“Yes, and right now, Amos, while we’re talking about the risks they run, if you look at that sweeper over near the shore you’ll see she’s sinking.”
“You’re right, Jack; she must have been struck by a shot of some kind from one of those concealed shore batteries. These Turks are pretty clever about hiding their guns, and suddenly making a killing. The meanest patch of brush may shelter three or four guns that even the aviators above fail to see.”
“I think the commanders on the warships dread those hidden batteries more than they do the big guns at Kilid Bahr or Chanak up in the Narrows,” Jack went on to say.
“Then they ought to do something to find out where they are located, I should think,” was the opinion expressed by his comrade.
“The mine-sweepers are helping to do that, for it seems the gunners lying hidden among the gullies ashore find it hard to resist smashing one when they get an opportunity. And that, you know, Amos, shows the watchers on the warships just where to send some of their big shells.”
All this while the busy birdmen were circling the battle field, and constantly seeking to impart important information which, from their lofty eyrie, they were enabled to collect.
“They can see a thousand things from up there, you know,” Jack was saying presently when they watched one of the airmen dropping little bombs that made a great smoke, but which were intended simply as signals to the fleet.
“Yes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they could watch the movements of a submarine far below the surface of the water. I really wonder why aeroplanes haven’t been used to follow and destroy some of the German submersibles that have commenced preying on British commerce.”
“Perhaps they have, for all we can say,” Jack told him. “I know from experiments that when you’re fifty feet above a shallow body of water you can, in calm weather, see the bottom everywhere. That’s how the fish-hawk picks out the prize it wants for its dinner.”
Their exchange of remarks had to be frequently interrupted, for there were violent bursts of cannonading that rendered conversation next to impossible. Many of the British and French warships were now inside the strait, and doing their utmost to silence the enemy batteries.