He made his way towards the cornmarket. Here the traffic was at its height. Nobody would have thought that twelve hours ago a Zeppelin had sought to terrorise these Lancashire folk with a display of "frightfulness," and that within two hundred yards a devastated street bore testimony to the Huns' feeble efforts. "By Jove, if this had been Karlsruhe or Berlin, wouldn't the Kaiser be shedding floods of tears!" thought Billy. "Good old British public. 'Carry on, carry on--we'll come out top-dog all in good time'--that's the spirit." A crowd outside the window of a news office attracted his attention. He crossed the road in order to read a broadsheet giving the latest war news. It was cheerful enough, in all conscience: "Two Zeppelins Down. Official." "Brief and to the point," exclaimed Billy. "Gives a fellow quite an appetite for lunch. Wonder if any of our crowd scored the winning hits?" Ten minutes later, while awaiting lunch, Billy bought a paper still damp from the press. "Honours even!" he exclaimed. "The R.F.C. bring down one gas-bag in Lincolnshire; our fellows bag another twenty miles off the Yorkshire coast. Hullo! Here's the fly on the ointment: one of our seaplanes missing." He glanced casually at the rest of the news, which consisted mostly of ambiguous and contradictory Allied and enemy reports from the various fronts, a couple of columns of local news and a similar space devoted to racing and football. The whole of the front page was taken up with an advertisement of somebody's Autumn sale. "Rot!" commented Billy forcibly, "They talk about paper shortage, cut down the paper by a third, and yet accept a whole page advertisement of this trash. The back page, I presume, is taken up with photographs of engaged nonentities that are not of the faintest possible interest to decimal ought-ought-one of the readers." But the young officer was only partly right. In one column was an item of "Stop Press News" printed in blurred type:-- "The Missing Airmen: Admiralty report that missing seaplane was piloted by Flight-lieutenant John Fuller, with Assist.-Paymaster Robert Kirkwood as observer." For some moments Billy stared vacantly at the paper. He could hardly realise the truth of the bald statement. It seemed incredible. Never before, during the "Hippodrome's" commission, had a seaplane set out on a particular duty and failed to return. Fuller was a thoroughly capable man; Kirkwood--yes--there was nothing to complain about the way in which he carried out his duties. Had he, Billy, not been on leave the possibilities were that Kirkwood would have flown with him. Barcroft was essentially of a sanguine nature. He had pictured several of his brother-officers coming a "crash," but never himself. It is the same sort of spirit that pervades the men in the trenches. Others might "go west" but not themselves. It is only on rare occasions that a fighting man has a presentiment that he will go under.