here, he knew. Its shells were bursting ever upon his level and he was
bumped and kicked by the violence of the concussions. As for the other
guns, he ignored them; but from whence came the danger? He had
unstrapped the tin-plate and held it ready in his gloved hand--then
there came a burst dangerously near. He banked over, side-slipped in the
most natural manner and with all his strength flung the tin-plate clear
of the machine. Immediately after, he began to climb upward. He looked
down, catching the glitter of the tin as it planed and swooped to the
earth.
He knew that those on the ground below thought he was hit. For a brief
space of time the guns ceased firing and by the time they recommenced
they fired short. Tam was now swooping round eastward farther and
farther from range, and all the time he was climbing, till, at the end
of half an hour, those who watched him saw only a little black speck in
the sky.
When he reached his elevation he began to circle back till he came above
the guns and a little to the eastward. He was watching now intently. He
had located the six by certain landmarks, and his eyes flickered from
one point to the other. A drifting wisp of cloud helped him a little in
the period of waiting. It served the purpose of concealment and he
passed another quarter of an hour dodging eastward and westward from
cover to cover until, heading back again to the west, he saw what he had
been waiting for.
Down charged the nose of the machine. Like a hawk dropping upon its prey
he swooped down at one hundred and fifty miles an hour, his eyes fixed
upon one point. The guns did not see him until too late. Away to his
right, two Archies crashed and missed him by the length of a street. He
slowly flattened before he came over a gun which stood upon a big
motor-trolley screened by canvas and reeds, and he was not fifty yards
from the ground when he released, with almost one motion, every bomb he
carried.
The explosion flung him up and tossed his little machine as though it
were of paper. He gave one fleeting glance backward and saw the debris,
caught a photographic glimpse of half a dozen motionless figures in the
road, then set his roaring machine upward and homeward.
It was not until a week afterward that the news leaked out that Herr
Heinzelle, one of Krupp's best designers, had been "killed on the
Western Front," and that information put the finishing touch to Tam's
joy.
"But," asked the brigadier-
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