Jack smiled to himself, for he knew that Frank was telling the truth. There was nothing the lad liked better than to be engaged in a dangerous piece of work and more than once his fondness for excitement had almost ended disastrously.
"Frank's all right if he can just keep his head," muttered Jack. "I'm likely to have to hold him in check a bit, though."
They had approached the shore close enough now to perceive that the distant lights betokened a large town.
"Probably Ostend," Jack told himself, "though why they should come this way is too deep for me."
But Jack was wrong, as he learned a short time later.
The town that they now were approaching was the French port of Calais and it was still held by the French despite determined efforts of the Germans at one time or another to extend their lines that far. The capture of Calais by the Germans would have been a severe blow to England, for with the French seaport in their possession, the Germans, with their great guns, would have been able to command the English channel and a considerable portion of the North Sea coast.
When it appeared that the German aircraft would fly directly over the city, the leading machine suddenly swerved to the east. The others followed suit.
The night was very dark, and in spite of the occasional searchlight that was flashed into the air by the French in Calais, the Teuton machines so far had been undiscovered. Now, hanging low over the land, a sudden bombardment broke out from the German air planes.
It was not the sound of bombs that came to the lads' ears; rather the sharp "crack! crack!" of revolver firing. Jack and Frank gazed about them quickly, for they believed, for the moment, that the Germans had encountered a squadron of French airships.
But there was no other machine in sight save the German craft.