This brought him within
reach of the shells again, and both guns opened rapidly, dotting the
sky thickly with beautiful white puffs of smoke, through which the
enemy sailed swiftly. Then suddenly another shape and color of smoke
appeared beneath him, and a red light burst from it flaring and
floating slowly downwards. Another followed, and then another, and the
'plane straightened out its course, swerved, and flashed swiftly off
down-wind, pursued to the limit of their range by the raving pom-poms.
"Which it seems to me," said the Blue Marine sergeant reflectively,
"that our Tauby had us spotted and was signaling his guns to call and
leave a card on us."
That afternoon showed some proof of the correctness of the sergeant's
supposition; a heavy shell soared over and dropped with a crash in an
open field some two hundred yards beyond the outermost house of the
hamlet. In five minutes another followed, and in the same field blew
out a hole about twenty yards from the first. A third made another hole
another twenty yards off, and a fourth again at the same interval.
When the performance ceased, the captain and his lieutenant held a
conference over the matter. "It looks as if we'd have to shift," said
the captain. "That fellow has got us marked down right enough."
"If he doesn't come any nearer," said the lieutenant, "we're all right.
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