"Thanks for that! I reckon we'll need all we got by the looks of that squad that's coming. They're dropping bombs already."
"Yes, sir," said another mechanic, using his glass. "And right over where you and Sergeant Bangs came down."
CHAPTER XI
THE BATTLES IN THE AIR
In a trice Blaine was rising in the air. The feeling that he had again his old machine was reassuring. It put new life into his nearly restored vitality.
With Buck Bangs a close second and Orris Erwin right behind him, the leading planes spiraled into the air, with the advancing Boches hardly two miles away, their bombs dropping as they flew.
Byers himself was getting into his own plane, a two-seated affair equipped with two machine guns. With him was his own observer, an excellent photographer and airman. The two opposing squadrons were about equal. Dividing into two columns, with Blaine heading one and Captain Byers the other, they bore directly off toward the enemy.
Such a start had the Boches gotten, by somehow missing the Allied planes that were supposed to be picketing the front, that a direct attack was inevitable. Up or down they rose or fell, each plane singling out its opponent, and each maneuvering for position. It was here that the superior speed and nimbleness of the Allied triplanes was soon apparent.
Byers in his big biplane made straight for the leading plane opposed to him and presently the rattle of machine gun fire interplayed with the whirring sounds of the motors, while the diving, flipping, looping, with all the other air stunts of sky battling, made the scene so interesting to those below that the adjacent bomb-proofs were hardly thought of.
On a small knoll the American senator and his two daughters, glasses in hand, were watching, listening, semi-oblivious as to any possible danger to themselves. Finally a spatter of bullets and shell fragments roused the father to a sense that more than himself might be in the line of fire at any moment.