This was war, and he had volunteered for just such work. But it was the first time he had ever seen such a holocaust.
As they mounted higher in the aeroplane he saw flames leaping from the wreck. The loss of life would be fearful. He sickened at the thought of how this incident and others like it were multiplied every day along the battlefront.
Their work was not done for the night, although they were headed south once more. Until the last bomb they carried was dropped Lefevre did not rise to a proper height for rapid flying.
They had lost the other members of the squadron while chasing the troop train, and winged their way back alone over the German lines, flying so high at last that, in the gray dawn, they were not seen by the watchful German airmen.
As they neared their camp and Lefevre was about to spiral down for the landing, Sanderson looked out to see if everything was in good order. He was amazed to glimpse an object caught in the running-gear of the airplane.
At first he could not imagine what it was. Then, with a shock that chilled the blood in his veins, he saw that it was an unexploded bomb.
Unreleased before the aeroplane descended, in all likelihood there would be nothing to mark their landing place but a deep crater in the earth.
The situation appalled him. Already the aircraft was descending. Not only their own lives, but those of others, would be sacrificed if the bomb exploded when they landed.