on this side of the lines.
One night, returning from a raid on the Boche magneto works at
Stuttgart, he lost his way and was forced to land, because of engine
trouble, in France, near the Swiss border. The topography of the country
here being mountainous, he was fortunate in merely "writing off" his
aeroplane. He might easily have killed himself and his two companions,
but he came out of the crash quite unhurt except for a severe chill
contracted by a forced sojourn in the icy waters of a shallow pond.
Pinned beneath the wreckage of his machine with an unpleasant ripple of
water in close proximity to his chin, Killem had an excellent
opportunity to think over his past sins while his companions in misery,
who had been thrown clear for no other reason apparently except that the
devil takes care of his own, struggled manfully, one with a broken arm
and the other with a wrenched knee, to release him from the pressure of
wreckage which held him helpless.

A few nights after this unpleasant experience the mad fellow "took off"
down wind. This idiotic method of leaving the ground resulted in his
being barely able to rise above the roofs of the near-by village and
brought him into direct contact with the church spire. The spire being
of solid construction withstood the impact; the aeroplane did not. So
Killem and his companions, together with the wrecked Handley-Page and
one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight pounds of undetonated bombs
descended onto the street below--UNDETONATED. It was exceedingly
fortunate for the inhabitants of the French village that the bombs
remained undetonated. Killem crawled out of the wreck, looked ruefully
at the church spire, and muttered, "I've always felt that I should have
gone oftener to church in my youth. Now look at the damned result of my
negligence."

It was Killem who tested out a new aeroplane one day while a south wind
equal to the air speed of his machine was blowing. While flying north he
travelled over the ground twice as fast as he travelled through the air,
but when he turned around over the city of Toul he remained stationary.
He was travelling through the air as fast as before, but now he was
headed south, and as the wind passed over the ground toward the north as
rapidly as Killem travelled through the air toward the south, the
inhabitants of Toul were amazed to see a heavier-than-air machine
remaining stationary above their heads. This situation greatly alarmed a
dear ol