"I hate to think of crashing down into those trees," Tom admitted.

"We've just got to get over being too particular. Several places we let pa.s.s us might have answered our purpose. Look ahead, Jack, and tell me if there doesn't seem to be some sort of open spot lying there."

Jack gave a whoop.

"Here we are!" he cried exultantly. "It's an opening in the scrub timber, a big gash too, for a fact! Why, already I can see that it looks like a level green field. How queer it should be lying right there, as if it might be meant for us."

"You don't glimpse any other chance further on, do you, Jack?" continued the pilot.

"Never a thing, Tom. Just a continuation of those same old dwarf oak trees. But why do you ask that? What's the matter with this fine big gap?"

"I'm afraid it's a marsh, and not a dry field!" Tom answered. "But all the same I presume we'll have to chance it. Better to strike a bog than to fall into those trees, where the lot of us might be killed."

"Suppose we circle around, and try to find the best place for a descent,"

proposed Beverly.

All of them strained their eyes to try to see better. Unfortunately a cloud pa.s.sed over the sun just then, rendering it difficult to make sure of anything.

"What's the verdict?" sang out Tom presently, keeping a wary eye on the straining motors.

"Looks to me as if that further part might be the highest ground," was Jack's decision.

"I agree with you there!" instantly echoed Beverly.

"That settles it! Here goes to make the try," Tom announced, again swinging in and shutting off all power.

He continued to glide downward, approaching the ground at a certain point which he had picked but with his highly trained eye as apparently the best location for the landing.

Suspecting what might happen, Tom held back until the very last, so that the big bombing plane was not going at much speed when its wheels came in contact with the ground for the first time.

Something happened speedily, for it proved to be a bog, and as the rubber-tired wheels sank in and could not be propelled, the natural result followed that the nose of the giant plane was buried in the soft ground, and they came to an abrupt stop.

Tom was the first to crawl forth, and Beverly followed close upon his heels. The third member of the party did not seem as ready to report, which fact alarmed his chum.

"Jack, what's wrong with you?" he called out, starting to climb aboard the smashed plane again.

"Nothing so very much, I think; but I seem to be all twisted up in this broken gear, and can hardly move," came the answer.

Tom secretly hoped it was not a broken arm or leg instead. He started to feel around, and soon managed to get the other free from the broken ends of the wire stays that had somehow hindered his escape. Together they crawled out, to find Lieutenant Beverly feeling himself all over as if trying to discover what the extent of his damages were.

"Try to see if you've been injured any way seriously, Jack," begged his anxious chum, still unconvinced.

An investigation disclosed the marvelous fact that all of them had managed to come through the smashing landing with but a small amount of damage. When this was ascertained without any doubt Jack started to prance around, unable to contain himself within bounds.

"Excuse me if I act a little looney, fellows!" he begged. "Fact is, I'm just keyed up to topnotch and something will give way unless I let off steam a bit."

With that he yelled and laughed and cheered until his breath gave out.

Neither of the others felt any inclination to try to stop his antics.

Truth to tell, they were tempted to egg Jack on, because he was really expressing in his own fashion something of the same exultation that all of them felt.

The great flight had been carried through, and here they were landed on the soil of America, three young aviators who but a few days before had been serving their country on the fighting-front in Northern France. Yes, the Atlantic had been successfully bridged by a heavier-than-air plane, and from the time of leaving France until this minute their feet had not once pressed any soil; for that ice-pack in mid-Atlantic could not be counted against them, since it too was nothing but congealed water.

"But the poor old bomber! It's ruined, Colin, I'm afraid," Jack finally managed to say, when he sank down from his exertions.

"That's a small matter," Beverly a.s.sured him. "The main thing is that we did what we set out to do, and proved that the dream of all real airmen could be made to come true. We may live to see a procession of monster boats of the air setting out for over-seas daily, carrying pa.s.sengers, as well as mail and express matter."

"Yes," said Tom gravely, and yet with a pardonable trace of pride in voice and manner, "the Atlantic has been conquered, and saddled, and bridled, like any wild broncho of the plains. But hadn't we better be thinking of getting out of this soft marshy tract?"

"As quickly as we possibly can," Jack told him. "We'll try to run across some Virginia farmer, black or white, who will have a horse and agree to take us to the nearest railroad station. Once we hit civilization, the rest will be easy."

"What about the plane, Colin?" asked Tom.

"It can stay here for the time being," the other answered him. "Later on I'll hire some one to have it hauled out and stored against my coming back--after we've been a while in Berlin and got Heine to behaving himself."

They secured such things as it was desirable they should keep. Acting on Tom's advice everything that might testify to their ident.i.ty was also removed, lest the bogged plane be accidentally discovered and betray them. Afterwards they set out to find a way beyond the borders of the marsh and scrub oaks, to some place where possibly they might get a.s.sistance.

CHAPTER XXIV

SURPRISING BRIDGETON

"Here's the end of the marshy tract," Tom said, after they had been floundering around for some little time.

"How fine it feels to be on solid ground again," Jack observed, stamping his feet as though he really enjoyed the sensation.

Indeed, after being for such a long time, weary hours after hours, confined in the big bombing plane, the relief was greatly appreciated by both Tom Raymond and Lieutenant Beverly, as well as by Jack Parmly.

"Now for the home town!" the last mentioned told his companions. "And as near as I can figure it out there's not a ghost of a chance that Cousin Randolph could have arrived before me."

"For that matter I'm sure the French steamer must be still far out at sea, with a day or two's journey ahead of her," Colin a.s.sured him.

"Then it's my game, provided we don't run across some U. S. army authorities who'd want to know our names and hold us for investigation, which would knock everything flat."

"We're going to try to avoid all that bother," Beverly a.s.sured him. "It isn't going to make us feel very proud of our achievement, since we have to hide our light under a bushel; but for one I don't regret it. No matter if we have to be punished for desertion, our motive was honorable; and they never will be able to deny us the credit of having made the longest flight on record in a heavier-than-air machine."

"All the same," urged Tom, "I'd rather keep quiet about that stunt, for the present at least. I want to go back and finish the work over there.

If the Huns are going to be driven to the Rhine we ought to be doing our duty by Uncle Sam; which we couldn't if shut up in the Government penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, awaiting trial as deserters."

"Here's a plain trail that may lead us out of this region of scrub oaks, and to some farmer's place!" the lieutenant exclaimed just then; and in their eagerness to get in touch with some one who would take them to the railroad they talked no further concerning the great flight and its possible serious consequences to them.

Half an hour afterwards they came to the home of a farmer, who was trying to make a living out of his isolated holdings, eking it out, as he informed them while his wife was getting up the best meal possible, by doing some terrapin hunting, and even trapping muskrats and such fur-bearing animals during the otherwise unprofitable winter months.

It was very comfortable to sit down once more to a table after being so long taking "snacks" at odd hours, and being cramped in the bombing plane. And as the farmer's wife had plenty of fresh eggs, which they told her not to stint, the generous omelet she produced was fully appreciated, flanked as it was by rashers of pretty fair bacon.

There were also some freshly made soda biscuits which had a true old-fashioned Southern taste, appreciated by Tom and Jack. Lieutenant Beverly did not show any great liking for them; but he was a Northerner, brought up on baking-powder biscuits, so the others could understand his want of appreciation.

Taken all in all, they certainly enjoyed that first bite ash.o.r.e after the completion of their memorable flight across the Atlantic.