as interference must
force a passage for your observers to spot the fall of shells on new
targets, to assist in reporting the progress of charges and to play
their proper auxiliary part in the complex system of army intelligence.

Before the offensive new aerodromes began to appear along the front at
the same time that new roads were building. An army that had lacked both
planes and guns at the start now had both. Every aviator knew that he
was expected to gain and hold the mastery; his part was set no less than
that of the infantry. Where should "the spirit that quickeneth" dwell if
not with the aviators? No weary legs hamper him; he does not have to
crawl over the dead or hide in shell-craters or stand up to his knees in
mire. He is the pampered aristocrat of war, the golden youth of
adventure.

He leaves a comfortable bed, with bath, a good breakfast, the
comradeship of a pleasant mess, the care of servants, to mount his
steed. When he returns he has only to step out of his seat. Mechanics
look after his plane and refreshment and shade in summer and warmth in
winter await alike the spoiled child of the favored, adventurous corps
who has not the gift and never quite dares the great hazards as well as
the one who dares them to his certain end. All depends on the man.

Rising ten or fifteen thousand feet, slipping in and out of clouds, the
aviator breathes pure ozone on a dustless roadway, the world a carpet
under him; and though death is at his elbow it is no grimy companion
like death in the trenches. He is up or he is down, and when he is up
the thrill that holds his faculties permits of no apprehensions. There
is no halfway business of ghastly wounds which foredoom survival as a
cripple. Alive, he is nearer immortality than any other living man can
be; dead, his spirit leaves him while he is in the heavens. Death comes
splendidly, quickly, and until the last moment he is trying to keep
control of his machine. It is not for him to envy the days of cavalry
charges. He does not depend upon the companionship of other men to carry
him on, but is the autocrat of his own fate, the ruler of his own
dreams. All hours of daylight are the same to him. At any time he may be
called to flight and perhaps to die. The glories of sunset and sunrise
are his between the sun and the earth.

You expect the British to be cool aviators, but with their phlegm, as we
have seen, goes that singular love of risk, of adventure, which sends