The next morning when the well-born members of the Ninety-fifth Squadron of the Imperial German Air Service were making their final preparations to ascend, a black speck appeared in the sky.
Captain Karl von Zeiglemann fixed the speck with his Zeiss glasses and swore.
"That is an English machine," he said; "those Bavarian swine have let him through. Take cover!"
The group in the aerodrome scattered.
The Archie fire grew more and more furious and the sky was flecked with the smoke of bursting shell, but the little visitor came slowly and inexorably onward. Then came three resounding crashes as the bombs dropped. One got the corner of a hangar and demolished it. Another burst into the open and did no damage, but the third fell plumb between two machines waiting to go up and left them tangled and burning.
The German squadron-leader saw the machine bank over and saw, too, something that was fluttering down slowly to the earth. He called his orderly.
"There's a parachute falling outside Fritz. Go and get it."
He turned to his second in command.
"We shall find, Müller, that this visitor is not wholly unconnected with our dear friend von Mahl."
"I wish von Mahl had been under that bomb," grumbled his subordinate. "Can't we do something to get rid of him, Herr Captain?"