f shells burst
in the air all about him; but he steered straight up the middle of them
till he reached the point he wanted to make, and then wheeled and made
his patrol up and down over the trenches. He was flying higher but still
low, and the crackle of rifles again broke out from the German lines. He
was within the range of the feeblest "Archie" even at his highest. They
were literally just so many big shot-guns, firing at a great bird; only
this bird came up time and again to be shot at, simply trusting to the
chance that they would not hit him.

"The rest may take their luck, but I should be dead sick if they was to
get him," grunted a big Australian as he tugged a pull-through out of
his rifle.

Of course they will get him if he does that often--you only need two
eyes to know that. The communiques tell of it every week. As you scurry
past the hinterland of the lines in your motor-car you will sometimes
see two or three aeroplanes flying like great herons overhead. They seem
to be in company, keeping station almost, and holding on the same
course, all mates together--until you catch the cough of a machine-gun,
and realise that they are actually engaged in the deadliest sort of duel
which can possibly be fought in these days. In a battle of infantry you
are mostly hit by an unaimed shot, or a shot aimed into a mass of men.
Even if a man fires at you once, it is probably someone else whom he
aims at next time. But in the air the man who shoots at you is coming
after you, and intends to go on shooting at you until he kills. The
moment when you see an enemy's plane, and realise that you have to fight
it, must be one to set even the strongest nerves tingling.

Generally the aeroplane with the black crosses on its wings is very
high--barely visible. Sometimes, when the other planes are near it, it
swoops steeply to earth behind the German lines. Or it may be that, far
behind our own lines, you see a plane diving to earth at an angle which
makes you wonder whether it is falling or being steered. It straightens
out suddenly, and lands a few fields away. By the time you are there, a
cluster of khaki is already round it. An English boy steps out of it,
flushed and excited, and with intense strain written in his eyes and in
every jerk of his head. Out of the seat just behind him they are lifting
a man with a terrible wound in his side. In the arms of the seat from
which they lift him are two holes as big as a shell would mak