Under the command of their officers, the men grabbed their rifles.
“Hold on!” cried one, as the men were about to fire at the nearest machine. “It’s a Frenchman.”
It was true, but it became apparent a moment later that there still would be need for weapons, for in the wake of the French craft followed three German machines.
Points in aerial battle at close range come and go too quickly for recognition almost.
The clever Frenchman was outwitting the Boche pilot. The four planes whirled directly over the heads of the marines, a hundred feet from the ground, the Frenchman a few yards ahead and lowest. They cleared the tops of the trees and circled over a field ahead. The Boches poured lead upon the handicapped Frenchman, who desperately turned the nose of his craft upward. The Germans must have been looking for such a move. They elevated and closed in on him.
A fierce battle of machine guns; a plane dropped nose foremost. Straight down it came, then—within twenty feet of the ground—the French pilot, with superb daring, jerked his machine to a level keel and sailed off, clipping the heads off the grain.
The German machines hovered over the spot where it seemed the French pilot must meet disaster, and the marines opened fire on them with their rifles. Each time the Germans approached closer, they were driven off, for it was certain that an American bullet sooner or later must find a vital spot.
The German machines turned and made off.
Now came orders for the marines to dig in. Soon every man had a hole. Later in the day these holes were abandoned and the marines marched to positions nearer the front line.
Hal’s detachment came to a crossroad and turned to the right. From there the lad could see the broad expanse of country beyond. It was all fields of waving grain, streams of men, of horses and artillery.