if he were a crack football-player. There was a very big German airman
called Lensch, one of the Albatross heroes, who about the end of August
claimed to have destroyed thirty-two Allied machines. Peter had then
only seventeen planes to his credit, but he was rapidly increasing his
score. Lensch was a mighty man of valour and a good sportsman after his
fashion. He was amazingly quick at manoeuvring his machine in the
actual fight, but Peter was supposed to be better at forcing the kind
of fight he wanted. Lensch, if you like, was the tactician and Peter
the strategist. Anyhow the two were out to get each other. There were
plenty of fellows who saw the campaign as a struggle not between Hun
and Briton, but between Lensch and Pienaar.

The 15th September came, and I got knocked out and went to hospital.
When I was fit to read the papers again and receive letters, I found to
my consternation that Peter had been downed. It happened at the end of
October when the southwest gales badly handicapped our airwork. When
our bombing or reconnaissance jobs behind the enemy lines were
completed, instead of being able to glide back into safety, we had to
fight our way home slowly against a head-wind exposed to Archies and
Hun planes. Somewhere east of Bapaume on a return journey Peter fell in
with Lensch--at least the German Press gave Lensch the credit. His
petrol tank was shot to bits and he was forced to descend in a wood
near Morchies. 'The celebrated British airman, Pinner,' in the words of
the German communique, was made prisoner.

I had no letter from him till the beginning of the New Year, when I was
preparing to return to France. It was a very contented letter. He
seemed to have been fairly well treated, though he had always a low
standard of what he expected from the world in the way of comfort. I
inferred that his captors had not identified in the brilliant airman
the Dutch miscreant who a year before had broken out of a German jail.
He had discovered the pleasures of reading and had perfected himself in
an art which he had once practised indifferently. Somehow or other he
had got a _Pilgrim's Progress_, from which he seemed to extract
enormous pleasure. And then at the end, quite casually, he mentioned
that he had been badly wounded and that his left leg would never be
much use again.

After that I got frequent letters, and I wrote to him every week and
sent him every kind of parcel I could think of. His letters used t