efit I stood up and rattled through a whole
ammunition-drum. Here let me say I do not think I hit him, for he was
not in difficulties. He dived below us to join his companions, possibly
because he did not like being under fire when they were not. To my
surprise and joy, he fell slick on one of the other two Hun machines.
This latter broke into two pieces, which fell like stones. The machine
responsible for my luck side-slipped, spun a little, recovered, and went
down to land. The third made off east.

In plain print and at a normal time, this episode shows little that is
comic. But when it happened I was in a state of high tension, and this,
combined with the startling realisation that a Hun pilot had saved me
and destroyed his friend, seemed irresistibly comic. I cackled with
laughter and was annoyed because my pilot did not see the joke.

We reached the lines without further trouble from anything but Archie.
The pink streaks of daybreak had now disappeared beneath the whole body
of the sunrise, and the sky was of that intense blue which is the secret
of France. What was left of the ground-mist shimmered as it congealed in
the sunlight. The pall of smoke from the guns had doubled in volume. The
Ancre sparkled brightly.

We cruised around in a search for others of our party, but found none. A
defensive patrol was operating between Albert and the trenches. We
joined it for half an hour, at the end of which I heard a "Halloa!" from
the speaking-tube.

"What's up now?" I asked.

"Going to have a look at the war," was the pilot's reply.

Before I grasped his meaning he had shut off the engine and we were
gliding towards the trenches. At 1200 feet we switched on, flattened
out, and looked for movement below. There was no infantry advance at the
moment, but below Courcelette what seemed to be two ungainly masses of
black slime were slithering over the ground. I rubbed my eyes and looked
again. One of them actually crawled among the scrap-heaps that fringed
the ruins of the village. Only then did the thought that they might be
Tanks suggest itself. Afterwards I discovered that this was so.

The machine rocked violently as a projectile hurtled by underneath us.
The pilot remembered the broken landing-wire and steered for home. After
landing, we compared notes with others who had returned from the
expedition. C., we learned, was down at last, after seventeen months of
flying on active service, with only one break for any