Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/334

 had failed to form anything less mad. But now as he lay on the ground, while a searchlight streamed steadily above him, a plan offered itself.

This came from the clouds and from the moon shining through when, as now, the clouds split and parted—from the moon whose rising and shining full O'Malley and he had awaited. They had waited for the moon to furnish them light for their night flight in a German airplane after they got the machine. They had not thought of the moon as bringing them a "ship." But now, above the rattle of the machine guns and between the smashings of the shrapnel, Gerry heard motors in the air and he knew that night-flying Hun-birds were up. For their pilots, too, had been waiting for the moon for practice.

It is all very well to talk about night flying in the dark; but Gerry knew how difficult—almost impossible—is flight in actual darkness. When he had been in training for night flying, years ago at his French training field, he had waited so many weeks for the moon that now he jeered at himself, lying flat under the searchlight beam, for a fool not to have thought of German flyers being up tonight.

They were up—six or eight of them at least. He could see their signal lights when he could not hear their motors. They had come overhead when the lights at the prison blazed out and the guns got going. The machine guns and the shrapnel fire ceased; only the searchlights glared out over the fields beyond the prison wire. The moon went under the clouds again. Gerry knew he could dodge the searchlights; but now he made no attempt whatever to flee. Instead, he crept back toward the prison, and