p to six thousand feet in
seven minutes, as he can do on this type of plane, and then drops
straight down from that elevation, as the 'hunter' fellows have
to do sometimes, puts a mighty big strain on his bus. Little by
little this sort of thing dislocates important parts. Of course
the pursuing game makes a pilot put his machine into all sorts of
positions. He has to jump at the other chap, sometimes, at an angle
of ninety degrees. I have known of cases where the air pressure
caused by such a drop has been so great that the planes of one of
these 'hunters' have been broken off with a snap."

"Jiminy!" ejaculated Dicky.

At this the aviator laughed, saying smilingly: "Accidents of some sort
take place here several times a day. If they didn't we would not get
on so fast either in the study of aeroplane construction or the art
of flying itself. Accidents tell us lots of things. Between studying
accidents and watching for Boche ideas, especially when we get hold
of one of their late machines, we are never standing still at this
game, I can tell you."

"Do you get many German planes?" asked Jimmy Hill.

"We _down_ lots of 'em, but we don't get many---which is different,"
and the aviator smiled. "You see the Boche fliers stay their side,
mostly, and when we drop one he goes down among his own lot. Now
the hostile hunters for instance, rarely go over our lines. Their
business apparently is to remain over their own territory. That is
their plan. They are brave enough. But the Germans look to their
hunters chiefly to prevent our observers from doing their work. They
wait for our observation machines where they know the observers must
come. That is their game. Just get some of the fellows who have
been over recently, when you get up front a bit, to tell you how the
new Fokkers hide themselves and pounce on our lot.

"Maybe the Boches look at it this way: if they have their fight at
their base of operations, over their own lines, and win out, they
may make a prisoner; if the machine is not destroyed, that may be
utilized. If their man gets put out of commission we don't get
the beaten machine and therefore cannot learn their latest construction
dodges from it. It's a different plan of action. We go right out
over the German lines with our hunters and tackle their observers,
who do their reconnaissances from a bit back of their lines. Only
in the very first part of the war, when the Germans outnumbered us