High Adventure

fantrymen who are billeted in all of the surrounding villages. They are moving up to-night to the first lines, for these are the shock troops who are to lead the attack. They a

nd Soda, our lions, who are known to French soldiers from one end of the line to the other. Whiskey is almost

ling the dishes on the table. In the messroom the gramophone is playing, "I'm going 'way

n cigarette. Irving, who doesn't know the meaning of nerves, asks him who in hell he is waving at. Poor old Porter! His usefu

hills down to the low ground along the canal. For the most part, we have been too high above them to see the infantry actions

t nine o'clock the rain stopped, and Rodman and Davis were sent out to learn weather conditions over the lines. They came back with the report that

ng. Our orders were to go up through the clouds, using them as cover for making surprise attacks upon enemy réglage machines. We were also to attack any enemy formations

unham, Drew, and I took long shots at them, but they were far outside effective range. The topmost German made a feeble effort to maneuver for position. Barry made a renversement with the utmost nicety of judgment and came out of it about thirty metres behind and above th

ound, and Barry's victory was confir

burst into flames and fall. There was no time either to watch or to think of this horrible sight. We encountered a patrol of five Albatross planes almost on our level. Talbott dived at once. I was behind him and picked a German who was spiraling either upward or downward, for a few seconds I was not sure which. It was upward. He was climbing to offer comb

y sights by some very skillful maneuvering. I didn't want him to think that he had an inexperienced pilot to deal with. Therefore, judging my distance very carefully, I did a re

pinning nose dive) and heard the well-known crackling sound of machine-gun fire. I kept o

ns pretty nearly on its own axis, and although it is turning, a skillf

ness of his dive, but evidently he saw me just before I pulled out of the vrille. He was turning up for another shot,

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 g

dscape. Under the continuous bombardment the air was filled with smoke, and through it nothing looked familiar. I knew the direction of our lines by the position of the sun, but I was in a suspicious mood. My motor, which I had praised to the heavens to the other pilots, had let me down at a critic

the balloons must have thought me crazy, a pilot running amuck from aerial shell shock. I had discovered

in a half-hour of aerial adventure. I had still an hour and a half to get through with before I could go home wi