For a
beginner!--' and he asked me how long I had been a corporal. _Y a bon._
My '_coucou_' is superb, with its parts all dated in red. You can see
them all, for those underneath spread up over the sides. In the air I
showed each hole in the wing, as it was hit, to the passenger, and he
was enchanted, too. It's a thrilling sport. It is a bore, though, when
they burst over our heads, because I cannot see them, though I can hear.
The observer has to give me information in that case. Just now, _le roi
n'est pas mon cousin_...."

Lieutenant, now Captain, Colcomb, has completed this account. During the
entire period of his observation, the pilot, in fact, did not make any
maneuver or in any way shake the machine in order to dodge the firing.
He simply sent the airplane a bit higher and calmly lowered it again
over the spot to be photographed, as if he were master of the air. The
following dialogue occurred:

_The Observer_: "I have finished; we can go back."

_The Pilot_: "Lieutenant, do me the favor of photographing for me the
projectiles falling around us."

Children have always had a passion for pictures; and the pictures were
taken.

The chasers and bombardiers in the history of aviation have attracted
public attention to the detriment of their comrades, the observers,
whose admirable services will become better known in time. It is by them
that the battle field is exposed, and the preparations and ruses of the
enemy balked: they are the eyes of the commanders, and also the friends
of the troops. On April 29, 1916, Lieutenant Robbe flew over the
trenches of the Mort-Homme at 200 meters, and brought back a detailed
exposition of the entanglement of the lines. A year later, in nearly the
same place, Lieutenant Pierre Guilland, observer on board a biplane of
the Moroccan division, was forced down by three enemy airplanes just at
the moment when his division, whose progress he was following in order
to report it, started its attack on the Corbeaux Woods east of the
Mort-Homme, on August 20, 1917. He fell on the first advancing lines and
was picked up, unconscious and mortally wounded, by an artillery officer
who proceeded to carry out the aviator's mission. When the latter
reopened his eyes--for only a short while--he asked: "Where am
I?"--"North of Chattancourt, west of Cumieres."--"Has the attack
succeeded?"--"Every object has been attained."--"Ah! that's good, that's
good." ... He made them repeat the news to him. H