Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/134

 had signaled his men on the ground of his danger and the great drum was reeling in wire cable at the rate of twenty miles an hour. But this was not fast enough to escape from the hands of the clever aviator. For suddenly, while he was still a thousand yards above the balloon, he opened up his machine gun. We could hear its rat-tat-tats very clearly, although he was five miles away. Two or three of the flaming bullets happened to pierce the hydrogen bag, and in an instant it was turned into a mass of flames. Before the pilot was able to jump from his basket and save himself in his parachute, he was overcome by the gas and flames. Barney Faith went over afterwards and found his aneroid barometer.

Benney and I were talking before the fire in his room today (they don't cut up their wood as we do; instead, they lug a twenty foot beam into the room, place one end on the hearth and as it burns, shove it further in, Indian Fashion), and Gilmore was attempting to make hot chocolate from a cake which he couldn't shave down with a piece of éclat, when a knock came at the door. He yelled "Entrez," and, as the door slowly opened, we saw an old French couple standing on the threshold. This had been their home six months before, and now they had returned to look upon the wreckage. The woman wept when she saw the shell hole through the ceiling, the broken furniture which we were