There was no time for Lawrence to hear more, or to discuss with the imperturbable Sikh any measures that might be devised to assist the heroic fighters on the other bank. He knew well that the check could be only temporary, and could not think without distress of the issue of the next attack. Hurrying back to the ledge, he and Fazl got into their places, ready to fly off directly they heard the returning aeroplane. The Gurkha’s ears first caught the throbbing drone, and as the machine once more rose into the air, the field guns recommenced to bark and spit. As soon as Lawrence reached his turning-place he began to climb. In a few moments he caught sight of the enemy’s aeroplane skimming round the bend below the mine. It was much lower than before, probably no more than three hundred feet above Lawrence, and as soon as the airmen caught sight of him, they dipped so suddenly as almost to suggest that the machine was beyond control. But Lawrence realised that the descent was intentional. They meant to come as close above him as they could in the half mile between them. He ceased to mount, and steered straight down the valley, hugging the cliff on the left hand. The enemy followed his manoeuvre, edging to their right in order to pass immediately above him. The two aeroplanes were only about a hundred yards horizontally apart when with a quick movement of his rudder, which threw a hazardous strain upon the planes, Lawrence shot out over the river. Before the enemy could alter their own course he had passed well outside them. Their bombs, dropped hurriedly while the pilot was striving to cope with Lawrence’s sudden movement, fell harmlessly into the river. The enemy’s turning-place up stream being much nearer the mine than that in the opposite direction, there was no time to alight again and save expenditure of petrol. But there was time to lend aid to the defenders at the breastwork. Lawrence flew on, instructing Fazl to hurl a bomb among the enemy as he passed the bend. Two teams of horses were dragging more field guns up to the rampart. It was among these that Fazl let fall his bomb, and looking back, he shouted gleefully that one of the teams had stampeded and dashed with their gun over the bank into the river, while the other were plunging furiously amid a smother of smoke. At the same time the rattle of the machine gun announced that Gur Buksh was again at work. Lawrence did not wish to fly six or seven miles down the river to the wide bay in which he was sure the enemy had turned. To wheel round earlier involved some risk, but it was a risk from which his strung-up nerves did not flinch.