Apparently the plan had been well worked out, and every pilot knew exactly what was expected of him. Maps of the region had been carefully studied in order that the position of each vulnerable point of attack might be known.
If there was a railway depot which the Germans used every hour of the day, and the loss of which would cripple their transportation facilities, that was picked out to be an object of attack. Here was a mole alongside of which possibly submarines tied up, and its destruction would deprive the enemy of a valuable station. Further on a large shed marked the spot where great stores had been gathered, and if a bomb could only be exploded in the midst, it was going to mean that there would later be a shortage of provisions. An oil tank, an ammunition magazine, a forty-two centimeter gun, such as battered the forts at Liège to pieces, all such were fair objects of attack wherever they could be found. The one order that had been given to every pilot was to avoid destroying the property of civilians as far as possible.
As Frank and his chums looked down from their higher level they saw a sight such as had never before been witnessed by human eyes. The air was filled with a flock of circling, dodging aëroplanes, with puffs of white smoke breaking above, below, and in some cases amidst them, as the guns on the ground were fired again and again in hopes of bringing one or more of the venturesome craft down.
Various explosions far beneath proclaimed that the bombardment from the sky was in full blast. Most of their ammunition, however, would doubtless be kept for the more important base at Zeebrugge, where raiding submarines were wont to start forth on their daring excursions through the waters of the Channel, seeking to destroy British and French merchant vessels or ships of war.
Already the leading seaplanes had passed over the watering place known as Ostend and which before the war had been a famous summer resort. Doubtless their departure would be watched with mingled feelings by the thousands of German soldiers who had been interested observers of this wonderful sight in the heavens. They would also doubtless wonder what was going to happen when the aërial fleet returned, as it surely must, to its base at Dunkirk.
“How about Antwerp?” asked Billy. “Think they’ll take a turn up there, and drop a few reminders on the railway station, or some of the forts they say the Germans have been building up again?”
“I hardly think so,” Frank replied. “This is a raid on sea coast places, as I understand it. They want to strike at the submarine bases so as to upset the plans of the Germans for next week, when the blockade of the coasts of Great Britain and Northern France goes into effect. They’ll do some damage at Bruges and Blankenberghe I expect, just as we shied a few at Ostend; but the main thing will happen when we get to Zeebrugge.”
“I think that must be the place just ahead of us right now, Frank!” called out Billy, who was again using the glasses, bent on seeing everything that occurred; for he realized that they were highly favored by fortune in being given a chance to witness such strange sights.
“Yes, that is Zeebrugge,” Frank admitted. “Now we’ll see something worth while, if no snow squall comes along to shut out our view!”
“Pirates and parachutes,” cried Pudge, “but I hope that doesn’t happen to us.”