ap, says the _Daily
Telegraph's_ war correspondent, that the pilots have found a new game.
Each evening after their flights they count the number of bullet holes
in their machine, marking each with a circle in red chalk, so that none
may be included in the next day's total. The record appears to be
thirty-seven holes in one day, and the pilot in question claims to be
the "record man du monde."

Zeppelins have not maintained their reputation in this war. One sailed
over Sir John French's headquarters and indicated the position to the
enemy, but they are no match for the swift and agile aeroplanes. A
wounded dispatch carrier saw one English and two French machines attack
a Zeppelin and bring it down instantly. A half hour's fight with another
is recorded; among the captured passengers in this, according to a
soldier's letter, was a boy of nine. Private Drury, Coldstream Guards,
saw one huge German aeroplane brought to earth, three of its officers
being killed by rifle fire and one badly injured.

There is something strange, mysterious, and insubstantial about the war
in the air that the soldiers do not yet feel or comprehend. Often the
feverish activity of aircraft at a high altitude is known only to a very
few practised observers. A gentle purring in the air and the scarcely
audible ping-pong of distant revolver shots may represent a fierce duel
in the clouds, and often the soldiers are unaware of the presence of a
hostile airman until the projectiles aimed at them burst in the
trenches. One evening, a graphic official message states, the atmosphere
was so still and clear that only those specially on the lookout detected
the enemy's aeroplanes, and when the bombs burst "the puffs of smoke
from the detonating shell hung in the air for minutes on end like balls
of fleecy cottonwool before they slowly expanded and were dissipated."

Of course, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to
attack them instantly with one or more British machines, and as in this
respect the British Flying Corps has established an individual
ascendency, Sir John French proudly declares that "something in the
direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained."

XIII

TOMMY AND HIS RATIONS

A medical officer at the front declares that the British Expeditionary
Force is, without doubt, the "best fed Army that has ever taken the
field." That is a sweeping statement, but it is true. It is confirmed
over and ov