Once more the observer signalled his battery to fire. This time there was no difficulty in finding his target, because the "zero hour" had come; there were little dots swarming out over the No Man's Land below, and the hostile batteries the "Gamecock" was looking for were flaming out in rapid sheets of vivid fire, and their shells pounding down amongst our infantry. The "Gamecock" circled slowly over the batteries, losing height steadily, because her pilot had to keep her nose down so that the glide would help out her failing engine and maintain her flying speed. Her observer was picking out shell-burst after shell-burst with greater and greater difficulty in the reek below, signalling back the corrections to the guns. By now the "Gamecock" was low enough to come within range of the rifles and machine-guns turned up on her. The batteries below her knew that she was "spotting" on them, and did everything possible to knock her out; while their gunners, having at last got the word of the beginning of the attack, opened a furious rate of fire barraging the No Man's Land. The observer above them saw those streaming flashes, and knowing what they meant, stuck doggedly to his task, although now the bullets were hissing close and thick about them, and the windage from the rushing shells of our own heavy guns and the air-eddies from the guns firing below set the "Gamecock" rocking and bumping and rolling like a toy boat in a cross tide. The observer felt a jarring crash under his hand, a stab of pain in his fingers and up his arm. The wireless instrument had been smashed by a bullet as he tapped a signal. He shouted to the pilot, and the pilot slowly turned a white, set face to him and called feebly into the 'phone. "Hit" was the only word the observer caught; and "Get her back as far as you can and shove her down anywhere," he shouted instantly in answer. The "Gamecock" swung slowly round and lurched drunkenly back towards their own lines. The observer looked at his clock. It was already past the "zero hour."