September 15 the traffic was too
urgent for time to be lost by hide-and-seek.

We passed several of our offensive patrols, each of which escorted us
while we were on its beat. It was curious that no activity could be
noticed on enemy aerodromes. Until we passed Mossy-Face on the last lap
of the homeward journey we saw no Hun aircraft. Even there the machines
with black crosses flew very low and did not attempt to offer battle.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we were about to cross the
trenches north of Peronne. Archie then scored an inner. One of his
chunks swept the left aileron from the leader's machine, which banked
vertically, almost rolled over, and began to spin. For two thousand feet
the irregular drop continued, and the observer gave up hope. Luckily for
him, the pilot was not of the same mind, and managed to check the spin
by juggling with his rudder-controls. The bus flew home, left wing well
down, with the observer leaning far out to the right to restore
equilibrium, while the icy rush of air boxed his ears.

We landed, wrote our reports, and took them to headquarters. The day's
work had been done, which was all that mattered to any extent, and a
very able general told us it was "dom good." But many a day passed
before we grew accustomed to the absence of Uncle and Paddy.

And so to bed, until we were called for another early morning show.

CHAPTER III.

A SUMMER JOY-RIDE.

It happened late in the afternoon, one August dog-day. No wind leavened
the languid air, and hut, hangar, tent, and workshop were oppressive
with a heavy heat, so that we wanted to sleep. To taxi across the grass
in a chase for flying speed, to soar gently from the hot ground, and, by
leaning beyond the wind-screen, to let the slip-stream of displaced air
play on one's face--all this was refreshing as a cold plunge after a
Turkish bath. I congratulated myself that I was no longer a gunner,
strenuous over interminable corrections, or tiredly alert in a close
observation post.

Our party consisted of four machines, each complete with pilot,
observer, and several hundred rounds of ammunition. The job was an
offensive patrol--that is to say, we were to hunt trouble around a given
area behind the Boche lines. A great deal of the credit for our "mastery
of the air"--that glib phrase of the question-asking politician--during
the Somme Push of 1916, belongs to those who organised and those who led
these fighting exped