“Keep it up, boys!  Make every shot count!” sang out Commander McClure.

Mike Mowrey was growling because he was unable to make a hit.  “Let’s get one of ’em—–­just one of ’em!” he bellowed in rage.

One of the winged fleet was circling almost overhead at this moment and seemed tantalizing near.  With a twist of the wheel Mowrey swung the muzzle of his gun up a couple of inches and gave the signal again to fire.  Following the shot for a moment the frenzied gunner was elated to note that the machine just above sagged suddenly to one side.  Like a bird with a broken pinion it swerved drunkenly in its course and began slowly to come down.  Sustaining wires had been cut by the shell fire from the Dewey and the airplane was out of commission.

“Guess that fellow is done for,” said Mowrey.

It was soon evident that the machine was badly crippled, for it came on downward like a feather floating in the still air.  Only a few minutes elapsed until it had settled on the water.

“Hydro-aeroplane,” announced Commander McClure as he stood in the conning tower observing the wounded airship.  The other planes were engaged over the remainder of the allied fleet and the Dewey was free to take care of the craft in front of it.

There was now a chance that the American submarine might move alongside and take prisoner the German birdmen in the damaged machine.  The ship’s course was altered toward the floating plane and the Dewey crept up on her foe.

“Train your forward gun right on that fellow; he is apt to shoot unless both pilot and observer are injured,” cautioned McClure.

And that was just what happened, for the words had hardly escaped the lips of the Yankee skipper before a gun rang out from under the canvas wings of the airplane and a shell came whizzing over the Dewey.

“There’s another machine almost directly overhead,” bawled Mowrey, as he spied a second flying craft near at hand.

Having witnessed the fall of the crippled airship, another member of the attacking squadron had put back to the rescue.  As it soared now within range of the American submarine a bomb came splashing into the water not two hundred feet away.

Commander McClure began to figure that it was getting too dangerous longer to risk his thin-skinned vessel before the rain of the lyddite bombs, and accordingly gave orders to submerge.  Jamming their guns back into their deck casings, the crews melted away through the hatches into the hold of the Dewey.  Ballast poured in through the valves and the ship began to submerge.

And then, just as the submarine began settling in the water, a shell came whizzing over the water from the wounded airplane and burst directly over the conning tower.  There was a crash of rending steel and then a great clatter on the forward deck of the submarine that reechoed through the interior with an ominous sound.