Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/89

Rh "Probably their gun, or guns, can't fire any larger ones such a long distance, or else their airships can't carry 'em up above the clouds to drop on the city."

"Then you still hold to the airship theory?"

"Well, Jack, I haven't altogether given it up. I'm open to conviction, as it were. Of course I know, in theory, a gun can be made that will shoot a hundred miles, if necessary, but the cost of it, the cost of the charge and the work of loading it, as well as the enormous task of making a carriage or an emplacement to with-stand the terrific recoil, makes such a gun a military white elephant. In other words it isn't worth the trouble it would take—the amount of damage inflicted on the enemy wouldn't make it worth while."

"I guess you're right, Tom. And yet such a gun would make a big scare."

"Yes, and that's what the Germans are depending on, more than anything else."

"But still don't you think the French will have to do something toward silencing the gun?"

"Indeed I do! And I haven't a doubt but the French command is working night and day to devise some plan whereby the gun can be silenced."

"There go the aviators now, out to try to