The American planes maneuvered in such a way as to encircle the Taube, and yet at close enough range to examine her without particular menace to themselves. There were several seconds of criss-crossing and rising and descending, and then as a unit the American planes left the Taube and started after the German craft, which had hesitated, as though uncertain what further course to follow.
Several volleys of shots were exchanged, and the other German planes turned back toward their own lines. The Taube continued on its wavering, crippled, downward course toward the allied lines.
"Looks as though a couple of our men had been reconnoitering the German lines in one of their own make of machines," said Lieutenant Mackinson, as the Taube came within a hundred yards of the ground and righted herself for a landing.
There was a general rush toward it as it hit the ground. Of its own momentum it rolled to within a two minutes' run of where the lieutenant and the others had been standing. In another instant it was entirely surrounded by a crowd of curious American soldiers.
But if they were surprised at seeing seated therein two men in the uniforms of the United States army, their feelings hardly compared with those of Lieutenant Mackinson, Joe, Slim and Frank Hoskins, as they recognized, stepping out of the Taube, Jerry and the observation officer with whom he had occupied the stationary balloon practically all of that day.
"Who are you?" "What happened?" "Where have you been?" and a score of similar questions were fired at them by the other soldiers as Jerry shook hands with his friends, and the officer smilingly made away to file his report.
"Well, to put it briefly," Jerry said, in answer to the general demands for information, "we were anchored off there most of the day in an observation balloon. Late in the afternoon a shell cut our cable, and almost before we knew it we had been carried behind the German lines.
"The fight was still commanding the attention of almost everyone, and after descending a little by permitting some of the gas to escape, we jumped over the side of the basket and came down on our parachutes. I landed in a deserted barnyard, and the officer hit the earth only a short distance away.
"While we were hiding there, debating just what we should do, along comes a Taube, and its pilot decides to make a landing almost at that same place. Well, the officer being a pretty good pilot, we decided to have that machine. We got it, and I guess that pilot's head aches yet where I plumped him with the butt of my gun when he wasn't expecting anything of the kind.
"But some other German aviators saw the affair, apparently recognized our uniforms, and hardly gave us time to make a decent start.