Dastral of the Flying Corps

by Rowland Walker

  CHAPTER VI

  A ZEPPELIN NIGHT

  _Per ardua ad astra_

  IT was a bright sunny morning in September during the great war, asthe mail packet slipped out of Calais breakwater, and headed for thewhite cliffs of Dover. For two days the service had been suspendedfor a special reason. Her decks were crowded with overdue mails,including those from India, Egypt and Australia, which had comeoverland from Brindisi.

  There was also a fair sprinkling of passengers, including not a fewofficers, home on short leave from the Somme front, where the greatpush was still in progress.

  Amongst the latter was a young officer, not more than twenty-two,clad in a "British Warm" and wearing the well-known service cap ofthe Flying Corps, with its circular badge, consisting of a wreath oflaurels and the magic letters, R.F.C.; letters which have alreadywoven themselves into the romance of English history, for the daringdeeds of our airmen had already gained for this juvenile corpstraditions which will never die.

  "Good-bye, Dastral! Come back soon!" shouted several of his comrades,who had come to the edge of the quay to see the hero off to Blightyon his well-earned leave. For the youth in the service cap was noneother than Dastral of the Flying Corps, the brilliant young pilot whohad fought with the German air-fiend, Himmelman, only a few daysbefore and had perhaps done more than any other individual towardswresting the supremacy of the air from the wily and cruel Boche.

  He had already won that coveted decoration, the D.S.O., as we havepreviously seen, and now the King was about to confer upon him theMilitary Cross, for a daring bombing raid which he had organised andcarried out over the enemy's lines, when as Commander of "B" Flighthe had led his men beyond the Somme, and blocked the enemy'scommunications, bombed the Havrincourt-Bapaume Railway, and destroyedthe bridge and viaduct at Velu, hurling one long troop train todestruction, and preventing the Germans reinforcing their front linetrenches near Ginchy and Morval. Now, after his latest deed, the Kinghad sent for him to congratulate him in person for his skill anddaring. On the morrow he was to be received in audience at BuckinghamPalace.

  If he had consulted his own wishes he would much have preferred toremain with his comrades on the Somme, but a royal wish is an order,and, after all, perhaps the ten days' leave which had been granted tohim would enable him to run north to visit his mother and friends inthe little village in Yorkshire, and to gaze once again upon thoseblue, heather-tipped and bracing moorlands where he had spent hisboyhood.

  "Good-bye, Dastral. Don't stay too long in Old Blighty!" againshouted his friends, as the vessel sheered off and gained headway,and he had shouted back in reply:

  "Cheer-o, boys! I shall soon be back again," waving his hand towardshis comrades, as he bent over the rail.

  As soon as they left the shelter of the breakwater a destroyer,waiting outside, sent up a couple of flags to her masthead.

  "Send up the answering pennant, bosun!" cried the skipper of themail-boat, when he saw the destroyer's signal, and immediately afterhe rang down to the engine room staff:

  "Full steam ahead!" for the warship was there to act as escort, asthere were very valuable mails aboard, and only two nights ago, theenemy's destroyers, breaking out of their base at Zeebrugge, hadcrept through the gap in the British mine-beds in the dark, and hadsent two patrols and an empty transport to the bottom.

  So, while the mail packet went full speed ahead, at twenty-fourknots, the destroyer, with her superior speed, waltzed round her,like a dancing marionette, leaving a trail of white foam in her wake.This she continued to do all the way across the Channel, for it wasknown that several enemy submarines were lurking about theneighbourhood, watching through their periscopes for just such atarget as the mail boat with her valuable cargo offered.

  Very soon, however, the white cliffs of Dover appeared in sight, andwhen they entered the new naval harbour, the destroyer sheered offand went back to her station.

  Dastral, having been recognised on the boat, had received severalinvitations to dine in London that evening, but all these he hadcourteously refused, although one of them had come from a Cabinetminister and his wife who were travelling on the same boat.

  "No," he had said to himself, "there is poor old Tim Burkitt, mycolleague, who is studying law at Gray's Inn. I will go and hunt himup. He will be glad to see me, and we will spend the night togetherat Hallet's."

  Now Tim Burkitt, who suffered from a physical deformity, had beenbreaking his young heart ever since war broke out, for he had beenrejected from every sphere of service in the great war, owing to hisdeformity. He had seen his chums depart from Gray's into the Army,the Navy and the Flying Corps, and he had been left behind almostalone.

  He had been chummy with Dastral, for they came from the same village,had come up to London together, and had shared the same drab dulllodgings in the great city. Later he was destined to become a greatlawyer, for nature had compensated him by granting him the gift oforatory, but he would have willingly given up all that if he couldbut have shared with Dastral his adventures and his triumphs.

  This afternoon he had thrown aside his law books to read in thepapers a vivid description of Dastral's fight with Himmelman, theGerman air-fiend, and the poor cripple, with tears of grief and envyat his own hard lot, but with his heart full of joy at his comrade'ssuccess had just thrown aside the paper, adding dejectedly:

  "Oh, Dastral, how I would like to see you again! You were always atrue friend to me"; when suddenly he heard a scamper of footsteps upthe bare stone steps that led up to his chamber in Gray's, and thenext instant the door flew open, and Tim found himself embracing hisold colleague, with a warmth he had never exhibited before.

  "Bravo, Dastral!" he cried again and again. "I knew you'd do it ifyou had half a chance. And to think you should remember me, a poorcripple, when all England is talking about you, and the King himselfhas sent for you."

  "Here, stow it, Tim! Who do you think I should seek out first if notyou? I've come to spend the afternoon and evening with you.To-morrow, after I have seen the King, I'm going home to Burnside,where you and I spent so many happy days, and I want you to come withme."

  "Good! Splendid! How kind of you, old fellow! Then to-night we'llhave a dinner all to ourselves at Hallet's. What say you?"

  "Right you are, Tim," said Dastral, clapping his old colleague on theback, and making him the happiest fellow in all London for the nonce.

  That afternoon the two chums had a quiet stroll around Gray's, andLincoln's Inn Fields, then called on one or two acquaintances who hadalso been left behind in the Temple. A visit to the Old Mitre ofsacred memory, and a quiet smoke in Johnson's Corner at the "Cheese"in Fleet Street, passed away the hours of the golden afternoon, andthe evening found them snugly ensconced at Hallet's, where, in thedays gone by, they used to celebrate any little event in their livesby a special dinner.

  Never for a moment did the conversation flag. The two chums unbosomedthemselves to one another, except that Dastral would not talk abouthis adventures since he became a pilot in the Flying Corps, for themembers of this Corps never seek advertisement, preferring that therecord of their Homeric deeds should all go down to the credit of theCorps, rather than to any particular individual.

  "But, Dastral," Tim would urge, as the plates and dishes disappearedand another course was laid, "you must have had a hundred amazingadventures since I saw you last. Just tell me about one of them, sayyour fight with Himmelman!"

  "Bah! It was nothing, Tim--nothing, I mean to make a song about. If Icould write and speak like you, now, I might be able to make a taleabout it. But nature hasn't gifted me that way," replied the pilot.

  "But don't you feel the romance and glory of it all, fighting abattle in the air at ten thousand feet?"

  "Romance, glory?" laughed Dastral. "There is no romance or gloryabout war, when you are in it. It is horrid and brutal then. You mustbe miles away to see the romance of it. It is all an ugly business."

  Tim couldn't understand him. He just couldn't, but he had one
moreshot. "Don't you feel like singing sometimes, when you are up in theazure, mounting in circles like a lark to meet the sun, and theheavens are calling you?" he asked.

  "Ah, when I am ten thousand feet up, and the engines are runningsmoothly, it is heavenly. I feel like music and romance then. Thesong of the propellors is beautiful, and the beating of the enginemakes me imagine all sorts of weird things, but when I come down tothe earth again I forget all the things I would say. It is wonderfulthough, that call of the heavens; the call of the wild, as thegipsies say, isn't in it. But I cannot describe it."

  And so they talked on for an hour--two hours, long after the tablehad been cleared, making rings of smoke into which Tim Burkitt atleast, with his rich imagination, saw wonderful things, when suddenlysomething happened which made them both spring to their feet--theelectric lights went out, leaving them in utter darkness for a coupleof minutes.

  "What is the matter?" cried half a dozen voices, as soon as thewaiter appeared with a lamp in his hand, which he immediately placedupon the centre table.

  "There is a rumour, sir, that the Zeppelins are to make an attackupon London to-night, and the electric current has been turned off atthe main," replied the jovial, beefy-faced waiter, adding with asmile, as he returned for another lamp, "What are we a-coming to?"

  At this announcement several people at once took their departure,evidently thinking that Hallet's would be the first place to invitethe attention of the raiders, and one or two ladies fainted and hadto be helped out by their friends.

  A strange and eager look came into the eyes of Dastral at the wordZeppelin. Tim noted it at once, and wondered what his colleague wasthinking about, for, though his gaze was eager and keen, there was afar away look in his eyes. At the end of a minute he half uttered theword:

  "Zeppelin!"

  Then he rose to his feet, but recalling himself almost with a jerk tothe fact of Tim's presence, he said apologetically,

  "I say, old fellow, we've had a jolly time, but I think I must leaveyou, though it almost breaks my heart to do so."

  "Go? Where to, Dastral? I thought you were going to spend the nightat my rooms, and it's barely nine o'clock yet. Sit down, old man. Youhaven't got the Zeppelin fright as well, have you? If you have, hereare my smelling salts--here, take a sniff now."

  For answer Dastral burst into a roar of laughter. Then subsidingquickly, he said, in a more serious tone, bending low to whisper hiswords in Burkitt's ears:

  "I have never yet fought a Zeppelin, except the lame duck we broughtdown near Brussels. I would give all I possess to go up and fightone. And during the last minute I have been wondering how it can bedone."

  "Well, how can you do it?"

  "That's the trouble. I'm not attached to any Wing or Squadron inEngland. But a friend of mine has just recently returned from France,and has been appointed Commanding Officer of the --th Squadron, withits aerodrome about fifteen miles away from here. I must get intotouch with him, if possible."

  The next moment Dastral was engaged on the 'phone, trying in the darkto find his friend somewhere at the other end of the wires. Aftersome ten minutes he managed it.

  "Hullo! Hullo! Are you there?" he asked.

  "Yes, who are you?" came the reply.

  "I want the O.C. of your Squadron at once, please."

  "He is busily engaged, and I cannot disturb him now, unless it issomething of the highest importance. Hurry up, please, and tell mewho you are, and give me your message. The wires are urgently wantedto-night."

  "I am Dastral, Flight-Commander Dastral of the --th Squadron, --thWing, and I have just come from France."

  "What! Beg pardon, sir. Dastral. Not the pilot who fought withHimmelman?"

  "Yes."

  "Hold the line a minute, sir."

  Twenty seconds later the O.C. of the Squadron himself was at the endof that line.

  "Hullo! Is that you, Dastral?"

  "Yes. How are you, Garner, old man?"

  "But hang it, how came you to ring me up? I should dearly love to seeyou, but I've my hands full to-night. We received '_Air Raid Action_'half an hour ago. Several hostile airships have crossed the eastcoast, and are making for the metropolis, so I cannot stay now. Comeand see me in the morning, do, old man. Eh, what's that you say?"

  "Haven't you a spare machine you could let me try if I came overthere by fast motor at once?"

  "Hullo! hullo! All the machines are out with the men standing by,ready to go up at the first tip, except--let me see now--we've got anew fast 'Buckstead Bullet' here, which none of the men are veryfamiliar with yet. There's that. Come if you like, old fellow. It's abit irregular, but if there should happen to be a big attack onLondon, and the case warrants it, I see no reason why you shouldn'ttry the blamed thing. It's a single-seater, only just in from themakers, and a devil of a whizzer as well as a first class climber!"

  "Right-o! I'm coming straight away!" cried Dastral, waiting to hearno more, and banging down the receiver.

  The next minute he was outside on the pavement, forgetting all aboutTim, the settlement of the bill, and everything else. Tim, however,who had heard part of the message, had already paid the bill and gotoutside, where he had hailed a taxi, determined not to be leftbehind, for his quick intuitive mind had told him which way the windwas blowing. He had had a hard job to secure the vehicle, for therehad been a great demand for the same, but he had whispered Dastral'sname to the chauffeur and had agreed to foot the bill however big itmight be, although he had only three half-crowns left in his pocketafter squaring the bill indoors. That did not bother him at all,however. Here was a chance of rendering some service, however small,to the nation at large, for he felt convinced that if only Dastralcould have a chance he would bring down half a dozen raiders.

  Immediately, therefore, Dastral appeared at the doorway he shouted:

  "This way, Dastral, this way. Quick!"

  "What the deuce----"

  "Inside, old man; this is my show!" and before the bewildered pilotcould finish his exclamation, he was inside and Tim was with him andthe door closed.

  "Where to?" asked the cripple.

  Dastral gave the directions, and told the driver to do his utmost toget them there within an hour, or it would be too late.

  Within ten seconds they were whizzing away through the darkness inthe direction of the Great North Road, and as there was very littletraffic about, they reached their destination within three quartersof an hour. It was not a minute too soon. They had seen thesearchlights at work on their way north, and towards the end of theirjourney they had several times heard the anti-aircraft guns blazingaway at something up in the clouds.

  "Halt! Who goes there?" came the challenge as they reached theturning which left the main road, and finished at the aerodrome.

  The vehicle halted abruptly, for the driver had seen the flash of thebarrel of a Smith & Weston revolver, which the air-mechanic onsentry-go held out to bar their progress.

  "Flight-Commander of the Royal Flying Corps," shouted the pilot,hoping that would allow him to pass, and to get on to the aerodromeimmediately, but the sentry was obdurate.

  "Let me see your permit, sir," he asked.

  "Haven't got one."

  "Turn out guard!" shouted the sentry, and turning to the newcomers,he added:

  "Advance, Flight-Commander, and report to the guard-room."

  The guard-room was but a few yards further on, and the corporal ofthe guard, approaching the carriage, saluted, and led Dastral and Timaway to the Flight-Sergeant at the Orderly Room. He was expected, anda minute afterwards he was shaking hands with Garner, who had beenwaiting for him.

  And now there was not a moment to spare, for the presence of theraiders had been reported from the O.C. Searchlights, as hidingsomewhere in the clouds between Hatfield and Barnet, trying to breakthrough to London. Only a ring of curtain fire from the A.A.Batteries, and a cordon of long flashing lights which swept the skyfrom the horizon was keeping them back.

  Several machines had
already gone up in search of the enemy and theother pilots were standing by their machines ready to "take off"immediately the order was given.

  Immediately, therefore, Dastral had settled with the driver of thetaxi, and introduced Tim to his friend, Squadron-Commander Garner,they were led through the darkness to the shed where the "BucksteadBullet," as she was nicknamed, lay all ready to be wheeled out.

  "Good! Excellent!" exclaimed Dastral, immediately he saw the littlesingle-seater monoplane, for he had flown a similar machine severaltimes in France.

  With the aid of a dark lanthorn he carefully went over her, andlovingly fingered every part of her, from the bullet-nosed fuselagewhich gave her her nickname, to her neat, trim little tail andrudder.

  The noise of the A.A. guns became louder and louder outside, asthough they had discovered one of the raiders. And Dastral was justitching to go up!

  "Let me go up in her, Garner!" he said. "She's a beauty!"

  The O.C. scratched his head. He had wanted to fly her himself, forshe was the only spare machine left over, and, moreover, as Dastralwas not attached to the squadron, it was somewhat irregular for himto use the machine, without the express permission of the WingHeadquarters. He hesitated for a moment therefore, but, just at thatinstant, one of the raiders suddenly emerged from the edge of a cloudwhere it had been in hiding, and a fresh burst of anti-aircraftgunfire caused some excitement.

  "There she is!" cried some one, as one of the searchlights caughther.

  "As you like, Dastral. There's your target. Get into your togsquickly and I'll take the risk of it. I must leave you for a momentnow. Those fellows in 'C' Flight are waiting to go up," and with thatthe O.C. turned round and dashed off, while Dastral, without waitingfor anything further, got into a huge leathern coat, pilot's boots,and donned the flying helmet with long ear flaps and queer-lookinggoggles, which an air-mechanic had brought him.

  Two minutes later the young pilot climbed into the 'plane, gave afinal look round, waved a good-bye to Tim, whose pale face, nowworking with intense excitement, he discerned in the darkness.

  "All ready, sir?" asked the Flight-Sergeant.

  Dastral gave him a nod, and prepared to switch on the the current.

  "Swing the propellor!" came next, and as the cool, calculating pilotpulled a switch, the mighty engine broke into its terrible song.

  "Rep-p-p, rep-p-p! Whir-r-r!"

  "Stand clear!" and away went the monoplane like a bullet out of agun. As she started, a searchlight was deflected in a long beam alongthe ground, to give the daring young aviator the direction for histake-off, for the dangers of night-flying are many, as more than onebrave pilot has found to his cost before now.

  At a hundred yards the "Bullet" sprang into the air, and soaredupward at a tremendous speed, being quickly lost to sight, as thesearchlights tried once more to find the raider, which had foundthings too warm, and had sought again the shelter of the clouds.

  By short and rapid spirals, Dastral soon reached a thousand feet.Every now and then he turned his little shaded electric lamp on tothe indicator, which seemed to vibrate merrily, and almost to smile,as its little rounded dial told the altitude. Up and up they went,and the indicator almost laughed with joy as it clicked out thefigures:

  "Two thousand, two thousand five hundred, three thousand feet!"

  Still they seemed to be climbing all too slowly for the pilot. He hadcaught sight of the Zeppelin when she showed herself for a moment,and he had said to himself:

  "Twelve thousand feet, and then there'll be a chance! But nothingless than that will do."

  He was impatient therefore to get higher and higher, for he fearedthe raiders would discharge or jettison their cargo of bombs beforehe could get at them. They certainly would have done, had they knownthat at that very moment Himmelman's rival was climbing to meet them,on a Buckstead Bullet, which could do one hundred and thirty miles anhour when pushed.

  Already a number of bombs had been dropped, and away to the northwardseveral fires could be seen where the night-raiders had left theirvictims behind, in the shape of burning homesteads, where the victimswere women and children, old men and invalids; but the avenger was athand, and the hour of reckoning had come.

  "Eight thousand, nine thousand feet!" clicked the indicator, thoughits voice was lost in the roar of the engine and propellor.

  At eight thousand feet Dastral passed several of the 'planes whichhad preceded him, and at nine thousand he left the last of thembehind him and entered into a bank of clouds. Never once had heceased his rapid, climbing spirals, and now, through the misty,clinging vapour of the clouds he still soared heavenwards. Once ortwice he stopped his engines just to listen for a few seconds, but heheard nothing except the whir-r-r-r of the 'planes beneath him.

  He was ahead of them all now, for his engines were runningbeautifully, and the "Bullet" raced through the next layer of cloudsas a fish darts through the waters. It was becoming lighter also, forhe could catch glimpses of the stars, and the remaining clouds werethinner than those below. Soon, he would be above them all, andperhaps above the raider. It was cold too, bitterly cold, but hisyoung blood coursed madly through his veins, and his heart beatquicker and quicker.

  "Ten thousand. Eleven thousand," laughed the indicator, joiningmerrily in the hunt, for it seemed to Dastral now that he could hearthose weird voices of the night, speaking to him and calling him upand up, ever higher and higher. Yes, the clouds and the stars werecalling him, and the music and rhythm of that pulsating engine a fewfeet away, and the whir-r-r of those propellors just ahead, seemed tomake him almost light-headed, so that he began to laugh and sing.

  He thought of crooked Tim far down below, and what he had said aboutthe romance and the music, and from the pilot's lips there fellinvoluntarily the words:

  "Poor Tim! How he would like to be up here alone, and to listen toall these voices of the night!"

  As Dastral thought thus, he looked down, far down into the blackness,and he saw the flashes of the searchlights. Sometimes they reached upto him long extended arms that seemed to unite him to the earth, buthe could scarcely believe that he had ever dwelt down there in thatabyss of murky darkness. Yet always he swerved aside, and evadedthose long stretching pillars of light, for he knew that if hecrossed their beams but once, other eyes would see him, and theraider above would be warned of his near approach.

  Suddenly at twelve thousand feet the monoplane shook itself as thoughdashing the clinging moisture from its yellow wings, and leapt, likea fish out of the water, above the topmost layer of clouds.

  And now with keen searching eyes Dastral looked above and around forthe presence of the raider, but she was nowhere to be seen. Below himrolled the clouds, like dark, monstrous billows. Here and therethrough an opening he still saw the flashes of the searchlightsfeeling for their prey. But above his head the sky was aflame withmillions of stars. Right across from east to west, like a silverypathway to heaven, shone the Milky Way, luminous with light, andalong that trail of diamonds shone the bigger stars, in theconstellations of Perseus, Cassiopeia and Aquila. And far down in theeast, Orion the Hunter chased the dancing Pleiades, as he didthousands of years before aeroplanes were ever dreamt of.

  "But where is the Boche?" Dastral asked himself again and again.

  He was beginning to fear that he had lost him. Perhaps the Hun hadcaught sight of him as he came through the clouds, and had nowdeparted unseen, as he came.

  "Great Scott, have I missed him after all?" he cried. "For months andmonths I have been longing to fight with a Zeppelin, and now he'sslipped me."

  And for ten minutes he circled about, stopping his engines once ortwice to listen for the roar of the invader's engines and propellors.Suddenly something whizzed past him and burst into a jet of flame. Itwas a shrapnel with a time fuse. Then another and another. They werefiring again, then, down below, and they must have picked up theairship once more.

  "Good!" he exclaimed. "She must be somewhere near me too, for I amalmost in the lin
e of fire."

  Looking down he saw what had happened. The clouds in which theZeppelin had been hiding were breaking up and drifting away, for afresh, cold wind had sprung up from the east.

  "Ah! Ah! I shall see her soon. She cannot escape me now. I shall findher in a few minutes."

  "Whiz! Puff!" came another time fuse, and burst not fifty feet away,several pieces of which pierced the left wing of the monoplane.

  "By Jove, but that was close!" he cried, throwing out three balls,which burst into red flame as they fell towards the earth, and wasthe signal for the Archies to stop firing.

  "Ah, there she is!" exclaimed the daring pilot, as, out of theclouds, a thousand feet below him, he saw a black mass emerge againstthe lighter background of the thinning clouds. At the same instantthe searchlights found her, and a dozen long arms of streaming lightfocussed their united rays upon her.

  "Gemini! What a target!" cried Dastral, as he pulled the joy-stickover and dived to the attack, without a second's hesitation.

  His gun, already cocked and ready to fire through the whirlingpropellor, and loaded with the new flaming bullet, was brought tobear.

  Down, down he went, firing rapidly all the while. Then underneath andalongside her he raced, pumping his second and third drum into thehuge looming mass.

  Far below his friends saw the whirling monoplane, in the glare of thesearchlight, for now it was as bright as day. The A.A. guns hadceased their fire in response to his signals, but the men on thedoomed Zeppelin brought three or four of their eleven machine guns tobear upon him, but it was too late. They knew the deadly peril theywere in, and it was impossible for them with their unsteady nerves tohit any vital part of that waspish little fiend, which circled round,above and below them at a truly terrific rate.

  Dastral, in his rapid nose-dive, had dipped five hundred feet belowthe monster and flattened out to return to the attack, but, as hecommenced his climb again he saw that the silvery glare of theZeppelin, as it had appeared to him but twenty seconds before in thelure of the searchlights, had taken on a ruby glow, which, as hemounted up, became a ruddy glare.

  "Heavens! She is on fire already!" he gasped.

  It was only too true. The engines had been set going, for theZeppelin commander had tried to make his escape, just as he wasdiscovered, but it was too late. He had never suspected thatHimmelman's terrible opponent was overhead, having climbed up twelvethousand feet while he had been hiding in the cloud.

  "Ach! Gott in Himmel! Wir sind verloren! Donner and Blitz!"

  Never will Dastral forget the sight which he beheld that night, closeat hand, for the Huns now realised that all was lost, and that aterrible and speedy vengeance awaited them all from which there wasno escape. As the huge envelope kindled into fierce leaping flames,two hundred feet high, the pilot could plainly see the panic-strickencrew of the doomed airship, wringing their hands in terror andfright, as they dashed madly along the narrow footways that led fromone gondola to another, trying to escape, till the last second, fromthe fierce flames that spurted out above and below, and licked up andconsumed everything with their intense heat.

  It was truly a terrible sight, and the burning mass lit up thecountryside far below as well as the great metropolis away to thesouth. Never since the day when every hill-top in England was aflamewith the fires that announced the coming of the Spanish Armada, inthe days of the great sea-dogs, had such a beacon been lighted inthis land of ours.

  Down, down fell the flaming mass, lower and lower, while the daringpilot, bewildered at what he had done, followed her, circling roundand round, till, when some eight thousand feet from the ground, oneof her four hundred-weight bombs, with which her crew had hoped towipe out some peaceful village, exploded with the intense heat.

  "Boom-m-m! Crash!" came the terrible sound, and the flaming mass,shivered into a thousand fragments by the explosion, fell down to thepeaceful earth below with the charred and mutilated bodies of itscrew of baby-killers.

  A few minutes later Dastral, guided by a score of still flamingfragments about the adjacent fields, landed safely on the levelstretch of grass from which he had ascended to fight the midnightraider.

  Next morning the daring pilot was decorated by His Majesty KingGeorge, and ten days later, having bade farewell to his friend, TimBurkitt, he was back with his Squadron in France, and leading "B"Flight over the German lines once again.