Usually a machine begins to drop as it reaches our lines, even though its destination may be far beyond the aerodromes immediately behind the line--even, as in this case, when it was heading straight for the sea and the English coast. Nor was it customary for an aeroplane bound for "Blighty" to begin its voyage from some point behind the German lines. Tam stood for fully five minutes watching the leisurely speck winging westward; then he retraced his steps to the aerodrome. He found at the entrance a little group of officers who were equally interested. "What do you make of that bus, Tam?" asked Blackie. "She's British," said Tam cautiously. He reached out his hands for the glasses that Blackie was offering, and focused them on the disappearing machine. Long and silently he watched her. The sun had been behind a cloud, but now one ray caught the aeroplane for a moment and turned her into a sparkling star of light. Tam put down his glasses. "Yon's Mr. Craig's," he said impressively. "Craig's machine? What makes you think so?" "Sir-r," said Tam, "I wad know her anywheer. Yon's Mr. Craig's 'bus, right enough." Blackie turned quickly and ran to his office. He spun the handle of the telephone and gave a number. "That you, Calais? There's a Boche flying one of our machines gone in your direction--yes, one that came down in his lines last week. A Fairlight battle-plane. She's flying at sixteen thousand feet. Warn Dover." He hung up the telephone and turned back. Holiday-makers at a certain British coast town were treated to the spectacle of an alarm. They gathered on the sands and on the front and watched a dozen English machines trekking upward in wide circles until they also were hovering specks in the sky. They saw them wheel suddenly and pass out to sea and then those who possessed strong glasses noted a new speck coming from the east and presently thirteen machines were mixed up and confused, like the spots that come before the eyes of some one afflicted with a liver. From this pickle of dots one slowly descended and the trained observers standing at a point of vantage whooped for joy, for that which seemed a slow descent was, in reality, moving twice as fast as the swiftest express train and, moreover, they knew by certain signs that it was falling in flames. A gray destroyer, its three stacks belching black smoke, cut through the sea and circled about the débris of the burning machine. A little boat danced through the waves and a young man was hauled from the wreckage uttering strange and bitter words of hate. They took him down to the ward-room of the destroyer and propped him in the commander's armchair. A businesslike doctor dabbed two ugly cuts in his head with iodine and deftly encircled his brow with a bandage. A navigating lieutenant passed him a whisky-and-soda. "If you speak English, my gentle lad," said the commander, "honor us with your rank, title, and official number."