To this they returned no answer, but scampered as fast as they could across the broken ground, creeping under barbed wire, and stumbling into shell holes, for the ground had been torn and rent by the morning's bombardment, and huge gaps had been made in the barbed wire defences. Now, when Dastral, his ammunition expended, his machine damaged to such an extent that it scarcely held together, had reached the British lines that morning, after the brilliant reconnaissance he had carried out with his Flight, he made a steep gradient to get to earth at the first possible landing-place, but even as he made the attempt he knew he would fail. The wasp's fuselage was plugged in a hundred places. The petrol feed had been severed by shrapnel, and a shell from the German lines, hitting the reserve petrol tank, set it ablaze, just at the moment when he was making for the ground. Half-blinded by the flames and scorched by the heat, he, nevertheless, held the joystick firmly, and tried to reach his objective, but, when near the trenches, the machine nose-dived and crashed, side-slipping to the earth, so that the left aileron struck the ground first. Then she rolled over, and crumpled up. She did not strike the ground with any great force, because Dastral had kept her so well in hand. Disentangling himself from the wreckage first, bruised, and burnt, he yet remembered Jock, who had received still greater injury. "Jock!" he called. "Are you hurt?" But no reply came from the unconscious observer, who lay under the wreckage which was now in flames. "Come along, old man! Pull yourself together. The Huns are sure to turn their machine guns upon us in a few seconds." Even as he spoke there came the dreaded sound, which told that the infernal Huns had opened fire upon the wreckage. "Rep-p-p! Rep-r-r-r-r-r!" A howl of rage went up from the British trenches at this act of cowardice, which permitted men to turn their guns upon wounded officers, entangled in the wreckage of a burning aeroplane. "Come on, boys, let's give 'em 'ell!" shouted some of the Wiltshires, when they saw what was happening, and at least a dozen men sprang out of the British trenches of their own free will in a useless attempt to save the lives of the aviators, but every man fell long before he gained the spot where the wreckage lay. Dastral, however, kept cool, and seeing a pilot's boot projecting from under the blazing he seized it, and tugged away, until the unconscious form of his chum lay at his feet. Then, heedless of the bullets still whizzing around him, he dragged his comrade quickly into the friendly shelter of a huge crater, a dozen yards away. Even as he rolled over into the hollow, after throwing Jock in first, his thick, leather pilot's coat was pierced by several bullets, and he himself was wounded again. Still cheerful, however, he bandaged his wound, then endeavoured to rouse Jock, but all his efforts failed.