driver and fireman into leaping overboard, and bringing that train also
to a standstill. Dennis headed back home to bring up a fresh stock of
bombs, and, if he could, damage the train beyond possibility of moving,
although he feared it was rather a large contract for a scout's light
bombs. But on the way back he met a formation of big two-seater bombers
carrying heavy bombs, and by firing a few rounds, diving athwart their
course, and frantic wavings and pointings managed to induce them to
follow him. Two of them did, and he led them straight back to the two
trains. The driver and fireman of the second had resumed their duties
and were trying to push the first train along when the bombers arrived,
and planting one bomb fairly on the train, started a fire going, and
with another which fell between two trucks blew them off the metals.
The burning trucks were just beginning to blow up nicely as our
machines raced for home and more ammunition.
The next hour was mainly occupied with a fast fight against about
twenty Hun machines evidently brought up to break up the road-blockers'
game. The fight ended with three of the Huns being left crashed on
the ground, one of ours going down in flames, and two struggling back
across the lines with damaged machine and engine. Dennis was forced to
leave his machine for one trip and borrow another while his damaged
wings were replaced with new ones.
This time two Flights went out together, and while one engaged the Hun
machines which still strove to drive them back, the other dived back
on the road and again scattered the working party which struggled to
clear the road. They had a hot passage, whirling down through a perfect
tempest of machine-gun fire, and another machine was lost to it. Dennis
struggled back across the lines with a shot-through radiator and an
engine seizing up, was forced to land as best he could, wrecked his
machine in the landing, crawled out of the wreckage, got back to the
'drome, and taking over his repaired machine went out again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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