old X," you think, "how damnable to lose him. Now the poor beggar
won't get the leave he has been talking about for the last two months."
Then your thoughts turn to Y, the observer in the lost machine. You know
his fiancee, you remember he owes you 30 francs from last night's game
of bridge.

You burn to avenge poor X and Y, but all the Huns have dived and are now
too low for pursuit. You recover your place in the formation and the
fight ends as suddenly as it began. One German machine has been
destroyed and two driven down, but--"one of ours has failed to return."

When you return and land, you are not so contented as usual to be back.
There will be two vacant places at dinner, and there is a nasty job to
be done. You will have to write rather a painful letter to Y's fiancee.

Madam, you are now at liberty to give up the temporary role of a bold,
bad pilot and become once more your charming self.

FRANCE, _November_, 1916

VII.

BACK IN BLIGHTY.

... You last heard of my continued existence, I believe, from a field
post-card with but one of the printed lines uncrossed: "I have been
admitted to hospital." When this was sent I had no more expectation of a
return to Blighty than has a rich Bishop of not entering the Kingdom of
Heaven. Nevertheless, here we are again, after a three days' tour along
the Red Cross lines of communication.

Again I have been admitted to hospital. This one is more sumptuous but
less satisfying than the casualty clearing station at Gezaincourt,
whence the card was posted. There, in a small chateau converted into an
R.A.M.C. half-way house, one was not over-anxious to be up and about,
for that would have meant a further dose of war at close quarters. Here,
in a huge military hospital at Westminster, one is very anxious to be up
and about, for that would mean a long-delayed taste of the joys of
London. At Gezaincourt rumbling gunfire punctuated the countryside
stillness; aeroplanes hummed past on their way to the lines, and
engendered gratitude for a respite from encounters with Archie; from the
ward window I could see the star-shells as they streaked up through the
dim night. At Westminster rumbling buses punctuate the back-street
stillness; taxis hum past on their way to the West End, and engender a
longing for renewed acquaintance with the normal world and the normal
devil; from the ward window I can see the towers of Parliament as they
stretch up through the London greyness