casual question from the chief. But it made
Jimmy feel that he was not so much of a novice as he had felt before.
He felt that he was more "part of the show," as he would have put it
if he had been asked to describe his feelings.

Jimmy was the first of the Brighton boys to take part in a real fight
in the air. A couple of days after his arrival at the airdrome he
was assigned to duty with an experienced aviator named Parker. Both
Parker and Jimmy were to be mounted on fast, agile machines with very
little wing space, which, with their slightly-curved, fish-like bodies,
had the appearance of dragon-flies with short wings.

"These wasp-things are great for looping," said Parker to Jimmy. "You
can throw them 'way over in a big arc that lands you a long distance
from where some of these Boche fliers expect you to be when you finish
your loop."

"What is the game we are to tackle?" asked Jimmy.

"Just hunting, I think. The Boches seem to have become a little
bolder than usual during the last forty-eight hours. Two of their
observation planes came unusually close to us yesterday. I suppose
they may have received orders to spot something they can't find, and
it is worrying them a bit. I guess the chief is going to send us out
together to see if we can bag one of their scout planes. Their
hunters will be guarding. It is better to go out in twos, if not in
lots, along this part of the line. As a matter of fact, it is more
than likely that some German on a new Fokker or a Walvert is sitting
up aloft there like a sweet little cherub and laying for us. They
have a nasty habit of swooping down like a hawk when we get well over
their territory and firing as they swoop. If they get you, you drop
in their part of the country. If they miss you, they just swing off
and forget it, or climb back and sit on the mat till another of our
lot comes along. Swooping and missing don't put them in much danger,
for if they come down they are in their own area."

"Have you had one of them try that hawk game on you?" asked Jimmy.

"I have had the pleasure and honor to have the great Immelmann drop
at me, once, on an Albatros, or a machine that looked like an Albatros.
We knew afterward that it was Immelmann, for he worked the same
tactics several times, always in the same way. I was out guarding
one of our fellows who was getting pictures pretty well back of the
Boche lines, when along came a regular fleet of German aircraft.