pon treating them
as all in the day's work and eliminating all that is picturesque
from their narratives. Sergeant James R. McConnell, one of the
Americans in the French flying corps, afterwards killed, tells of a
day's service in his most readable book, _Flying for France_, in a
way that gives some idea of the daily routine of an operator of an
_avion de chasse_. He is starting just as the sky at dawn is showing
a faint pink toward the eastern horizon, for the aviator's work is
best done in early morning when, as a rule, the sky is clear and the
wind light:

[Illustration: (C) U. & U.

_Position of Gunner in Early French Machines._]

Drawing forward out of line, you put on full power, race across
the grass, and take the air. The ground drops as the hood slants
up before you and you seem to be going more and more slowly as
you rise. At a great height you hardly realize you are moving.
You glance at the clock to note the time of your departure, and
at the oil gauge to see its throb. The altimeter registers 650
feet. You turn and look back at the field below and see others
leaving.

In three minutes you are at about four thousand feet. You have
been making wide circles over the field and watching the other
machines. At forty-five hundred feet you throttle down and wait
on that level for your companions to catch up. Soon the
escadrille is bunched and off for the lines. You begin climbing
again, gulping to clear your ears in the changing pressure.
Surveying the other machines, you recognize the pilot of each by
the marks on its side--or by the way he flies.

The country below has changed into a flat surface of varicoloured
figures. Woods are irregular blocks of dark green, like daubs of
ink spilled on a table; fields are geometrical designs of
different shades of green and brown, forming in composite an
ultra-cubist painting; roads are thin white lines, each with its
distinctive windings and crossings--from which you determine your
location. The higher you are the easier it is to read.

In about ten minutes you see the Meuse sparkling in the morning
light, and on either side the long line of sausage-shaped
observation balloons far below you. Red-roofed Verdun springs
into view just beyond. There are spots in it where no red shows
and you know what has happened there. In the gree