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battlefields of the Somme, each shell-hole with glistening water in it.
    A few miles to the east there were long streaks of white smoke. Soon we realised that the Germans had set fire to scores of villages behind their front. From where we flew we could see between fifty and sixty of them ablaze. The long smoke plumes blowing away to the northeast made one of the most beautiful ground pictures I have ever seen from an aeroplane, but at the same time I was enraged beyond words. It had affected every pilot in the patrol the same way. We flew up and down over this burning country for two hours hunting, and wishing for German machines to come up and fight, but none appeared. We returned at last to the aerodrome and told what we had seen during our patrol, but news of the fires had long since been reported by the airmen whose duty it is to look out for such things, and our general staff had at once surmised the full import of what was happening.
    The next week was full of exciting adventures. For days the clouds hung at very low altitudes, seldom being higher than 4,000 feet, and of course it was necessary for us to fly underneath them. At times during the famous retreat it was hard to tell just where the Germans were and where they were not. It was comparatively easy for the soldiers on the ground to keep in touch with the German rearguard by outpost fighting, but it was for us to keep tabs on the main bodies of troops. We would fly over a sector of country from east to west and mark down on our maps the points from which we were fired at. It was easy to know the Germans were at those particular points. This was very tense and exciting work, flying along very low and waiting each second to hear the rattle of machine guns or the crack of a shell. We were flaunting ourselves as much as possible over the German lines in order to draw their fire.

Chapter IV
    On the twenty-fifth of March came my first real fight in the air, and as luck would have it, my first victory. The German retreat was continuing. Four of us were detailed to invade the enemy country, to fly low over the trenches, and in general to see what the Boche troops were doing and where they were located.
    Those were very queer days. For a time it seemed that both armies—German and British alike—had simply dissolved. Skirmishes were the order of the day on the ground and in the air. The grim, fixed lines of battle had vanished for the time being and the Germans were falling back to their famous Hindenburg positions.
    The clouds had been hanging low as usual, but after we had gotten well in advance of our old lines and into what had so recently been Hunland, the weather suddenly cleared. So we began to climb to more comfortable altitudes and finally reached about 9,000 feet. We flew about for a long while without seeing anything, and then from the corner of my eye I spied what I believed to be three enemy machines. They were some distance to the east of us and evidently were on patrol duty to prevent any of our pilots or observers getting too near the rapidly changing German positions. The three strange machines approached us, but our leader continued to fly straight ahead without altering his course in the slightest degree. Soon there was no longer any doubt as to the identity of the three aircraft—they were Huns, with the big, distinguishing black iron crosses on their planes. They evidently were trying to surprise us and we allowed them to approach, trying all the time to appear as if we had not seen them.
    Like nearly all other pilots who come face to face with a Hun in the air for the first time, I could hardly realise that these were real, live, hostile machines. I was fascinated by them and wanted to circle about and have a good look at them. The German Albatross machines are perfect beauties to look upon. Their swept-back planes give them more of a bird-like appearance than any other machines flying on the western front. Their splendid, graceful lines