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 Quietly she took the seat to the right in the front of the cabin behind Sander's compartment. Bane placed her travelling bag in a rack and pre-empted the chair to the left. I sat behind her. Larkin closed the cabin and posted himself aft. Only the five of us were aboard. We rose and pointed westward, Larkin manipulating a device which pulled up the pontoons and lowered wheels for field landing.

The disc of a radio ear-phone dotted the cabin wall beside Bane; now and then he bent to it. We flew steadily, not fast, at a hundred and fifty miles the hour, approximately, and up eight thousand feet which Sander dropped to six when we were clear of the hills. Westward, always.

As flight, it was mere transportation, wholly common-place; but never before had a flight so excited me.

Frequently, when I had flown past cities, especially when bound on bombing tests at sea, I had imagined, theoretically, what must happen if something snapped in my brain or in another pilot's head, and a modern, postwar bomb detonated in Broadway or Wall