d back "home" for more, but
encountered a fast-flying boche who immediately attacked him. Being
unable to return the fire, he tried every trick known to the birdman
to escape but without avail. He came lower and lower in his evolutions
and finally settled into a wide and sweeping spiral. The boche did not
come very low as several machine guns and "Archies" opened on him.
The other plane came slowly down in its perfect spiral course and,
noticing that the engine was not running, we thought the aviator was
intending to make a landing in a large open field toward which he was
descending, but when the spiral continued until the tip of one wing
touched the ground and crumpled up we knew there was something wrong
and ran to the spot, not more than one hundred yards from where we
were standing. We got the Captain out and found that he had been shot
in the head but was still conscious. He died within a short time.

Other of our aviators who had witnessed his first fight furnished the
beginning of the story and we could see that in the second engagement
he never fired a shot, and every one of his magazines was empty. I
examined them myself.

The large, sausage-shaped observation balloons sometimes afford a
little diversion. When we were at Dranoutre one of them used to hang
over our billeting place. One day an enterprising Hun came flying
across and endeavored to attack it but was driven off by two of our
planes.

Again, one of our balloons broke away in a strong wind and started
toward Germany. Both the occupants of the basket made safe parachute
descents with all their instruments and papers, but the balloon sailed
swiftly away. Then the Germans opened on it with every gun in that
sector. I feel sure that they fired at least two thousand shots at it.
The air around was so filled with the smoke of shell-bursts that it
was sometimes difficult to discern the balloon itself. It was late in
the evening and the last we saw of the "sausage" it was still
traveling eastward, apparently unhit. The joke of the whole thing is
that the balloon was never hit and, the wind veering during the night,
it returned and came down inside our lines within a few miles of its
starting place.

On two occasions Zeppelins came over our lines, evidently returning
from raids across the Channel. One time it was night and we could only
hear, but not see the air-ship. The other time, during the St. Eloi
fight, I saw one, just at daybreak. It was in plain