We won't need to take cover when the shelling starts, and even if the
guns are shooting when the German is shelling, the armor-plate will
easily stand off splinters from that distance."
"Yes," said the captain. "But do you suppose our friend the Flighty Hun
won't have a peep at us to-morrow morning to see where those shells
landed? If he does, or if he takes a photograph, those holes will show
up like a chalk-mark on a blackboard; then he has only to tell his gun
to step this way a couple of hundred yards and we get it in the neck.
I'm inclined to think we'd better up anchor and away."
"We're pretty comfortable here, you know," urged the lieutenant, "and
it's a pity to get out. It might be that those shots were blind chance.
I vote for waiting another day, anyhow, and seeing what happens. At the
worst we can pack up and stand by with steam up; then if the shells
pitch too near we can slip the cable and run for it"
"Right-oh!" said the captain.
Next morning the enemy aeroplane appeared again at its appointed hour
and sailed overhead, leaving behind it a long wake of smoke-puffs; and
at the same hour in the afternoon as the previous shelling the German
gun opened fire, dropping its first shell neatly fifty yards further
from the shell-holes of the day before. The aeroplane, of course, had
reported, or its photograph had shown, the previous day's shells to
have dropped apparently fifty yards to the left of the hamlet.
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