But the Zeppelins bored on, and their powerful guns fired down macarite shells. The first French battleship, already stripped by the raking fire of the Austrian fleet, seemed to crumple up, and a moment later disappeared altogether.
The rain of shells from above found breaches in the armor of a second French ship, caught a magazine forward and exploded it, almost at the same time blew up a magazine aft, and the ship, broken in two, sank.
The first dirigible, having passed over the French fleet, now turned and came back. The shells of the ships burst harmlessly below it. As the torpedo boats had gathered for an attack against the Austrian fleet, so now did the French aircraft gather for an assault upon these enemies of the air.
But the enemy's airmen did not wait for them. They charged. Machines met, wing against wing, and toppled into the water. Others, their propellers crushed, met the same fate. But some of the French machines burst through, only to be met by the deadly fire of the Zeppelins and sent into the sea.
Yet a few survived, and their rifle bullets riddled the gas chambers of the big balloons, but these tiny perforations availed nothing. The French flyers who survived darted beyond the Zeppelins and withdrew. The attack had accomplished little, for, while some of the Austrian aeroplanes had been sent into the sea, the dirigibles were still intact. A mean for successful attack against these giants of the air had not been found.
But now, in response to a word of command from Jack, Pierre nodded his head in understanding. In the meantime the French birdmen had re-formed and had rushed forward in another gallant attack. But the result was the same, and, while they succeeded in accounting for some of the smaller planes' the Zeppelins continued to fight as before, dropping their powerful shells upon the French fleet below.
But this time there was one plane that did not swerve as it burst through the Austrian line of small planes, and darted toward the first dirigible. Straight on it rushed, absolutely reckless, and crashed into the first giant balloon, head-on-collapse the great forward gas chamber, setting it on fire, exploding it, blowing all the mighty war balloon to atoms.
In this plane were Jack and Pierre. It was Jack's eye that had made out the only means of effective attack against the dirigible. Even as he had ordered the attack, the lad knew that it meant almost certain death, but he had not hesitated. He realized that the French aircraft must be shown some means of destroying these huge air fighters, and knowing that there was time to convey his ideas to the other, had acted at once.
Now, this accomplished, the plane in which Jack and Pierre had performed this success, driven deep into the flaming mass of wreckage, was falling with the broken war balloon down into the sea.
The wreck fell slowly, for the fabric, yet unconsumed, parachuted and held in the air. Then, finally, hissing and splashing, it fell into the sea.