By this time most of the wounded had been carried out and put under trees, in the open, wherever it was considered safest for them.
Though from the ruthless manner in which the Huns waged war no place was immune from their bombs—even in the neighborhood of a hospital.
“Look! Look!” suddenly cried Ned. “They got one!”
“That’s right!” echoed Jerry. “They’ve brought one down!”
Tumbling over and over, in a fashion no airman, however reckless, would dare to imitate as a ruse, was one of the German planes. It had been hit either by a shell from a battery, or the bullets from one of the machine guns on an Allied plane had found a mark.
Then, as the invading machine continued to fall, out of control, it burst into flames, and a small dark object was seen to detach itself from the mass and fall to one side.
“There goes the pilot!” said Bob grimly. “He’s done for.”
And so he was, and so was his machine. It was 175 a horrible death, but none the less horrible than he had planned for others—and helpless others, too.
“There they go! They’ve had enough!” shouted Ned, and as he spoke it was seen that the Hun machines, which had been circling about, as though looking for more targets on the ground below, had turned and were speeding toward their own lines, pursued by the American and other machines, eager to visit on them just vengeance.
And then the hospital patients, some of them wounded airmen themselves, watched the battle of the clouds, out of danger now that the Huns were in retreat.