First one German he drove to the ground, then another, and then a third. His blood was up now, and he turned round for further victims, but the Huns had had sufficient for one day, and were scuttling off to peace and safety. He turned homewards, and his wound was becoming agonizing, as a bombing squadron of our own machines passed by. Very soon there arose from the wood violent explosions and blinding sheets of flame, and by the time the British bombing squadron had finished its full design, all that remained of the fat captain’s ammunition park were a few broken and shattered wagons, and a heap of dead and dying men. CHAPTER XV A TIGHT CORNER _Somewhere in France, Friday._ The other day, yesterday afternoon to be exact, a most exciting adventure befell me. I was detailed to take part in a bombing raid at ----. We had not proceeded far beyond our own lines, after the customary bombardment of anti-aircraft shells, when suddenly the machine immediately in front of us rocked violently, and began to dive towards the earth. “B----’s been hit,” my observer bawled into my ear. I continued to watch the machine in its headlong descent. Alas, it was only too true! There was no possible escape: after diving steeply six hundred feet, the machine had begun to spin, and was now whirling round and round like a humming-top, and hardly a minute after, had crashed into the midst of a wood, from which there immediately came up a cloud of gray smoke and a leaping tongue of flame. We had started out four strong; our mission being to raid M----, a large German military center, containing a staff headquarters, an ammunition park, and a large aerodrome. And now our machine was the sole survivor, two having been shot down when crossing the lines. Alone and single-handed, in a notoriously dangerous portion of the enemy’s lines, every moment we were liable to be fired at from all quarters, and attacked by enemy aircraft. I looked searchingly at my observer; it was his first trip across the lines, and I had to admit to myself that never before, in my six months of flying at the front, had I been in such a deucedly uncomfortable position. How would he take it? I hesitated. Should we turn back to safety, or should we continue on our way to what was almost certain death? I glanced at his face, it was stern and set, with the deliberation of the man who is willing to risk everything. With his left hand he patted and fondled the deadly machine-gun. I determined to go on.