He used only fifteen cartridges.
As he cleared the Zeppelin, Billiken made a sharp right-hand turn, and found himself slightly below and heading straight for the enemy. He read her number, L 43. Her immense size staggered him.
Then he saw that she was on fire.
Little spurts of flame stabbed out where the explosive bullets had torn the fabric, and the incendiary bullets had set alight the escaping hydrogen.
Pulling back his controls, he lifted the boat over the airship, and just in time. With a tremendous burst of flame—a flame so hot that all on board the flying-boat felt the heat—the millions of cubic feet of hydrogen were set off. She broke in half. Each part, burning furiously, fell towards the water.
The top gunner rolled into the flames and vanished.
Three men fell out of the gondolas. Turning over and over they struck the water in advance of the wreckage.
The remnants of the Zeppelin fell into the sea, and a heavy pillar of black smoke reared itself to the sky.
The crew of the flying-boat fell on each other's necks. Everybody crowded into the control cockpit. During the demonstration Billiken got the heavy boat into extraordinary positions.
Just in nice time for luncheon, at fifteen minutes after eleven o'clock, having completed a flight of nearly four hundred miles, Billiken brought '77 into the harbour, Dickey firing Very's lights and the handkerchiefs of the crew fluttering from the barrels of the machine-guns.