goire before
passing to the service of aerodromes, and in its workshops machines
damaged but repairable are made fit for further service. It is also a
higher training centre for airmen. Before they join a squadron pilots
fresh from their instruction in England gain experience on service
machines belonging to the "pool" at Saint Gregoire.

Having been told by telephone from my squadron that one of our pilots
had been detailed to take the recently arrived bus to the Somme, I
awaited his arrival and passed the time to good purpose in watching the
aerobatics and sham fights of the pool pupils. Every now and then
another plane from England would arrive high over the aerodrome, spiral
down and land into the wind. The ferry-pilot who had brought me left for
Rafborough almost immediately on a much-flown "quirk." The machine he
had delivered at Saint Gregoire was handed over to a pilot from Umpty
Squadron when the latter reported, and we took to the air soon after
lunch. The puppy travelled by road over the last lap of his long
journey, in the company of a lorry driver.

The bus headed east while climbing, for we had decided to follow the
British lines as far as the Somme, a course which would be prolific in
interesting sights, and which would make us eligible for that rare gift
of the gods, an air-fight over friendly territory.

The coloured panorama below gave place gradually to a wilderness--ugly
brown and pock-marked. The roads became bare and dented, the fields were
mottled by shell-holes, the woods looked like scraggy patches of burnt
furze. It was a district of great deeds and glorious deaths--the
desolation surrounding the Fronts of yesterday and to-day.

North of Ypres we turned to the right and hovered awhile over this city
of ghosts. Seen from above, the shell of the ancient city suggests a
grim reflection on the mutability of beauty. I sought a comparison, and
could think of nothing but the skeleton of a once charming woman. The
ruins stood out in a magnificent disorder that was starkly impressive.
Walls without roof, buildings with two sides, churches without tower,
were everywhere prominent, as though proud to survive the orgy of
destruction. The shattered Cathedral retained much of its former
grandeur. Only the old Cloth Hall, half-razed and without arch or
belfry, seemed to cry for vengeance on the vandalism that wrecked it.
The gaping skeleton was grey-white, as if sprinkled by the powder of
decay. And one f