exactly what happened then, but the next moment I was
falling in a _vrille_ (spinning nose dive) and heard the well-known
crackling sound of machine-gun fire. I kept on falling in a _vrille_,
thinking this would give the German the poorest possible target.[2]

[Footnote 2: A mistake which many new pilots make. In a
_vrille_, the machine spins pretty nearly on its own axis,
and although it is turning, a skillful pilot above it can
keep it fairly well within the line of his sights.]

Pulling up in _ligne de vol_ I looked over my shoulder again. The
German had lost sight of me for a moment in the swiftness of his dive,
but evidently he saw me just before I pulled out of the _vrille_. He
was turning up for another shot, in exactly the same position in which
I had last seen him. And he was very close, not more than fifty metres
distant.

I believed, of course, that I was lost; and why that German didn't bag
me remains a mystery. Heaven knows I gave him opportunity enough! In
the end, by the merciful intervention of Chance, our godfather, I
escaped. I have said that the sky had cleared. But there was one
strand of cloud left, not very broad, not very long; but a
refuge,--oh! what a welcome refuge! It was right in my path and I
tumbled into it, literally, head over heels. I came skidding out, but
pulled up, put on my motor, and climbed back at once; and I kept
turning round and round in it for several minutes. If the German had
waited, he must have seen me raveling it out like a cat tangled in a
ball of cotton. I thought that he was waiting. I even expected him to
come nosing into it, in search of me. In that case there would have
been a glorious smash, for there wasn't room for two of us. I almost
hoped that he would try this. If I couldn't bag a German with my gun,
the next best thing was to run into him and so be gathered to my
fathers while he was being gathered to his. There was no crash, and
taking sudden resolution, I dived vertically out of the cloud, head
over shoulder, expecting to see my relentless foe. He was nowhere in
sight.

In that wild tumble, and while chasing my tail in the cloud, I lost my
bearings. The compass, which was mounted on a swinging holder, had
been tilted upside down. It stuck in that position. I could not get
it loose. I had fallen to six hundred metres, so that I could not get
a large view of the landscape. Under the continuous bombardment the
air was filled with smoke, a