Gee pulled sharply back on his stick and
zoomed. Whew! It was no cinch, this fighting a light-blinded enemy.

McGee glanced back. The lights had lost the plane as suddenly as they
had found it. Night had swallowed it. Now there was an unseen enemy that
might--

Ah! McGee sucked in his breath sharply. A tiny tongue of flame was
shooting through the sky. For a second it was little more than the flame
of a match, but in a few seconds it developed into greedy, licking
flames that turned the German plane into a flaming rocket. The pilot,
manfully seeking escape from such a death, began side slipping in a vain
effort to create an upward draft that would keep the flames from
incinerating him in his seat. For the briefest moment he did a first
class job of it, and McGee, who a minute before had been hungry for
victory, felt first a wave of admiration for a skillful job of flying
and next a surge of pity that it must be of no avail. Even now the plane
was wobbling out of control ... then it nosed over and plunged
earthward, a flaming meteor.

Fascinated, McGee watched the plunge, climbing a little as he circled.
He was three times an ace with two for good measure, seventeen victories
in the air, but this was his first night flamer. It was far more
spectacular than he could have imagined ... and somehow a little more
unnerving. A moment ago that doomed creature had been a man courageous
enough to undertake any hazard his country demanded. Enemy or no, he was
a man of courage and in his own country was a patriot.

McGee felt very weak, and not at all elated. After all, he knew there
were no national boundaries to valor or patriotism, and however sweet
the victory it must always carry the wormwood of regret that the
vanquished will see no more red dawnings and go out on no more dawn
patrols. That plunging, flaming plane was as a lighted match dropped
into a deep well--the deep well of oblivion.

The plane struck the earth some three or four hundred yards to the west
of the 'drome. The flames, leaping afresh, lighted up the entire
vicinity. McGee, looking down, could see the dim outline of the hangar
tent and the running figures that were racing toward the burning plane.
He smiled, rather grimly, and his eyes searched the heavens above him.
The vultures had their target now!

At that moment one of the restless searchlights singled out one of the
bombers, high above him, and two other streams of light leaped to the
same spot.