Listening to Schnitzel's explanation, the eyes of the quintet, nevertheless, remained fixed on the swooping, circling black speck overhead. Not for a moment did the concealed Allied battery cease its attack on the enemy plane. Though their necks began to ache and their eyes to smart, they could not draw their fascinated gaze from that gyrating black dot. Even as they watched, it seemed to grow a trifle larger. "It's coming down!" yelled Jimmy. "They got it! Hurray! I'll bet this plane was trying to get a line on what was doing down here." "It's dropping, sure as a gun!" shouted Bob. "Some drop! Oh, glory, I wish it would flop right here!" "It's coming down, down, down, all right!" sang out Roger. "We won't see it though. It'll probably land miles from here, on the other side of those hills. That aviator didn't have much show as an observer." In what seemed to them an incredibly short time, the doomed plane had sped earthward, and out of sight behind the distant hills east of them. "So is it, some Boche get kill pretty quick. He never more do nothin'," commented Ignace with grim satisfaction. "Not so you can notice it," airily agreed Bob. "If he wasn't croaked by the anti, he'd hit the ground with a bump that would finish him. Well, show's over. We've seen a Boche plane shelled and a Hun aviator downed, now let's be on our way. If we never live to see another Fritzie birdman's wings clipped, we've seen one, anyhow." "We're going to live to see a whole lot more welcome sights like that," asserted Jimmy sturdily. "Glad to hear it," grinned Bob. "Only the saints croak young. We have a pretty fair show to keep on going, according to that." Signally inspirited at witnessing the defeat of an enemy the five bunkies set off for headquarters talking cheerily as they walked. There they found their comrades had already begun to assemble, preparatory to the night march, which would begin as soon as sheltering twilight descended. Group after group of soldiers, who had been resting during the afternoon, or roaming about the village, now reported, and stood awaiting the order to "Fall in." As time went on, conversation gradually died out among the men. Earlier exchange of good-humored badinage ceased, and comparative silence replaced it, broken only by an occasional low murmur of voices. With the first signs of twilight the tension began to tighten. A curious hush pervaded the two detachments, as the heavily burdened Sammies stood about and watched the dusk grow and deepen. Strangely enough, no distant rumble of artillery broke the spell. Though the voices of the guns had boomed all day, now they were silent. It was an hour which those who survived the struggle they were about to enter would long remember. At last it came; the clarion notes of the bugle, blowing the order "Fall in." With calm, resolute faces each Khaki Boy found his place in the long double line.