The Turk in his fighting clothes, however, was an acquaintance the young aviators had yet to make—the time drawing nigh, though, and a veritable storm of explosives to make the occasion memorable.
Billy and Henri were to work with the Black Sea air fleet, their expert services as a contribution from Sergius, which made them, in a sense, independent factors as pilots.
As untried recruits, and on account of their youth, the boys had the usual doubt on the part of aviation chiefs to overcome—and, based upon past experience, it is perfectly safe to anticipate that they passed the crucial test, literally speaking, with “flying colors.”
While the lads regretted that they would not have the No. 3’s under them in their trial trip, all types approaching the same lines looked alike to them.
With two noted aerialists and high-range bomb-throwers, Lieutenants Moppa and Atlass, behind them, within three days after their arrival in Odessa, the newly assigned pilots set out in two specially designed seaplanes for scout duty that would take them far across the waste of waters.
The bombardment of Novorossisk was in progress as the aviators sped that way, and the pilots were compelled to run at great altitude to clear the mass of flames that lit the lowering sky for miles around. German gunners in Turkish warships had shot a hundred oil tanks into blazes. At Poti another Turkish cruiser was exchanging shells for the shore pepper of machine guns, and cannon were thundering from the fortress of Sevastopol.
Lieutenant Moppa, from the aircraft Billy was driving, sent down a couple of bombs on the Turkish battleship “Midirli,” but the missiles missed and splashed into the sea far to the right of the vessel.
A couple of marine riflemen took a chance at the seaplane in return, and more than one bullet flattened against the armored bottom and side of the big flyer. The observer seemed to revel in the game, and shouted defiance at the air, for with the hum of the motors the biggest voice for distance counted no more than a penny whistle.
The officer at the rear of Henri, however, made himself heard by the pilot, when directing attention to a cloud of smoke lifting high above the lower strata of mist, and urging speed in that direction. It was a Russian fleet hastening from its bombardment of Turkish Trebizond to give battle to the Ottoman disturbers of the Russian coast line—“two, three, four, five, six, seven,” counted the aviators—all of them big ships, and five smaller ones completing the naval procession.
At the two Turkish vessels, five miles away, the oncomers plugged big shells at a lively rate, and about the craft under fire the aviators could see that the water jumped and churned and rose in columns. To port and starboard, fore and aft, above and below, there was nothing but shot and shell. It looked like the Turks did not know which way to turn, but by some hook or crook they got things to running smoothly, and made a clean getaway.