ies.

But, upon all who sit immune, upon all whom as yet this bitter war
has left untouched, is the blood of these that died in the cause of
humanity, the cause of Freedom for us and the generations to come,
this blood is upon each one of us--consecrating us to the task they
have died to achieve, and it is our solemn duty to see that the
wounds they suffered, the deaths they died, have not been, and shall
not be, in vain.

XII

FLYING MEN

A few short years ago flying was in its experimental stage; to-day,
though man's conquest of the air is yet a dream unrealised, it has
developed enormously and to an amazing degree; to-day, flying is one
of the chief factors of this world war, both on sea and land. Upon
the Western front alone there are thousands upon thousands of
aeroplanes--monoplanes and biplanes--of hundreds of different makes
and designs, of varying shapes and many sizes. I have seen giants
armed with batteries of swivel guns and others mounting veritable
cannon. Here are huge bomb-dropping machines with a vast wing spread;
solid, steady-flying machines for photographic work, and the light,
swift-climbing, double-gunned battle-planes, capable of mounting two
thousand feet a minute and attaining a speed of two hundred
kilometres. Of these last they are building scores a week at a
certain factory I visited just outside Paris, and this factory is
but one of many. But the men (or rather, youths) who fly these
aerial marvels--it is of these rather than the machines that I would
tell, since of the machines I can describe little even if I would; but
I have watched them hovering unconcernedly (and quite contemptuous
of the barking attention of "Archie") above white shrapnel
bursts--fleecy, innocent-seeming puffs of smoke that go by the name
of "woolly bears." I have seen them turn and hover and swoop, swift
and graceful as great eagles. I have watched master pilots of both
armies, English and French, perform soul-shaking gyrations high in
air, feats quite impossible hitherto and never attempted until
lately. There is now a course of aerial gymnastics which every flier
must pass successfully before he may call himself a "chasing" pilot;
and, from what I have observed, it would seem that to become a pilot
one must be either all nerve or possess no nerve at all.

Conceive a biplane, thousands of feet aloft, suddenly flinging its
nose up and beginning to climb vertically as if intending to loop the
loop; conc