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156 to make one last assault on the columns before admitting defeat; and it was to be ready for this that every possible precaution must be taken.

Then the fact became apparent that the return was not to be made with an undimished [sic] force. There were no longer exactly twenty planes to fill out the double column. Some were missing, having fallen in the last desperate attack of the foe, when a perfect whirlwind of fighting had taken place.

Tom noticed this almost immediately. At least one battleplane was absent, if not more, and the companion bomber that had occupied with them the place of honor at the tail of the procession also failed to come to its place. Perhaps the very plane he had watched drop and wondered about was one of these missing ones.

Jack, too, looked down upon that vast smudge of smoke and shooting flames with a new feeling gripping his heart. It no longer represented merely the disappointed hopes of a Hindenburg and a Ludendorff; it was not to be considered only a fortress annihilated by American pluck and ingenuity; there was a sadness in Jack's parting look now, and for a reason. Down there brave American boys had gone to their fate, after battling to their last breath for the right. In that blanket of smoke and amidst scattered stone and timbers they had found their tomb, nor