As at a signal the V parted at the fork, each angle divided and subdivided into two, so that where one broad arrow-head had been, were four diamonds. The anti-aircraft guns were staining the evening skies brown and white till the attacking squadrons came gliding like tiny flies into the disturbed area, when the gun-fire ceased. And now friend and enemy were so mixed that it needed an expert eye to distinguish them. They circled, climbed, dived, looped over and about one another, and it seemed as if the tendency of the oncoming wave was to retire. "They're going. They've had enough," said the general. Two machines were wobbling to earth, one in a blaze, whilst a third planed down toward the enemy's lines. The fighters were going farther and farther away, all except three machines that seemed engaged in weaving an invisible thread one about the other. Under and over, round, up, down, and all the time the ceaseless chatter of machine-guns. Then one side-slipped, recovered and dropped on his tail to earth. The fight was now between two machines, the maneuvers were repeated, the same knitting of some queer design until-- "Got him!" yelled the general. The German plane fell in that slow spiral which told its own tale to the expert watchers. Then suddenly his nose went down and he crashed. "Who's the man? Tam, for a ducat!" Blackie nodded. Tam's machine was planing down to earth. "He'll miss the aerodrome," said the general. "That's not Tam's way of returning at all," said Blackie with knitted brows. The machine dropped in the very field where the "Sausage-Killer" had been brought down a week before. It did not skim down but landed awkwardly, swaying from side to side until it came to a stand-still. Blackie was racing across the field. He reached the machine and took one glance at the pilot. Then he turned to the mechanic who followed at his heels. "'Phone an ambulance," he said; "they've got Tam at last." For Tam sat limply in his seat, his chin on his breast, his hand still clasped about the bloody grip of his machine-gun. * * * * * The matron beckoned Vera. "Here's your last job, Vera," she said with a smile. "Take your car to the aerodrome. One of the pilots has been killed." Vera stared. "At the aerodrome?" Control it as she might, her voice shook. "Yes--didn't you see the fight in the air?" "I came out as it was finishing--oh, may I take the ambulance?" The matron looked at her in wonder. "Yes, child, take the Stafford car," she nodded to an ambulance which waited on the broad drive. Without another word Vera ran to the car and cranked it up. As she climbed into the driver's seat she felt her knees trembling. "Please God, it isn't Tam!" she prayed as she drove the little car along the aerodrome road; "not Tam, dear Lord--not Tam!" And yet, by the very panic within her she knew it was Tam and none other. "To the left, I think." She looked round in affright.