ostly boys--babes, as they seemed to me, when I saw them
in their tents or dismounting from their machines. On "dud" days,
when there was no visibility at all, they spent their leisure hours
joy-riding to Amiens or some other town where they could have a "binge."
They drank many cocktails and roared with laughter over, bottles of
cheap champagne, and flirted with any girl who happened to come within
their orbit. If not allowed beyond their tents, they sulked like baby
Achilles, reading novelettes, with their knees hunched up, playing the
gramophone, and ragging each other.

There was one child so young that his squadron leader would not let
him go out across the battle-lines to challenge any German scout in the
clouds or do any of the fancy "stunts" that were part of the next
day's program. He went to bed sulkily, and then came back again, in his
pajamas, with rumpled hair.

"Look here, sir," he said. "Can't I go? I've got my wings. It's
perfectly rotten being left behind."

The squadron commander, who told me of the tale, yielded.

"All right. Only don't do any fool tricks."

Next morning the boy flew off, played a lone hand, chased a German
scout, dropped low over the enemy's lines, machine-gunned infantry on
the march, scattered them, bombed a train, chased a German motor-car,
and after many adventures came back alive and said, "I've had a rare old
time!"

On a stormy day, which loosened the tent poles and slapped the wet
canvas, I sat in a mess with a group of flying-officers, drinking tea
out of a tin mug. One boy, the youngest of them, had just brought down
his first "Hun." He told me the tale of it with many details, his eyes
alight as he described the fight. They had maneuvered round each other
for a long time. Then he shot his man en passant. The machine crashed on
our side of the lines. He had taken off the iron crosses on the wings,
and a bit of the propeller, as mementoes. He showed me these things
(while the squadron commander, who had brought down twenty-four Germans,
winked at me) and told me he was going to send them home to hang beside
his college trophies... I guessed he was less than nineteen years old.
Such a kid!... A few days later, when I went to the tent again, I
asked about him. "How's that boy who brought down his first 'Hun'?" The
squadron commander said:

"Didn't you hear? He's gone west. Brought down in a dog-fight. He had a
chance of escape, but went back to rescue a pal... a nice b