one o'clock
Don ' you bodder , sar ! '' And so the many more or less friendly , even solicitous conversations went on until the midnight hour had fled . By then the groups of friends and visitors had melted back to the rear into the misty regions where lay the small French village that had sheltered them together with the aerodrome itself . It might have been one o'clock or later when a bugle sounded . Up and down the long , long line aviators were scrambling into their machines while the sputter and throb of many engines punctured the night air . Some of these engines had as much as three hundred horse-power . The long continuing roar was nerve grating , yet inspiring .