h they looked like fireflies. A mile or so behind the
then front lines were the twin villages of Courcelette and Martinpuich,
divided only by the road. Already they were badly battered, though,
unlike Pozieres, they still deserved the title of village. Le Sars,
which sat astride the road, nearer Bapaume, had been set afire by our
guns, and was smoking.

In those days, before the methodical advance of the British artillery
had begun to worry the stronghold overmuch, Bapaume was a hotbed of all
the anti-aircraft devilries. We therefore swerved toward the south.
Archie was not to be shaken off so easily, and we began a series of
erratic deviations as he ringed with black puffs first one machine,
then another. The shooting was not particularly good; for although no
clouds intervened between the guns and their mark, a powerful sun
dazzled the gunners, who must have found difficulty in judging height
and direction. From Archie's point of view, the perfect sky is one
screened from the sunlight, at 20,000 to 30,000 feet, by a mantle of
thin clouds against which aircraft are outlined boldly, like stags on a
snow-covered slope.

A few minutes in a south-easterly direction brought us to the Bois
d'Havrincourt, a large ungainly wood, the shape of which was something
between the ace of spades and the ace of clubs. This we knew as
Mossy-Face. The region around it was notorious in R.F.C. messes as being
the chief centre of the Boche Flying Corps on the British Front.

From the south-west corner Archie again scattered burst and bark at our
group, but his inaccuracy made dodging hardly necessary. A lull
followed, and I twisted my neck all round the compass, for, in the
presence of hostile aeroplanes, Archie seldom behaves, except when
friendly machines are about. Two thousand feet below three biplanes were
approaching the wood from the south. Black crosses showed up plainly on
their grey-white wings. We dropped into a dive toward the strangers.

Under normal conditions a steep dive imparts a feeling of being hemmed
in from every side. One takes a deep breath instinctively, and the
novice to flying will grip the fuselage, as if to avoid being crushed.
And, indeed, a passenger in a diving aeroplane is hemmed in, by the
terrific air-pressure to which the solid surface is subjected. If he
attempt to stand up or lean over the side, he will be swept back, after
a short struggle, beneath the shelter of wind-screen and fuselage. But
when di