"Just the same," he went on, "I've still a hankering after the big guns. I've been asking questions right and left ever since we came over. Back in England at the rest camp I met a Tommy who'd been in artillery since the war began. He'd done his bit, and lost an eye, so he was back to Blighty for good. He told me a lot of interesting stuff about guns. He said the Allied anti-aircraft shells showed white smoke when they exploded, and the Boche anti-shells showed black. So there you are. If what he said was so, and I'm sure it was, that's an Allied battery shelling a Boche plane."
Listening to Schnitzel's explanation, the eyes of the quintet, nevertheless, remained fixed on the swooping, circling black speck overhead. Not for a moment did the concealed Allied battery cease its attack on the enemy plane.
Though their necks began to ache and their eyes to smart, they could not draw their fascinated gaze from that gyrating black dot. Even as they watched, it seemed to grow a trifle larger.
"It's coming down!" yelled Jimmy. "They got it! Hurray! I'll bet this plane was trying to get a line on what was doing down here."
"It's dropping, sure as a gun!" shouted Bob. "Some drop! Oh, glory, I wish it would flop right here!"
"It's coming down, down, down, all right!" sang out Roger. "We won't see it though. It'll probably land miles from here, on the other side of those hills. That aviator didn't have much show as an observer."
In what seemed to them an incredibly short time, the doomed plane had sped earthward, and out of sight behind the distant hills east of them.
"So is it, some Boche get kill pretty quick. He never more do nothin'," commented Ignace with grim satisfaction.
"Not so you can notice it," airily agreed Bob. "If he wasn't croaked by the anti, he'd hit the ground with a bump that would finish him. Well, show's over. We've seen a Boche plane shelled and a Hun aviator downed, now let's be on our way. If we never live to see another Fritzie birdman's wings clipped, we've seen one, anyhow."
"We're going to live to see a whole lot more welcome sights like that," asserted Jimmy sturdily.