AIRMEN TAKE A HAND

Morris by this time had relinquished the pursuit. She returned and took her lame sister in tow, while the French destroyers circled, picking up prisoners. From statements made by these it appears that no fewer than 18 torpedo craft had sallied forth for the raid. They were unhesitatingly attacked and rather badly mauled by two British and three French destroyers, and fled (as one of the British officers picturesquely described it) like scalded dogs. The adventures of the remaining 15 were by no means terminated when they quitted French waters, leaving three of their number behind. A squadron of the R.N.A.S. bombing machines sighted the German flotillas and fell upon them, or, rather, suffered their bombs to do so. A squadron of enemy seaplanes that had gone looking for the wanderers encountered the escort fighters of the bombing machines, and in a very short time had their numbers reduced by four. Of these, three were accounted for by one British pilot. It must have been with feelings of more than ordinary relief that the German torpedo force sighted the long, grey mole of Ostend Harbour through the morning mist; but even then their nerves had yet another ordeal to face. Something rushed across the face of the water in a cloud of spray, apparently from nowhere, a sinister, unseen thing, travelling at incredible speed. A torpedo struck the stern of one of the German destroyers, and the cloud of spray tore away through a hail of shell and bullets, unscathed, and vanished in the mist.