ble. One can see at night, a moonlight night, very clearly from
the air. They are black shadows, the other _avions_ which you pass,
but often, when the moonlight strikes their wings, they flash like
silver. We must have searchlights, of course; then, when one sees
those shadows, those great black Gothas, _vite! la lumiere!_
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop! C'est fini!"

The discussion of the possibility or impossibility of night combat
continued warmly. The majority of opinion was unfavorable to it: a
useless waste of gasoline; the results would not pay for the wear and
tear upon valuable fighting planes. Raynaud was not to be persuaded.
"Wait and see," he said. There was a reminiscent thrill in his voice,
for he is an old night bombarding pilot. He remembered with longing, I
think, his romantic night voyages, the moonlight falling softly on the
roofs of towns, the rivers like ribbons of silver, the forests patches
of black shadow. "Really, it is an adventure, a night bombardment."

"But how about your objectives?" I asked. "At night you can never be
sure of hitting them, and, well, you know what happens in French
towns."

"It is why I asked for my transfer to _chasse_," he told me afterward.
"But the Germans, the blond beasts! Do they care? Nancy, Belfort,
Chalons, Epernay, Rheims, Soissons, Paris,--all our beautiful towns! I
am a fool! We must pay them back, the Huns! Let the innocent suffer
with the guilty!"

He became a combat pilot because he had not the courage of his
conviction.

We started in flights of five machines, following the Marne and the
Marne Canal to Bar-le-Duc, then across country to Toul, where we
landed to fill our fuel tanks. Having bestowed many favors upon me for
a remarkably long period, our aerial godfather decided that I had been
taking my good fortune too much for granted. Therefore, he broke my
tail skid for me as I was making what I thought a beautiful
_atterrissage_. It was late in the afternoon, so the others went on
without me, the captain giving orders that I should join them, weather
permitting, the next day.

"Follow the Moselle until you lose it in the mountains. Then pick up
the road which leads over the Ballon d'Alsace. You can't miss it."

I did, nevertheless, and as always, when lost, through my own fault. I
followed the Moselle easily enough until it disappeared in small
branching streams in the heart of the mountains. Then, being certain
of my direction, I followed an irregular co