, so I gave 'em some more. They fired back, but nothing to hurt. The next go, they decided to give it up, I think. They headed for the south-west again. Evidently they were going to chance the barrage. Bon! Anyway, if they were, so was I.