The winds, too, picked him up, whirled him about and otherwise so
tossed his machine here, there, yonder, that for five fearful minutes
he hardly knew where or what he was. The wind, now bitter cold, would
have frozen his flesh but for his sheathing of wool and leather that
protected his face, arms and body. Blinding gusts of rain, sleet and
frozen snow buffeted the planes, the shield of the fuselage, and all of
himself that was visible.
By this time Blaine, the German planes, his own late adversary, had all
vanished. He was alone, like a buffeted, tossed, shaken twig, in that
wild vortex of darkness and storm.
With his machine gun jammed and his petrol running low, what was there
for him to do but descend and make for the home aerodrome?
"Might as well," he reflected. "We've already overstayed our time."
Pointing gently downwards, he suffered himself to drift. That is, if
one in the midst of a blinding storm and seated in a war-plane may be
supposed to drift. Rather it was being tossed about, constant
vigilance at the controls alone keeping his plane from literally
flopping over and somersaulting here and there, like a dead leaf.
Then without warning he felt the machine dropping down, down, down.
Yet the planes were level and the whole natural resisting power of the
machine was at its usual operation.
"By George! This storm has made an air cave underneath.
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