Before they reached the town the white puffs of the 77's made a line of smoke ahead of them, and, intermingled with this, they saw the black cloudlets caused by the bursting of the enemy's 105 calibre shells. In fact they were ringed with a curtain of shell fire. Dastral gave the signal by a sudden clip of his 'plane, which was leading. "Ninety degrees left and dip 500 feet!" The Flight-Commander led the way through a gap in the curtain fire, and the rest followed, swerving rapidly to the left, then down, down in a fearful nose-dive of hundreds of feet, before they flattened out. "Bravo! Well done, boys!" yelled the leader, waving his hand to the daring men behind. For they had outclassed the Boche, and before he could rectify his aim, the machines were out of range once more. On the other side of the town, however, they came in for the same treatment, but they once more evaded the enemy's fire, and soon they left the town of Coblentz, with its Denkmal of Wilhelm der Grosse, and the forts of Ehrenbreitstein behind them. "Three hundred shots for nothing, Jock," shouted Dastral, who was highly pleased with himself. Jock did not hear, however, for the wind carried the words away, and the observer was otherwise engaged, searching the skies with his glasses. A moment later, however, having discovered what he was looking for, he turned and shouted: "One, two, three of them climbing to attack us!" "Where are they?" "Down below there to the left. Two yellow fat 'planes with black crosses on them, and a white one." Dastral looked serious for a moment, as, holding the joy-stick with his right hand, he raised his glasses with the other and looked down, to where, from an aerodrome just by the river, three enemy 'planes were rising up to fight with them. The shadow passed from the fair, young face of the chief pilot, as he gazed upon the enemy, and a calm smile wreathed his face. "Humph! Let the devils come. We are not afraid of them. Sorry I can't stay to fight them, Jock. Our first business is to bomb the arsenal, not to pick a stray quarrel with these beasts, who are asking for trouble." Then, opening out his engine once more to the full, he waved his hand coolly to the enemy, and called out: "Good-bye, Mr. Boche. Some other time, if you don't mind, but to-day I'm busy." His followers understood, and opened the throttles of their engines accordingly, and, speeding on, soon left the enemy behind, for they were slower machines, all the enemy's best fighters being on the western front. Again and again Dastral looked round to see that his comrades were all right. Eagerly he looked for the red, white and blue cocarde on the wings, and felt very happy, for there was no need to be miserable and lonely with those brave fellows so near. Had they not sworn to follow him to the "Gulfs," if necessary?