to four thousand, which was the best I could do with
my rebuilt engine. The Huns started shelling, but there were
only a few of them that barked. I went down the lines for a
quarter of an hour, meeting two Sopwiths and a Letord, but
no Spads. You were almost certain to be higher than I, but
my old packet was doing its best at four thousand, and
getting overheated with the exertion. Had to throttle down
and _pique_ several times to cool off.

Then I saw you--at least I thought it was you--about four
kilometres inside the German lines. I counted six machines,
well grouped, one a good deal higher than the others and one
several hundred metres below them. The pilot on top was
doing beautiful _renversements_ and an occasional
barrel-turn, in Barry's manner. I was so certain it was our
patrol that I started over at once, to join you. It was
getting dusk and I lost sight of the machine lowest down for
a few seconds. Without my knowing it, he was approaching at
exactly my altitude. You know how difficult it is to see a
machine in that position. Suddenly he loomed up in front of
me like an express train, as you have seen them approach
from the depths of a moving-picture screen, only ten times
faster; and he was firing as he came. I realized my awful
mistake, of course. His tracer bullets were going by on the
left side, but he corrected his aim, and my motor seemed to
be eating them up. I banked to the right, and was about to
cut my motor and dive, when I felt a smashing blow in the
left shoulder. A sickening sensation and a very peculiar
one, not at all what I thought it might feel like to be hit
with a bullet. I believed that it came from the German in
front of me. But it couldn't have, for he was still
approaching when I was hit, and I have learned here that the
bullet entered from behind.

This is the history of less than a minute I'm giving you. It
seemed much longer than that, but I don't suppose it was. I
tried to shut down the motor, but couldn't manage it because
my left arm was gone. I really believed that it had been
blown off into space until I glanced down and saw that it
was still there. But for any service it was to me, I might
just as well have lost it. There was a vacant period of ten
or fifteen seconds which I can't