Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/30

 Back he streaked to the British lines, his wireless working frantically.

"Enemy raiding squadron in cloud—take the edge a quarter up."

He received the acknowledgment and brought his machine around to face the lordly bulk of the cumulus.

Then the British began their good work.

Shrapnel and high explosives burst in a storm bout the cloud. Looking down he saw fifty stabbing pencils of flame flickering from fifty A-A guns. Every available piece of anti-aircraft artillery was turned upon the fleecy mass.

As Tam circled he saw white specks rising swiftly from the direction of the aerodrome and knew that the fighting squadron, full of fury, was on its way up. It had come to be a tradition in the wing that—had the right of initiating all attack, and it was a right of which he was especially jealous. Now, with the great cloud disgorging its shadowy guests, he gave a glance at