kly the machine answered her
helm, swinging round until she pointed towards the land.

Three minutes later Ross found himself immediately above the British
monitors. The sea-plane was now pitching slightly in the disturbed
air, for the concussion of the heavy weapons was distinctly felt even
at seven hundred yards above the bombarding ships. Although the roar
of the concerted cannonade was deafening, Ross heard not a sound of it.
To all intents, as far as he was concerned, the guns might have been
fired with silencers attached to their muzzles. The whirr of the
sea-plane's motor and the rush of air past his ears out-voiced every
other sound.

Five miles beyond the line of monitors, could be discerned the Belgian
coast, composed for the most part of undulating sand-dunes dotted with
clusters of buildings.

As the sea-plane approached the land Ross could, with the aid of his
binoculars, distinguish other objects--wavy lines, dotted with ant-like
figures bunched together round something that looked like stumps of a
lead pencil. The lines were the German trenches, the "ants"
grey-coated artillerymen, and the "stumps" the heavy howitzers.

"That's our pigeon!" spoke the Flight-Sub through the telephone. "The
battery a hundred yards to the north of that ruined church tower. Our
fellows haven't knocked it out yet. Wireless them; fifty yards over."

Ross sent the desired information. The sea-plane, having flown over
its objective, turned, describing an elongated figure eight. As she
swung round, Ross noticed a mushroom-like cloud of white smoke a short
distance beneath, and to the left of the fuselage. Then another a
hundred feet immediately in front. At each "mushroom" the sea-plane
curtsied. Something zipped close to the lad's ear. A wire snapped,
the severed portions circling themselves into erratic spirals. A
fragment of fabric from one of the main planes flew past him, like a
scrap of tissue-paper in the grip of a boisterous wind.

Then Ross tumbled to it. Those silent mushrooms of smoke were shrapnel
shells bursting unpleasantly close. For a moment, the young observer
felt himself seized by an almost irresistible impulse to take refuge
under the coaming surrounding his seat. He uttered an involuntary
exclamation of unwelcome surprise.

"What's up?" asked a voice in his ear. It was the Flight-Sub, to whom
the telephone had transmitted Ross's exclamation.

"Nothing," replied the lad.

"Thought s