Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/168

 Personally, I felt deeply moved by this latest dastardly invasion. That there must be an end to 'traditions,' to political speech-making, to conferences and to promises of imaginary 'nests of hornets,' was now clear. The homes of Englishmen were threatened with destruction. Germany had adopted a new mode of warfare that must change everything. Therefore, happily, unfettered by red tape, and unattached to any naval or military branch of the Service, but merely an experimenter, I intended, at the earliest moment, to put my directive wave to the crucial test.

During the past week we had not been idle a moment, and Teddy and I, after more failures, had at last been able to reduce the weight of our apparatus by nearly one-half, while we had been able to more than double the intensity of the current since that well-remembered night when we had tested it upon our wireless-pole while strangers had lurked unseen in the vicinity.

My monoplane was at last completed, and ready for delivery. All three of us became greatly excited, for after so many months of patient experimenting and designing, all was now ready for a practical trial in the air.

Lionel had returned from the North, but was gone to France in connexion with some trials of a new French monoplane at the aerodrome at St. Valery-en-Caux. Therefore he was in ignorance of our pending experiments.

That we were being closely watched by spies, and that our every movement was being noted,