seater, whose pilot evidently did not know
there was an enemy within miles of him. No more did J. B. for that
matter. "It was pure accident," he told me afterward. He had gone from
Rheims to the Argonne forest without meeting a single German. "And I
didn't want to meet one; for it was Thanksgiving Day. It has
associations for me, you know. I'm a New Englander." It is not
possible to convince him that it has any real significance for men who
were not born on the North Atlantic seaboard. Well, all the way he
had been humming

"Over the river and through the wood
To grandfather's house we go,"

to himself. It is easy to understand why he didn't want to meet a
German. He must have been in a curiously mixed frame of mind. He
covered the sector again and passed over Rheims, going northeast. Then
he saw the Albatross; "and if you had been standing on one of the
towers of the cathedral you would have seen a very unequal battle."
The German was about two kilometres inside his own lines, and at least
a thousand metres below. Drew had every advantage.

"He didn't see me until I opened fire, and then, as it happened, it
was too late. My gun didn't jam!"

The German started falling out of control, Drew following him down
until he lost sight of him in making a _virage_.

I leaned against the canvas wall of a hangar, registering incredulity.
Three times out of seven, to make a conservative estimate, we fight
inconclusive battles because of faulty machine guns or defective
ammunition. The ammunition, most of it that is bad, comes from
America.

While Drew was giving me the details, an orderly from the bureau
brought word that an enemy machine had just been reported shot down on
our sector. It was Drew's Albatross, but he nearly lost official
credit for having destroyed it, because he did not know exactly the
hour when the combat occurred. His watch was broken and he had
neglected asking for another before starting. He judged the time of
the attack, approximately, as two-thirty, and the infantry observers,
reporting the result, gave it as twenty minutes to three. The region
in both cases coincided exactly, however, and, fortunately, Drew's was
the only combat which had taken place in that vicinity during the
afternoon.

For an hour after his return he was very happy. He had won his first
victory, always the hardest to gain, and had been complimented by the
commandant, by Lieutenant Nungesser, the _Roi des Aces_, and by