So passes the morning. As soon as a shell bursts the C.O. despatches an officer on a motor-bicycle to its position, if it is near any farm buildings, to see if he can render any assistance. This is a very good scheme, for on the left we can see thin red flames, flickering palely in the sunlight, rising from a farmhouse. Another big barn on our right later receives a direct hit, and when we visit it we find the labourers frantically throwing aside great bales of hay, under which is buried an unhurt cow. At last the shelling stops, and in a little while work is resumed. In half an hour or so the syren wails out again, and it is thought that Leugenboom has once more fired. This is not the case, however, for against the pale blue of the sky we see the tiny white puffs of shrapnel smoke. The noise of the anti-aircraft batteries grows louder and nearer. More and more white puffs appear in the sky, but we cannot see the machine. At last some one shouts, "There it is!" A little, almost transparent, white shape crawls infinitely high over our heads. The shells are nowhere near it, and it is hard to keep it in sight. It is some four miles high, and is a photographic machine which has been sent over to make records of the damage done by the shelling. As with craned necks we watch this little bird-shape, so far from its own friends, it is strange to think of the two little muffled figures high up there, probably very frightened, but going on to do their work. I, at any rate, have a secret hope they will get back. On and on the aeroplane moves away from its lines. The guns around us crash and bark, the seconds pass, and one, two, three, the white shrapnel puffs leap into existence and rapidly enlarge into thin vapoury clouds. There is a continuous roar of the engines of the scout machines which, with their tails well down, are climbing upwards as fast as they can, to attack the machine above. The pallid bird turns slightly and passes over our heads, photographing the vicinity of our aerodrome. The shrapnel comes tinkling on to the roofs of the camp, and now and then, with a long, rapidly growing whistle, a "dud" shell or large fragment of steel drops near us. After a leisurely quarter of an hour the German machine turns to the east and rapidly increases its speed noticeably, with its nose down and the wind driving it homewards. Soon we can see nothing but the distant shrapnel puffs. The machine has gone, with the precious plates in its camera, to a remote aerodrome near Ostend. "Bob" comes to me and says he is going to test his machine, and offers to let me take control. Soon we are three thousand feet over Dunkerque, and I can see dotted around the fields the great craters of the shell-holes and smoke rising here and there from fires in the town itself. After a while he says-- "Like to fly her now? I'll get right into the wind. Slip into my seat quickly when I get out!"