A third bomb exploded. A big house below them, half way down the hillside, disappeared. It was as though a monstrous sponge had been wiped across that spot and erased the building!
“Oh! Look out! Look out!” sobbed Frenchy, and covered his eyes with his hands.
His chum Ikey shook beside him, but could not close his eyes to the horror.
The Zeppelin was curving around, evidently determined to make for the sea and the fogbank again. Beneath it, on either side, even above it, the bursts of white smoke betrayed the explosion of aerial shells the defense guns were firing at the enemy machine. And all the time the single British airplane on duty was climbing skyward.
“If that thing can only get above the Zep.!” murmured Al Torrance.
Suddenly the airplane darted toward the sea, in a sharp slant upward. Bravely the pilot sought to cut off the Zeppelin’s escape into the fogbank out of which she had burst five minutes before.
Guns from the Huns’ airship began to bark. They were firing on the British plane. The latter’s guns made no reply as she continued to mount into the upper air.
The course of the Hun machine was changed again. In approaching the hills surrounding the port the Zeppelin was brought much nearer to the earth.
The ship was indeed a monster! Swung landward to escape the mounting airplane, the Zeppelin, its motors thundering, came closer and closer to the spot where the American sailor boys were standing.
“Bli’me!” roared the apparently fast-sobering Britisher. “They are goin’ to drop one o’ them blarsted buns on our bloomin’ ’eads!”