act."
_P._ "Contact."

And with a terrific whir the propeller flashes round. The sound
increases, and then decreases slightly, and increases again. The gadfly
moves. Moves more rapidly. Skims along the ground. Rises, rises, rises.
Ah, the beautiful river! Every time I have flown the beauty of that
river catches me in the throat. But this featureless waste. Bereft of
everything but earth, and a few low shelters and gun-pits, and seamed
with trenches. Hideously lonely.

Well, anyhow, here we are sailing high above it all, the wind
occasionally lifting one of the wings, and then the other, like a
sea-gull's. There is a haze, and it's not easy to see. You peer over the
edge, and behold at last the desired wood.

[Sidenote: A SCRAP IN THE AIR]

A wood? That? Good heavens! That poor miserable mess of splinters and
gashed soil? Each time I see one of the woods destroyed by this war I
thank God that our glorious Cotswold woods are still untouched.
Primroses, wood-anemones, squirrels. To think of squirrels!... Not
another aeroplane in sight. Neither our own nor Hun machines. Eric
circles smoothly round above the wood, and then crosses back over
no-man's-land to fly low, so that I can see the wood obliquely. Archie
quite wide of his mark. This doubling and circling perplexes him. The
sketch progresses. I look round from time to time to see that there are
still no Huns about. Eric also looks about. No: nothing in sight. The
guns are pooping off, but the noise of the engines makes the guns sound
like tiny little "pops." There, now I've nearly done. Lucky I came,
because the wood isn't quite what we thought. Yes, that'll do.... We are
up at a considerable height....

Suddenly Rat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! above our heads. Three
Hun aeroplanes right on top of us; Eric drives headlong in a spiral
curve at full speed, smoke trailing out behind. The gun! I fumble.
Can't get round to it. Damn!

Rat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! go the Huns. But Eric is faster. Are
they all Huns, though? Shall I fire? Yes. No. They daren't come down low
over our lines. We are safe. Yes, look, they were all Huns. They hang
about far up aloft. The Hun usually hunts in threes. Why, oh why, didn't
I fire? Well, it can't be helped now. Eric looks round. We both laugh.
"Why didn't you fire?" he shouts. I can't hear what he says, but I know
from the shape of his mouth that's what he is saying. I just smile and
shake my head. Can't explain no