He waited for a return shout, “Ready!” turned to his right, shouted again, “Get ready!” and heard, “Ready!” back.

Sound carried in the cold night air. He heard the distinctive metallic snick when, to either side of him, the machine gunners levered open their Colts’ action to chamber their first rounds.

There were three men on each gun, knee-deep in rainwater left by the evening storms: a gunner, a feeder to the gunner’s left guiding the canvas belt of cartridges, and a spotter with field glasses. Frost kept Mike Stotts standing by to run with orders if they couldn’t hear him.

The noise grew louder, the sound of a straining machine. Then Frost distinguished the clatter of not one but two motors. They must be flying very close to each other, he thought. Too close. Something was wrong. Suddenly he realized that he was hearing two poorly synchronized engines driving Steve Stevens’s biplane. Stevens was in the lead.

“Hold your fire! It’s not her. Hold your fire!”

The biplane passed over, motors loud and ragged, flying low so the driver could see the rails. Josephine would have to fly low, too, making her an easy target.

Ten minutes elapsed before Frost heard another machine. Once again, he saw no locomotive light. Definitely an aeroplane. Was it Josephine? Or was it Isaac Bell? It was coming fast. He had seconds to make up his mind. Bell usually flew behind her.

“Ready!”

“Ready, Mr. Frost.”

“Ready, Mr. Frost.”

The gunner to his left yelled excitedly, “Here she comes!”

“Wait! . . . Wait!”

“Here she comes, boys!” cried the men on his right.

“Wait!”

Suddenly Frost heard the distinctive hollow-sounding blatting exhaust of a rotary motor.

“It’s a Gnome! It’s not her. It’s a Gnome! He’s ahead of her. Hold your fire! Hold your fire! ”

He was too late. The excited gunners drowned him out with long bursts of automatic fire, feeding the ammunition belts as fast as the guns could fire. Spitting brass cartridges and empty cloth, the weapons spewed four hundred rounds a minute at the approaching machine.

ISAAC BELL LOCATED both machine guns by their muzzle flashes, two hundred yards apart to the north and south of the tracks. There was no way the gunners could see him, blinded by those flashes. But they were shooting accurately anyway, aiming at the sound of his motor, firing thunderously, stopping to listen, firing again.

Flying lead crackled as it passed close to the Eagle’s king posts.

Bell blipped the motor off, glided silently, then blipped it on again. The guns caught up and resumed firing. Heavy slugs shook struts behind him. The rudder took several hits, and he felt them kick his wheel post.