Now the shrapnel ceased to worry Billy, for he saw that none of it seemed to be bursting around them as before. The limits or range of the anti-aircraft guns had apparently been reached.
“We’re safe from the iron rain up at this height, Frank. What does the barometer say?” he asked, with that spirit of curiosity that had made him a good reporter in the old days.
“That’s too bad,” replied Frank, as he bent forward to look.
“Don’t tell me that the only fragment of a shell that’s struck home ruined our fine barometer!” cried Billy.
“Just what happened,” he was told. “At any rate, it’s knocked to flinders; and I think I must have had a pretty close shave. But we can buy a new one when we get back to Dunkirk. As near as I can give a rough guess we must be between three and four thousand feet high.”
“I should say it was a lot more than that,” Billy declared. “But so long as they can’t reach us any longer, why dispute over a few thousand feet?”
He thereupon once more started to make use of the glasses, and had hardly settled them to his eyes than he gave a startled cry.
“Frank, they’re coming up like a swarm of angry bees!” Billy exclaimed.
“Do you mean Taube aëroplanes, Billy?”
“Yes, I can see as many as six right now in different directions, and others are going to follow, if looks count for anything. The word must have been given to attack us.”