Freddie evidently had caught the range. Our purple light mingled with the crimson--mingled and merged into a vacant blackness through which the farther stars showed dimly. The whole front crescent of the barrage swung down at us now; but our four purple beams held it. We roared forward. Black holes of neutral emptiness were ahead; the front face of the Xenephrene red line was broken by our rays. At two miles we began firing the Essen-Blocs. Graff's crimson beams were waving confusion now from every part of his line. Some of our shells were caught and fired in mid-air; but some got through, undoubtedly. It was soon a chaos, as we darted in. It was to be one brief, desperate, reckless attack; there was not a man of us who had been willing to plan it otherwise. At a mile we could no longer hold our phone communication. The air was snapping and hissing with its mingling, warring vibrations; the phones went dead. Each plane now had to act for itself. I headed ours straight in. Freddie was firing the Essen at swift intervals. Our purple light held steady before us, boring its black hole in the confusion of crimson--a black hole into which Freddie was firing as I headed our plane into it. A few minutes only. It seemed hours. We were so close now that beams from the side angles of the barrage were coming at us. The edge of one caught one of our wing-tips, melted it off. We wavered, but I steadied us. I had taken off my glasses and ear phones for a moment. The night was a confusion of hissing, crossing beams. Vivid glares--crimson and purple, merging black; a myriad sparks snapping around us; and ahead, a growing yellow-red glare of distant buildings burning. Our shells were finding their mark! A chaos of color and of sound! The throb and thrum of our motors; the steady click and sharp report of our Essen; the screaming howl of the stricken barrage; the whistling of our shells; the distant crash of their explosions. Dan was busy passing up the shells to Freddie, and tossing out the falling empties. Once he growled at me: "Look over us, Peter! Damn that fellow Davis--look where he's going!" Our other three planes, carrying the purple projectors, were flying level with me. But most of the others had climbed. * * * * * The barrage beams were all swinging out and downward. I could see a hundred of our planes in a group mounting to climb over the camp. Davis and Robinson were up there. The crimson beam of their projector showed for a moment, then went out. They seemed climbing higher than all the other planes--spiraling now, straight up. I lost sight of them. A stray red beam caught some of the soaring planes; they came wavering down, spirals of light, vanishing. One melted as it passed near us; flickered into nothingness like a flame dying. Our planes up there were firing downward. And then, coming over Graff's line, they were dropping bombs. The yellow glare from the camp village was spreading.