Daventry let him severely alone, knowing that the Boche had all his work cut out to defend himself without a chance to fire upwards into the battleplane. It was against the ethics of aerial warfare to spoil another man's bag.
On came the Camel, her speed being only about five miles more than GV 7, although both were tearing through the air at more than a hundred miles an hour. Derek could see the hooded and goggled head of the machine-gunner as he bent over his sights. Then came a rapid burst of flame from the Lewis gun. Daventry looked over the side of the fuselage. The triplane, a litter of rents and fluttering canvas, was plunging earthwards.
Waving his arm in joyous congratulation to the victorious Camel, Derek turned, and began to swoop down upon his objective. As he did so he became aware that he was an object of attention from a particularly-aggressive anti-aircraft battery. The Huns had brought up several Archibalds, mounted on swift armoured-cars, and were doing their level best to counteract the demoralizing attack of the "air hussars".
Banking, Derek brought his machine out of the danger-zone, but not before the wings showed unpleasant signs of the accuracy of the Huns' aim. The rotten part of the business was that he was unable to locate the position of the antis. Right out in the open were several sky-directed guns surrounded by men, but Derek was becoming a wily bird. He knew that both men and guns were decoys, and that the actual battery was some hundreds of yards away and skilfully camouflaged. To fall into the error of attempting to wipe out the decoy would be an act of self-destruction.
A battalion in mass formation moving by the side of a straight stretch of canal afforded fair sport. Derek dived almost perpendicularly, with engines "all out" until within two hundred feet from the ground, then, flattening out, made straight for the head of the field-greys.
At the sight of this startling apparition the Boches were instantly thrown into a panic. They broke ranks and fled. Barred on the right by the canal, they were compelled to surge in a disorderly mob across absolutely open ground. Impeding each other, literally falling over one another, the wretched Boches were at the mercy of the swift battleplane. Machine-guns and bombs both took heavy toll, hardly a shot being fired in return.
Not once, but many times, did GV 7 swing round and return to the attack, until the thoroughly terrified survivors took refuge in isolated shell-holes until the immediate danger was past.
Then back to the almost deserted aerodrome Derek flew, replenished petrol and trays of ammunition, and returned to the fray. He was but one pilot of hundreds engaged upon the same errand. Truly the magnificent work was being accomplished at heavy cost, but temporarily at least the rush was stayed, and the much-harassed infantry—the troops who invariably bear the brunt of both attack and defence—were able to take breathing-space.
"We're holding the blighters all right, sir," reported the Wing-Commander to the General of the Division.
"Quite so," rejoined the other dryly. "Unfortunately, the line is bending both on our right and left flanks. 'Fraid we'll have to give the Boche a little more ground."