r the
first month or so you will go out on your own between times. After
that, no. Of course, when they call for a voluntary patrol for some
necessary piece of work, you will volunteer out of a sense of duty. As
I say, you may do as much flying as you like. But wait. After a month,
or we'll give you six weeks, that will be no more than you have to
do."

We were not at all convinced.

"What do you do with the rest of your time?"

"Sleep," said Dunham. "Read a good deal. Play some poker or bridge.
Walk. But sleep is the chief amusement. Eight hours used to be enough
for me. Now I can do with ten or twelve."

Drew said: "That's all rot. You fellows are having it too soft. They
ought to put you on the school regime again."

"Let 'em talk, Dunham. They know. J. B. says it's laziness. Let it go
at that. Well, take it from me, it's contagious. You'll soon be
victims."

I dropped out of the conversation in order to look around me. Drew
did all of the questioning, and thanks to his interest, I got many
hints about our work which came back opportunely, afterward.

"Think down to the gunners. That will help a lot. It's a game after
that: your skill against theirs. I couldn't do it at first, and shell
fire seemed absolutely damnable."

"And you want to remember that a chasse machine is almost never
brought down by anti-aircraft fire. You are too fast for them. You can
fool 'em in a thousand ways."

"I had been flying for two weeks before I saw a Boche. They are not
scarce on this sector, don't worry. I simply couldn't see them. The
others would have scraps. I spent most of my time trying to keep track
of them."

"Take my tip, J. B., don't be too anxious to mix it with the first
German you see, because very likely he will be a Frenchman, and if he
isn't, if he is a good Hun pilot, you'll simply be meat for him--at
first, I mean."

"They say that all the Boche aviators on this front have had several
months' experience in Russia or the Balkans. They train them there
before they send them to the Western Front."

"Your best chance of being brought down will come in the first two
weeks."

"That's comforting."

"No, sans blague. Honestly, you'll be almost helpless. You don't see
anything, and you don't know what it is that you do see. Here's an
example. On one of my first sorties I happened to look over my
shoulder and I saw five or six Germans in the most beautiful
alignment. And they were all slanting up to dive on