"I can handle her, and there is water enough in the radiator and the gas tanks are filled.
Now, then, we must open the doors as noiselessly as possible." Dick taking the left-hand one, Tom the right, they rolled the doors back.

These moved almost noiselessly.
"Here's the way you turn the engine on," Tom whispered, holding the torch and getting Dick up into the cockpit of the craft.
"Turn it on as soon as I say, but not a second before." Placing himself in front of the propeller Tom gave it a few brisk turns.
"Now!" cried Tom, leaping back.

The ignition caught at once.
Tom clambered over into the cockpit, Prescott now being in the observer's seat forward.
With the wheel in his hands and his feet resting against the controls Tom Reade suddenly dropped all apprehension.

He was as much at home now as Prescott was with an automatic pistol in his hand.
Waiting only until the engine had gained its speed without missing, Tom cried: "Ready, pal!" Out through the open doorway Reade sent the airplane "taxying" or running along the ground.
Across the field toward them came racing a German aviator with a startled look on his face.

He had to jump out of the way as the "taxying" airplane bore down on him.