Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/143

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MISSING
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which Paris is so efficiently guarded, began to bark and to send their red flashes out into the blackness of the night. They were shooting at the Zeppelin, as yet unseen by the men of the picked squadron, and the gunners aimed according to instructions sent them by wireless from scouts hovering in the air above the city.

As soon as word comes from the front, about eighty miles from Paris, that a Zeppelin is on its way to raid, an elaborate system of defense is put into operation. There are some airmen above Paris all the while, frequently as many as forty on sentry duty. But when word comes of a Zeppelin raid the whole squadron, numbering close to three hundred, goes aloft. By their searchlights, aided by those on the surface, these fliers endeavor to pick up the German machine, and, too, they endeavor to get near enough to attack it.

This was what was now going on. Pandemonium appeared let loose, and the explosion of the German bombs, mingling with the noise of the French guns, made Paris seem like a battlefield. Occasionally could be heard, when the guns were silenced for a moment, the roar of the many aeroplane motors aloft.

The Zeppelin seemed to be over a section of Paris near the Tuileries, judging by the bursts of light in that direction. Tom, Jack, and their