She was the _Oom Paul Kruger_, captured by the
_Procyon_ after a chase across the mountains northeast of Keegark the
day before. And, remote from the other ships, to the south, a tiny
speck of blue-gray, almost invisible against the sky, and a smaller
twinkle of reflected sunlight--a garbage-scow, unflatteringly but
somewhat aptly rechristened _Hildegarde Hernandez_, which had been
altered as a bomb-carrier, and the gun-cutter _Elmoran_. With the
glasses, he could see a bulky cylinder being handled off the scow and
loaded onto the improvised bomb-catapult on the _Elmoran_'s stern.
Shortly thereafter, the gun-cutter broke loose from the tender and
began to approach the fleet.
"General, I must protest against your doing this," Air-Commodore
Hargreaves said. "There's simply no sense in it. That bomb can be
dropped without your personal supervision aboard, sir, and you're
endangering yourself unnecessarily. That infernal machine hasn't been
tested or anything; it might even let go on the catapult when you try
to drop it. And we simply can't afford to lose you, now.
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