The smoke and fire swallowed them up; their red bodies and short black wings drove unswervingly into the holocaust of flame.
"Like a bunch o' bats out o' hell!" said Danny admiringly. "And 'tis hell they're goin' into!" Which fact there was none to dispute with Danny O'Rourke who knew, if any man did, the full truth of the remark.
He saw them as they struck the fire; saw the whirling blast of snow that drove under them as they went into the fight with the wildest enemy of man; and he knew that a smothering blanket of carbon dioxide was driving with hurricane force upon the flames.
On the instrument at his side flashed the "Ascend!" order of the squadron commander, and an instant later the flight reappeared a half mile away.
The commander must have sighted O'Rourke's ship. "Shall we repeat over same course?" the instrument spelled out, while Danny, circling above, watched the effects of the drive.
It had checked the flames, that first blast of the CO_2 squadron; he saw blackened, jagged trees where a roaring furnace had been. But the flames were building up again. "Repeat!" O'Rourke answered; then watched them drive in again.
From a wooded valley beyond a low range came a call for help. A lone ship in the red and black of the service had driven down into that valley that was like a cauldron of seething flame.
"I can't touch it!" a thin voice said. "The up-draft kills my blast."
Danny O'Rourke was sending out another call. The answer came from powerful sending instruments.