The line of lights which marked the machines below had winked out at the first burst of the Archies, but the Night-Flier had marked the spot, her engine roared out, and she went swooping down the last thousand feet straight at her mark. At first sound of her engine half a dozen lights swung hunting for them, spitting streams of fire began to sparkle from the defences' machine-guns. The Night-Flier paid no heed to any of them, dropped to a bare three hundred feet, flattened, and went roaring straight along the line of machines standing on the 'drome below. _Crash-crash-crash!_ her bombs went dropping along the line as fast as hand could pull the lever. Right down the line from one end to the other she went, the bombs crash-crashing and the Observer's gun pouring a stream of fire into the machine below; a quick hard left-hand turn, and she was round and sailing down the line again, letting go the last of her bombs, and with the Observer feverishly pelting bullets down along it. Clear of the long line, the Pilot was on the point of swinging again when a huge black shape roared past them, the wing-tips clearing theirs by no more than bare feet. Pilot and Observer craned out and looked down and back, and next moment they saw the glare and flash, heard the _thump-thump_ of bombs bursting on the ground. The Observer was stamping his feet and waving his arms and the Pilot yelling a wild "Good shot!" to every burst, when a rush and a crash and the blinding flame of a shell-burst close under their bows recalled them to business. The air by now was alive with tracer bullets, thin streaking lines of flame that hissed up round and past them. The Pilot opened his engine full out and set himself to climb his best. The tracers followed them industriously, and the Archie shells continued to whoop and howl and bump round them as they climbed. The Pilot, craning out and looking over, was aware suddenly of the Observer at his ear again. "I gotta heap of rounds left," he was bawling. "Let's go down and give 'em another dose." "Bombs are better," returned the Pilot. "Whistle up the pack. Shoot a light or drop a flare."