lacrity
at such a noble offer, so on the following morning I started off in
the Squadron's car for their headquarters.

My pilot had gone off to bring up the new machine which was to take me
on my first aerial voyage. The Squadron had most comfortable billets
in huts, and were a most charming lot of young men. A Canadian amongst
them, taking pity upon a fellow-countryman, gave me a kind introduction
to his fellow officers. Johnny Johnson returned in the afternoon, and
during tea I heard him explaining to the other men that he had had his
choice of two machines, an old machine with a new engine and the other
a new machine with an old engine. Although I was engaged in conversation
at the other end of the table, I listened with great interest to this
discussion, and felt much relieved when I heard that Johnny's choice
of an old machine with a new engine was approved of by his hearers. He
told me that the air was very bumpy and that he would not take me up
until the sun was lower in the sky. Having arrived at that happy (p. 262)
state of inward peace which a man experiences when he goes off to the
dentist to have a tooth pulled, I did not mind when I was to be taken
up. At six o'clock, however, Johnny said we must get ready, so I was
provided with a fur-lined leather coat, leather helmet, goggles and a
large pair of fur gauntlets. We went over to the aerodrome where our
fiery steed was champing its bit as though longing to spring into the
"vast inane." Two or three attendants were getting it ready. It was an
R.E.8 plane and a machine gun was fixed on one side. Johnny climbed
into his position and I took a seat behind him. An attendant came up
and asked my name and address. It sounded as if I were making my last
will and testament. I had a letter with me addressed to my son which I
was to drop over his battery lines in Lievin, and also a red smoke
bomb but declined an invitation to take any more formidable weapon.
Then I told my pilot not to be anxious about me whatever happened. I
always expected to be killed at the front so never worried how or when
the event was to occur. The engine was then started. For a time the
machine meandered about the field without showing any disposition to
mount into the air and I was beginning to think, like the Irishman who
was taken for a ride one day in a sedan chair that had no bottom in
it, that, "If it were not for the honour and glory of the thing I
might as lief walk," when, all of a