The whole sector along the trenches had become alive since the first streak of light. And of course the Germans were just as busy. From above, the conflict seemed like a huge cauldron, over which the steam hung like a cloud, and out of which pale rockets shot—the exploding shrapnel.
The yellow mist rose to a great height, in places obscuring the battleline for many rods. Flashes, like the snapping of parlor matches, identified the positions of the guns. In some places, and for hundreds of yards, the gun-carriages touched one another.
In other spots Sanderson could easily descry the network of trenches, at certain points broken and half obliterated by muddy excavations—huge shell holes.
It was difficult at some points to tell the French from the German trenches, they were so close together. It was a horrid, barren waste, this land. Forests had been wiped out, fields plowed so deeply by shell and shrapnel that it almost seemed that for decades no green thing would ever grow there.
Ruined villages lay like heaps of potsherd; in color the land was all a dirty brown.
High, as Sanderson was now, above this boiling, turgid pit, it was a silent battle. The noise of his motor drowned the whistle of the shells and the roar of the bombardment.
The French artillery biplanes were hovering over the German lines like buzzards over contemplated prey. And surely the carrion was in the making.
On sentinel duty, as he was, Sanderson mounted higher to watch for attacking German aeroplanes. A dull, explosive sound suddenly reached his ears. He saw that certain white puffs were following him about—exploding shrapnel from the enemy's anti-aircraft guns.
The work that fell to his share on this occasion, however, was not all observational. Up from behind the German lines rose a squadron of fighting Fokkers attended by smaller tauben. They spread out as they advanced, and so could not always protect each other's flanks.
The American aviator saw his opportunity. He shot from an eight-thousand-foot level in a sharp slant down upon one of the heavier German machines that had come boldly over the French trenches. Pointing his Nieuport with exactness he fired the mitrailleuse and saw with satisfaction the havoc accomplished which had been his desire.