"Here's the way you turn the engine on," Tom whispered, holding the torch and getting Dick up into the cockpit of the craft. "Turn it on as soon as I say, but not a second before." Placing himself in front of the propeller Tom gave it a few brisk turns. "Now!" cried Tom, leaping back. The ignition caught at once. Tom clambered over into the cockpit, Prescott now being in the observer's seat forward. With the wheel in his hands and his feet resting against the controls Tom Reade suddenly dropped all apprehension. He was as much at home now as Prescott was with an automatic pistol in his hand. Waiting only until the engine had gained its speed without missing, Tom cried: "Ready, pal!" Out through the open doorway Reade sent the airplane "taxying" or running along the ground. Across the field toward them came racing a German aviator with a startled look on his face. He had to jump out of the way as the "taxying" airplane bore down on him. But he reached for his automatic and brought it forth. "Stop!" he roared. "Turn out the guard!" Bang! bang! Two bullets whizzed by Tom's head. Prescott fired three shots instantly, one of them taking effect, for the German officer went to earth and lay there, his pistol now silent. From behind the hangar several members of the guard came rushing from their tents. By the time they were in front of the hangar they could shoot only by guess, and might hit their own comrades in the troop camp. So they fired into the air, wildly, rapidly. So much shooting was bound to rouse the troop camp, and did. The sentries came out on the jump. While some fired star shells that lighted the sky, others took quick aim with their rifles. Aiming at the figures on the ground as best he could, just as Reade left the ground for the air, Prescott fired, loaded and fired, jamming in a fresh magazine whenever the automatic became emptied. Twenty feet up in the air, fifty, a hundred! Tom Reade rose as fast as he could make the machine move. More star shells, and now the anti-aircraft guns came into action. At three hundred feet above the ground shells exploded about the fugitives. One lucky shot of the enemy would be enough to bring them to earth. The pistol was now too hot to use further. Dick sat back, closing his eyes, while Reade drove at all the speed he could compel, ever rising higher. Both Americans knew that other anti-aircraft guns further south would be turned upon them. Finally Tom, after a glance at the barograph, roared at Prescott: "Five thousand feet up on a dark night, and we're going to fifteen thousand feet. All we now have to fear will be other German aircraft, but there'll be fleets of them sent out to look for us!" Prescott nodded, though he could not hear in the roar of the motors and the rush of the air past him.