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their work over the lines. It was thrilling even to us, accustomed as we were to ordinary flying, to see the trim little fighters take the air, one after the other, circle above the aerodrome, and then dropping into a fixed formation, set their courses to the East. That night we listened with eager ears to the discussion of a fight in which a whole patrol had been engaged. We stay-at-homes had spent the day practice-flying in the new machines. There were three days more of this for me, and then, having passed some standard tests to show my familiarity with the Nieuport type, I was told the next morning I was to cross the lines for the first time as the master of my own machine.
    The squadron commander had been killed the day before I arrived from England, and the new one arrived the day after. It rather pleased and in a sense comforted me to know that the new commander was also going over in a single-seater for the first time when I did. He had been flying up to this time a two-seater machine which calls for entirely different tactics during a fight. Two-seater machines as a rule have guns that can be turned about in different positions. On the fighting scouts they generally are rigidly fixed. This means that it is necessary to aim the machine at anything you wish to fire at.
    The night before I was to “go over” I received my orders. I was to bring up the rear of a flight of six machines, and I assure you it was
some
task bringing up the rear of that formation. I had my hands full from the very start. It seemed to me my machine was slower than the rest, and as I wasn’t any too well acquainted with it, I had a great time trying to keep my proper place, and to keep the others from losing me. I was so busy at the task of keeping up that my impressions of outside things were rather vague. Every time the formation turned or did anything unexpected, it took me two or three minutes to get back in my proper place. But I got back every time as fast as I could. I felt safe when I was in the formation and scared when I was out of it, for I had been warned many times that it is a fatal mistake to get detached and become a straggler. And I had heard of the German “headhunters,” too. They are German machines that fly very high and avoid combat with anything like an equal number, but are quick to pounce down upon a straggler, or an Allied machine that has been damaged and is bravely struggling to get home. Fine sportsmanship, that!
    The way I clung to my companions that day reminded me of some little child hanging to its mother’s skirts while crossing a crowded street. I remember I also felt as a child does when it is going up a dark pair of stairs, and is sure something is going to reach out of somewhere and grab it. I was so intent on the clinging part that I paid very little attention to anything else.
    We climbed to a height of more than two miles on our side of the lines, then crossed them. There were other formations of machines in the air, patrolling at various places. I could see them in the distance, but for the life of me I could not tell whether they were friendly or hostile. On the chance that they might be the latter, I clung closer than ever to my comrades. Then, a long way off, I was conscious that a fight was going on between a patrol of our machines and a Hun formation. I could make little of it all until finally I saw what seemed like a dark ball of smoke falling and learned afterwards it was one of our own machines going down in flames, having been shot and set on fire by the enemy airmen.
    A few minutes after this my attention was attracted elsewhere. Our old friends the “Archies” were after us. It is no snug billet, this being in the rear of a formation when the “Archies” are giving a show. They always seem to aim at the leading machine, but come closer to hitting the one at the end of the procession. The first shot I heard fired was a terrific “bang” close to