vapour. They were coming back,
serenely, contemptuously, having seen all they wanted.

The quiet was gone now and the din was monstrous. Anti-aircraft guns,
singly and in groups, were firing from every side. As I watched it
seemed a futile waste of ammunition. The enemy didn't give a tinker's
curse for it ... But surely there was one down. I could only count four
now. No, there was the fifth coming out of a cloud. In ten minutes they
would be all over the line. I fairly stamped in my vexation. Those guns
were no more use than a sick headache. Oh, where in God's name were our
own planes?

At that moment they came, streaking down into sight, four
fighting-scouts with the sun glinting on their wings and burnishing
their metal cowls. I saw clearly the rings of red, white, and blue.
Before their downward drive the enemy instantly spread out.

I was watching with bare eyes now, and I wanted companionship, for the
time of waiting was over. Automatically I must have run down the knoll,
for the next I knew I was staring at the heavens with Archie by my
side. The combatants seemed to couple instinctively. Diving, wheeling,
climbing, a pair would drop out of the melee or disappear behind a
cloud. Even at that height I could hear the methodical rat-tat-tat of
the machine-guns. Then there was a sudden flare and wisp of smoke. A
plane sank, turning and twisting, to earth.

'Hun!' said Archie, who had his glasses on it.

Almost immediately another followed. This time the pilot recovered
himself, while still a thousand feet from the ground, and started
gliding for the enemy lines. Then he wavered, plunged sickeningly, and
fell headlong into the wood behind La Bruyere.

Farther east, almost over the front trenches, a two-seater Albatross
and a British pilot were having a desperate tussle. The bombardment had
stopped, and from where we stood every movement could be followed.
First one, then another, climbed uppermost and dived back, swooped out
and wheeled in again, so that the two planes seemed to clear each other
only by inches. Then it looked as if they closed and interlocked. I
expected to see both go crashing, when suddenly the wings of one seemed
to shrivel up, and the machine dropped like a stone.

'Hun,' said Archie. 'That makes three. Oh, good lads! Good lads!'

Then I saw something which took away my breath. Sloping down in wide
circles came a German machine, and, following, a little behind and a
little above, a Briti