sudden, we began to plunge, left
the ground, and, mid a fearful buzzing, mounted higher and higher. We
rose over the huts and above the village trees and then by a corkscrew
motion which necessitated the machine going almost on its edge, we
made our way heavenwards. I did not feel the least bit seasick but it
was a curious sensation to look down and see absolutely nothing
between me and the church of Izel-les-Hameaux crowned by its sharp
pointed spire with no cork on it. I looked at my young friend in front
of me, who was busy with the handles and cranks of his machine. He was
only a boy of nineteen and my fate was literally in his hands, but his
head was well set on his shoulders and he seemed completely
self-possessed and confident. After we had mounted to six thousand
feet, we struck out in the direction of the front.

It was a lovely afternoon and a most wonderful panorama spread below
us. The great plain beneath us was marked off like a chessboard in
squares of various shades of yellow and green, dotted here and there
with little villages surrounded by the billowy crests of trees. We saw
straight white roads going off in all directions, and beyond, (p. 263)
towards the east, low murky clouds behind the German lines. We flew on
and on till we reached the war zone and here the fields were marked by
horse-tracks and the villages had been hit with shells. Before us in
the distance I saw the line of our observation balloons and thought,
if anything happened to the machine, I would get out into one of them,
but when we passed over them they looked like specks on the ground
below. I could see the blue ribbon of the Scarpe winding off into the
great mists to the east, and then beneath us lay the old city of
Arras. I could see the ruined Cathedral, the mass of crooked streets
and the tiny, dusty roads. Further on was the railway triangle, where
one night later on I got a good dose of gas, and then I saw the
trenches at Fampoux and Feuchy. Still onward we sailed, till at last
Johnny Johnson shouted back, at the same time pointing downwards, "The
German trenches." I saw the enemy lines beneath us, and then Johnny
shouted, "Now I am going to dip." It was not the thing I specially
wanted to do at that particular moment, but I supposed it was all
right. The plane took a dive, and then Johnny leaned over and fired
off some rounds of the machine gun into the German lines. We turned to
come back and rose in the air, when, in t