Tom
and Jack were to be allowed to go up together in a big double
bombing plane.
The night passed. The hour approached. Anxious eyes watched the
hands of watches slowly revolve.
Then suddenly, as if the very earth had been blasted away from
beneath them, the batteries of big guns belched forth fire, smoke
and shell.
The great battle was on!
CHAPTER XXIV
SILENCING THE GERMAN GUNS
Engagements in the World War were on such a vast scale that it was
difficult for a single observer to give a word picture of them. All
he could see, stationed behind the lines, was a vast cataclysm of
smoke and fire, and his ears were deafened by so vast a sound that
it was comparable to nothing on this earth ever heard before.
An observer in the air was little better off, save for that portion
directly beneath him, and even that he could not see very much of,
on account of the smoke and dust. If he looked to the left or the
right, or backward or forward, he was at the disadvantage of
distance.
To him, then, great columns of infantry appeared only as crawling
worms, and batteries of artillery merely patches of woods whence
belched fire and smoke. That he must keep high in the air when over
the enemy's lines went without saying, for he would be fired at if
he came too low. So then, even an airman's vision was limited when
it came to describing a great battle.
Of course he always did what he was assigned to do.
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