Page:Air Service Boys Flying for Victory.djvu/162

152 Northern France, backed by every sort of gun that could hurl shrapnel aloft, would not be sufficient to stay their progress.

Presently, however, the formation was broken at a signal. To try to maintain it any longer would be little short of suicidal, for the gunners below were getting their range better, and the bursting shells came alarmingly close now.

Tom kept his eyes constantly about him. Each bomber tried to keep at a given altitude in making the evolutions, since in that way they were better able to avoid a collision that would be fatal to both machines.

At last Tom caught his signal and as he headed straight for the spot over the fortress he gave Jack the sign. The bomb slipped from its sheath, and was instantly lost to sight in the smoky atmosphere below.

Already they had had their ears shocked by numerous discharges, as others among the Americans shot their missile earthward. It was terrible to look down at that crisis in the attack. The whole world seemed on fire beneath them, what with the exploding bombs and the myriad flashes coming from the German guns at work.

Jack was disappointed because in this vast inferno he found it utterly impossible to tell where his special messenger struck. He knew, though, that he had been in a fair position for a hit when