Lower and lower still they flew. Blaine's control was perfect. So was
that of his subordinates. Bangs himself, excited yet steady as a
clock, was talking to his plane as a cowboy might talk to his pony.
Machine guns could now be used most effectively. The cleaned, burnished
mechanism was already vomiting death. in showers upon the trenches
below. Their spitting, purring roars were drowning out the whir of the
engines.
All at once Blaine saw to his left a spurt of flame shoot upward from
below, and almost simultaneously a blinding glare arose from Brodno's
plane. For an instant he caught sight of the Polish face, ashen gray
as the night above, under which the fight was going on. His petrol
tank had been hit from an Archie below and exploded. Another burst of
flame and his plane swooped dizzily towards the mangled earth below.
"God help him!" gasped Lafe. "That must be the end of poor Brodno!"
Down it went, zigzagging crazily. All at once it dropped like a
plummet. For an instant Blaine felt sick; then he recovered. His own
situation, and that of Stanley, Erwin, Bangs and the rest was not less
risky. Yet only one thing was there to do. Fight it out -- fight it
out, to victory -- or death.
Then all at once the German planes were upon them. Where and how they
came was a matter of indifference. The thing was to meet and fight, to
out-maneuver them if possible.
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