"Boom-m-m! Boom-m-m! Boom-m!"
The others had found their objectives too. Four huge blocks were burning fiercely. Down below the crowds were surging out of the doomed buildings, running hither and thither to escape those terrible bombs which were now being dropped in a dozen places, in rapid succession, and the still more terrible explosions which must shortly come unless the fierce fires which were now raging could be quickly subdued.
The utmost confusion reigned down below. The impossible had been accomplished. Krupps', the very heart of Germany, had been bombed by a few daring raiders.
"Donner and blitz!" people down below were shouting. "What is the good of our great Prussian army if it cannot prevent such things?"
The raiders were off now, for all this had been done in less than three minutes, once they had found their targets. As they made off German aeroplanes rose to pursue them. In every direction they saw the enemy, who had been surprised after all, in spite of the warning he must have received.
As they made off strange electric shocks seemed to agitate the air, and to make the machines rock wildly. Violent waves disturbed the atmosphere. Evidently the enemy had discovered some new device of creating air-pockets, and filling the heavens with lurid flashes of electricity.
But the device fails. The machines pass out of danger, but alas, it is doubtful whether two of them will ever reach the shelter of their own lines again. Still, they are going to make the effort. Number three and four have been badly hit, and Dastral's 'plane is torn with bits of shrapnel.
Once or twice they look back at the flaming destruction which they have wrought, all in the space of a few minutes. As they do so, a mighty column of flame and black smoke rises up into the air, and a terrific explosion takes place, which shakes the earth for fifty miles around.
Yes, the T.N.T. works have gone up, and the two explosions which soon follow show that something else has gone into the sky as well.
"Bravo! Krupps' has been bombed!"