Jack, too, as he could tell by a quick glance, was also engaged with a German, but Tom had no time then to bestow on mere observation. His antagonist was a desperate Hun, bent on the utter destruction of Tom's machine. They came to closer quarters.
Down below the fighting was growing more furious. It was in the form of an artillery duel. For now the French observation machines were wirelessing back the range, and French shells were falling very near the big guns.
The heavy guns, in modern warfare, are placed miles away from the objects they wish to hit, and the only way to know where the targets are is by aeroplane observation. When the guns are ready to fire one of the artillery control planes goes up over the enemy's territory. Of course it is the object of the enemy to drive it away if possible.
But, hovering in the air, the observer in the double-motored machine notes the effect of the first shot from his side's cannon. If it goes beyond the mark he so signals by wireless. If it falls short he sends another signal. Thus the range is corrected, and finally he sees that the big shells are landing just where they are needed to destroy a battery, or whatever is the object aimed at. The observation complete, the machine goes back over its own lines—if the Germans let it.
This sort of work was going on below them while Tom, Jack and the others in the Nieuports were engaging in mortal combat with the Hun fliers. Some of the heavy French shells fell beyond the emplacements of the big guns, and others were short. The observers quickly made corrections by wireless for the gunners. Tom Raymond, after a desperate swoop at his antagonist, sent him down in flames, and then, seeking another to engage, at the same time wondering how Jack had fared, the young aviator looked down and saw one of the largest of the French shells fall directly at the side of the foremost of the three German giant cannons.
There was a terrific explosion. Of course, Tom could not hear it because of his height and the noise his motor was making, but he could see what happened. A great breach was made in the long barrel of the German gun, and its emplacement was wrecked, while the men who had been swarming about the place like ants seemed to melt into the earth. They were blotted out.
"One gone!" exclaimed Tom grimly. And then he noted that the other two guns had been withdrawn beneath the camouflage. They were no longer in sight, and hitting them was a question of chance.
Still the French batteries kept up their fire, hoping to make another hit, but it would be a matter of mere luck now, for the guns were out of observation.
The airmen observers, however, still had a general idea of where the super-weapons were, and the French gunners continued to send over a rain of shells, while the bombing machines, save one that had been destroyed by the German fire, kept dropping high explosives in the neighborhood.
"The place will be badly chewed up, at any rate," mused Tom.