9 o'clock
Below was the square where the airplane was to be shot down . Troops were moving through those fields , undoubtedly , advancing in single file through communication trenches or dashing from shell hole to shell hole ; other troops lingered in dugouts underground . The French batteries played all over those fields , spraying down shrapnel , detonating the frightful charges of high explosives . But at an hour before the appointed time -- at 9 o'clock -- the French batteries would remit their fire for ten minutes upon the square where the biplane should fall . Hal looked at the clock fastened before him . It was two minutes to 9 ; he could see , directly below , the crimson splash of the great French shells ; a little way to the side showed the flashes of the German heavy batteries making reply . Now , as though smothered by the German fire , the French batteries ceased .