I tried to give you all some idea of the strength of a Spad in a letter a while ago. At home people speak of a factor of safety, meaning the number of times stronger the machine is than is necessary for plain flying. The Spad is made so that a man can’t bust it no matter what he does in the air--dive as far and as fast as he can and stop as brutally as he can--it stands the racket. Of course, motors do stop and if it happens over a mountain range--well, that’s just hard luck. Have had a few patrols since last I wrote. One at a high height, 4,000-4,500 metres, considerably above the clouds which almost shut out the ground below, wonderfully beautiful sight but beastly cold, and a couple when the clouds were low and solid. The patrol stays at just the height of the clouds, hiding in them and slipping out again to look around. If it gets below, the enemy anti-aircraft guns pepper it whenever near the lines and at a low altitude that is rather awkward--so the patrol shows itself as little as possible. It’s lots of sport to try to keep with the patrol: be behind the chief of patrol, see him disappear and then bump into a fog bank, a low-hanging cloud and not see a darn thing. Then dive down out of the cloud wondering whether the other guy is right underneath or not; shoot out of the cloud and see him maybe 500 yards away going at right angles. Then bank up and turn around fast and give her the gear--full speed to catch up and so on. See a Boche regulating artillery fire, start to manoeuvre into range and zip! he’s out of sight in the clouds and the next you see he is beating it far back of his lines. Not very dangerous this weather, but lots of fun. XX December 3rd, 1917. Dear ----[F]: Thanks for the merry, merry wishes for the gay Xmas season and I’ll try to remember them when the day comes along. Sundays and holidays are not very much noticed here at the front, except that on Sunday the mechanics all get full of _pinard_ and song and devilment--the _pinard_ (meaning cheap red ink used by the French in place of drinking water) is of course responsible for the two latter. In the villages, the entire male population likewise drinks much wine and everyone--man, woman, child, dog, and domestic animal, parades the streets--dressed up all like a picture book (applying mostly to women and children). Occasionally they cross the sidewalk, but the middle of the street is _the_ place to walk.