"I'd like to be there myself," said Tom. "And if this keeps up much longer I'm going to ask permission for us to go up and see what we can do."
"Think they'll let us?"
"Well, they can't any more than turn us down. And we've got to get at it in a hurry, too, or we'll have to report back at our regular station. We aren't doing anything here, except sit around."
"No, we must get busy, that's a fact," said Jack. "It's about time we downed some Hun scout, or broke up one of their 'circus' attacks. I've almost forgotten how a joy stick feels."
A "joy stick" is a contrivance on an aeroplane by the manipulation of which the plane is held on a level keel. If the joy stick control is released, either by accident (say when the pilot is wounded in a fight), or purposely, the plane at once begins to climb, caking its passenger out of danger.
Once the joy stick is released it gradually comes back toward the pilot. The machine climbs until the angle formed is too great for it to continue, or for the motor to pull it. Then it may stop for an instant when the motor, being heavier, pulls the plane over and there begins the terrible "nose spinning dive," from which there is no escape unless the pilot gets control of his machine again, or manages to reach the joy stick.
"Well, we'll have to get in the game again soon," said Tom. "But what do you say to taking a taxi? This explosion is farther than I thought."
Jack agreed, and they were soon at the place where the last German shell had fallen—that is as near as the police would permit.
A house had been struck, and several persons, two of them children, killed. But, as before, the military damage done was nothing. The Germans might be spreading their gospel of fear, but they were not advancing their army that way.
As Tom and Jack stood near the place where a hole had been blown through the house, another explosion, farther off, was heard, and there was a momentary flare in the sky that told of the arrival of another shell.